Of the many hundreds of thousands of ships that have either wrecked or
gone missing in the last several hundred years, there is a select group
whose plights affect us more deeply –- be it for their historical
significance, the way they’ve ensnared us in their mysteries, or in the
emotional resonance of their passing beneath the surface of the
sea.
This page is a tribute to eight vessels that may be lost but will certainly never be forgotten. Some basic information:
Seagoing vessels -- though they may be built of iron, steel, and other
materials that, on their own, don’t float very well -- are kept afloat
by a simple physical property known as buoyancy. Buoyancy is
explained by the mathematics of Archimedes’ Principle. Basically,
a ship has to displace enough water to match its weight. Which is
why a) ships are full of air, and b) why their hulls cover so much
surface area. All that surface area pushes (displaces) water
away, the water pushes back and creates buoyancy. Voila!
However, if, say, you’re steering the Titanic through icy seas and an
iceberg tears open a 250 foot swath in the hull, the water the ship
takes on will soon load the ship with a weight greater than that of the
water it is displacing (which is also less because of the tear!)… and,
that’s one way you get a shipwreck.
For more on the “hows” of shipwrecking, check this out –
Now, the Top 8. The following were selected not only for their
individual stories, but as a representative sample of the various types
of shipwrecks and missing vessels. As you will see, some of the
stories continue on into the present.
U.S.S. Cyclops
The Cyclops is an apparent victim of the infamous Bermuda Triangle.
She was a collier, built in 1910 for the purpose of supplying fuel
(mainly coal) to U.S. Naval warships. In early 1918, traveling
from Bahia, Brazil to Baltimore, Maryland, The Cyclops disappeared in
the Bermuda Triangle. 306 men were lost, without so much as an
S.O.S.
S.S. America
One of the most remarkable shipwrecks on record, the S.S. America was
beached off the coast of the Canary Islands, after a storm broke the
towlines from a tugboat dragging the ship near the coast of
Morocco. After it beached, the America’s hull split in two, and
the stern section eventually sank. An interesting note: locals
from the Canary Island of Fuerteventura have ransacked the ship, and
much of their home furnishings, etc. are former pieces of the great
merchant liner. The bow of the S.S. America (actually called the
American Star at the time of its demise) still remains beached about a
mile from shore.
Witchcraft
Another Bermuda Triangle
story. In December of 1967, Dan Burack and his friend, a priest, were out on Burack’s small, but unsinkable (it had a
floatation device built into the hull), cabin cruiser a mile off the
coast of Miami to admire the city’s Christmas lights. They
radioed once to tell the Coast Guard they had hit something and might
need a tow back in to shore, but only minutes later, when the Coast
Guard arrived, the boat was gone. All search efforts failed. The
Witchcraft had simply VANISHED.
Mary Rose
The Mary Rose was the pride and joy of Henry VIII’s Navy. The flagship of the fleet, she sank accidentally, on July 19, 1545, when a gust blew her over on her way to engage the invading French fleet. The embarrassing sinking was likely a result of crew negligence –- failure to close the lower gun ports –- tragically, over 150 men were lost. For over 400 years, the Mary Rose remained at the bottom of the ocean, but in 1982 she was raised. The artifacts found within are stunning examples of Tudor craftsmanship. The Mary Rose will be put on display at some future point.
RMS Lusitania
An ocean liner for the British Cunard Steamship Lines, the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915. 1,195 people died, 128 of them American. The sinking of the Lusitania became one of the reasons for hastening the U.S.’s involvement in WWI, for though it was carrying munitions in its holds, it was being operated as a civilian vessel.
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The Black Rock
This British(?) slave-trading vessel disappeared in 1881, on a return voyage from a gold mining operation in the South Indian Ocean. Perhaps more interesting than the fact the ship was lost were the circumstances preceding and following its disappearance.
According to traders on Papua New Guinea, the ship sailed away from port in an Easterly direction, rather than West to Africa, where it would exchange gold from the mines in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea for more slaves. Furthermore, though a copy of the ship's manifest has been discovered - no accurate information is available on the ship's ownership. According to the manifest, The Black Rock initially sailed from (and was supposed to return to) slip 23 in Portsmouth, Britain -- but no shipping company claimed ownership. A crew of some 40 men, along with an uncounted number of slaves, was presumably lost at sea.
S.S. Republic
It’s not so much the wrecking of the S.S. Republic, a sidewheel steamship that went down off the coast of Georgia in 1865, which makes it such a spectacular piece of history. Rather, it is the estimated wealth of the newly found wreck. In 2003, Greg Stemm and colleagues from Odyssey Marine Exploration, an ocean wreck exploration company, found the Republic. In its hold, ten and twenty dollar gold and silver coins, now worth an estimated 150-180 million
dollars!!
Queen Anne’s Revenge
The infamous ship of the legendary Dread Pirate Blackbeard was originally a French slave ship know as La Concorde… until the year 1717 when Blackbeard captured it and renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge. Aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard terrorized the shipping lanes of the Caribbean and the coast of North America. The Queen Anne’s Revenge was lost as it attempted to enter Beaufort Inlet off the coast of North Carolina and fatally struck a sand bar. The wreckage of the ship was located in 1996.
One of the most remarkable shipwrecks on record, the S.S. America was
beached off the coast of the Canary Islands, after a storm broke the
towlines from a tugboat dragging the ship near the coast of
Morocco. After it beached, the America’s hull split in two, and
the stern section eventually sank. An interesting note: locals
from the Canary Island of Fuerteventura have ransacked the ship, and
much of their home furnishings, etc. are former pieces of the great
merchant liner. The bow of the S.S. America (actually called the
American Star at the time of its demise) still remains beached about a
mile from shore.
The Mary Rose was the pride and joy of Henry VIII’s Navy. The flagship of the fleet, she sank accidentally, on July 19, 1545, when a gust blew her over on her way to engage the invading French fleet. The embarrassing sinking was likely a result of crew negligence –- failure to close the lower gun ports –- tragically, over 150 men were lost. For over 400 years, the Mary Rose remained at the bottom of the ocean, but in 1982 she was raised. The artifacts found within are stunning examples of Tudor craftsmanship. The Mary Rose will be put on display at some future point.
An ocean liner for the British Cunard Steamship Lines, the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915. 1,195 people died, 128 of them American. The sinking of the Lusitania became one of the reasons for hastening the U.S.’s involvement in WWI, for though it was carrying munitions in its holds, it was being operated as a civilian vessel.
This British(?) slave-trading vessel disappeared in 1881, on a return voyage from a gold mining operation in the South Indian Ocean. Perhaps more interesting than the fact the ship was lost were the circumstances preceding and following its disappearance.
According to traders on Papua New Guinea, the ship sailed away from port in an Easterly direction, rather than West to Africa, where it would exchange gold from the mines in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea for more slaves. Furthermore, though a copy of the ship's manifest has been discovered - no accurate information is available on the ship's ownership. According to the manifest, The Black Rock initially sailed from (and was supposed to return to) slip 23 in Portsmouth, Britain -- but no shipping company claimed ownership. A crew of some 40 men, along with an uncounted number of slaves, was presumably lost at sea.
It’s not so much the wrecking of the S.S. Republic, a sidewheel steamship that went down off the coast of Georgia in 1865, which makes it such a spectacular piece of history. Rather, it is the estimated wealth of the newly found wreck. In 2003, Greg Stemm and colleagues from Odyssey Marine Exploration, an ocean wreck exploration company, found the Republic. In its hold, ten and twenty dollar gold and silver coins, now worth an estimated 150-180 million
dollars!!