#8 The Seacor Power survivors.
On April 13, 2021, the 175-foot oil industry vessel flipped over 8 miles off the coast
of Louisiana.
Hurricane-level wind speeds of 80-90 miles per hour and waves that reached 7-9 feet high
caused the vessel to capsize, leaving the 19 people on board in danger.
Hours after the incident, 6 people were rescued by the Coast Guard.
They sent a dive team to the hull of the boat to check for any survivors who may have still
been trapped inside, but unfortunately, none were found.
The search efforts that spanned over 175 hours and over 9,268 nautical miles, included four
Coast Guard cutters, three helicopters, six fixed-wing aircrafts, and three response boats.
But they were unable to find any other survivors, apart from the 6 crew members rescued on the
day of the incident.
They did recover 5 bodies from the water, and the 8 people who remained missing for
days after, had been presumed to also be deceased.
#7 Violet Jessop.
You’d think that after just one scary incident on a ship, you’d be wary of ever stepping
foot on another one ever again.
That wasn’t the case for Violet Jessop, an ocean liner stewardess and nurse, who had
the incredibly bad luck of being caught in two different shipwrecks—and one “almost”
shipwreck!
On September 20, 1911, she was working as a stewardess on RMS Olympic, a luxury British
ocean liner.
When it departed from Southampton, it struck the British warship HMS Hawke.
The collision caused damage to the ship, but despite this, the ship was able to safely
arrive back at the port, and luckily there were no fatalities.
But little did Jessop know she would be involved in yet another incident—a much graver one.
She continued her work as a stewardess, this time on the Titanic.
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.
She was one of the lucky ones who boarded the lifeboats and was rescued by RMS Carpathia.
Out of approximately 2,200 people on board, more than 1,500 people died in the wreck.
It seems as though fate really wanted her to stay off ships, but she kept coming back
for more!
On November 21, 1916, she was working for the British Red Cross on board HMHS Britannic.
The ship hit a deep sea mine, causing an explosion that led to the sinking of the ship in the
Aegean Sea.
Thirty of the 1,066 people on board lost their lives.
Jessop was almost one of those killed when she realized the propellers of the ship were
pulling the lifeboats towards them.
She survived by jumping out of her lifeboat, and although sustained a head injury, was
able to recover.
#6 The Wilhelm Gustloff survivors.
On January 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine shot a torpedo at the German ocean liner, Wilhelm
Gustloff, in the Baltic Sea.
There were approximately 10,000 passengers on board.
Over 9,000 of the people on board died, with only about 1,000 survivors.
It is considered the deadliest shipwreck in history.
The majority of the victims died due to the harsh weather conditions: the water temperature
was less than 4 degrees Celsius (or 39 degrees Fahrenheit), and the air temperature was between
-18 and -10 degrees Celsius (or 0 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit).
It took about one hour for the ship to eventually sink in 144-foot water.
#5: Harrison Okene.
Okene.
The Nigerian cook, was part of a 12-man crew working on a tugboat called, Jascon-4.
About 20 miles off the Nigerian coast, Jascon-4 was stabilizing an oil tanker at a platform
in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.
On May 26, 2013, the rough water capsized the tugboat which sank nearly 100 feet underwater,
upside down.
The entire crew, except for Okene, drowned in the wreck.
Somehow, Okene was in the right place at the right time—he managed to find an air pocket
which allowed him to survive for 60 hours 100 feet underwater.
He created a makeshift platform out of a mattress and any other materials he could find that
allowed him to keep the top half of his body above water.
He recounts how he had no food or water, while surrounded by pitch-black in freezing water.
All he could do was pray—and that’s what he did for the nearly three days he was trapped,
until South African divers who were investigating the wreck were shocked to find him there alive.
The rescuers put a diving helmet on him and transferred him into a diving bell.
Although he lost consciousness on the way to the surface, he survived and was put into
a decompression chamber to help him gradually adjust to normal air pressure.
#4 The Costa Concordia survivors
On January 12, 2012, the Italian cruise ship, Costa Concordia, capsized and partially sank
after hitting rocks in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the coast of Giglio Island in the Mediterranean.
The result of this collision was a 174-foot gaping hole on the port side of the hull.
With water flooding the engine room, the entire boat lost power and steering became impossible.
Despite this, the Concordia drifted its way back toward the island due to the direction
of the wind and the position that the rudder was stuck in, which made the rescue efforts
a bit easier.
People got into lifeboats and were later picked up by the rescue vessels who came to help.
The entire rescue team included 25 patrol boats, helicopters, and 14 merchant boats.
The entire evacuation took over 6 hours.
There were about 3,200 passengers and 1,023 crew members, with a total of approximately
4,200 people on board.
Thirty-two of them had died in the accident.
The captain of the ship, Francesco Schettino, was scrutinized for downplaying the severity
of the situation at first, and for abandoning ship when there were still passengers in danger
onboard.
He was later found guilty of causing a maritime accident, manslaughter, and abandoning his
ship.
#3 Poon Lim.
Lim was a Chinese sailor who worked as second steward on the British merchant ship, SS Benlomond.
On November 23, 1942, a German U-boat attacked the Benlomond with two torpedoes about 750
miles off the coast of Brazil.
It took only about 2 minutes for the ship to sink, and as this happened, Lim found a
life jacket and jumped overboard, narrowly missing the explosion of the ship’s boilers.
After a while in the water, to his good fortune, he found a small wooden raft of about eight
square feet and climbed on.
To his delight, he found the raft was equipped with tins of biscuits, a jug of water, chocolate,
sugar lumps, flares, smoke pots, and a flashlight.
As he began to use up these resources, he knew he had to become savvy.
He created a makeshift fishing rod using a wire from the flashlight and rope for the
fishing line to catch fish.
He collected rainwater.
He created a knife out of the biscuit tin to cut open fish that he caught.
On April 5, 1943 (after 133 days being lost at sea on the raft), he was finally rescued
by three Brazilian fishermen when he drifted close enough to the coast of Brazil.
Lim was the only survivor of the shipwreck.
#2 The Whaleship Essex Survivors
On August 12, 1819, Essex made its final departure from Nantucket, Massachusetts with the intent
of sailing to the whaling grounds off the west coast of South America for about two-and-a-half
years.
The crew consisted of 20 men.
Essex had a couple of unfortunate events happen before the actual shipwreck.
Two days after its departure, they were hit with sudden, intense winds that nearly sank
the ship.
The topgallant sail was gone, and three whaleboats were destroyed or damaged.
Despite this, they continued on their journey.
While restocking supplies in October of 1820 in the Galapagos Islands, one of the crew
members accidentally set the island on fire.
Some thought this to be an omen, but as they left the island, they soldiered on their quest
to reach the whaling grounds.
On November 20, 1820, Essex was attacked by an unusually large sperm whale, reported to
be around 85 feet in length.
It rammed into the ship twice, leaving the crew to fend for themselves as it quickly
began to sink.
All 20 men divided themselves into the three remaining whaleboats they had.
With scarce resources and food, they had to ration what they had from the beginning.
With no water, they began to drink their own urine and rinse their mouths with seawater.
On December 20, exactly a month after the whale attack and shipwreck, they washed up
on Henderson Island where they found a small freshwater spring to drink from.
They feasted on birds, eggs, crabs, and peppergrass.
After just six days on the island, they realized they had nearly depleted the island’s resources
and would starve if they stayed.
Three of the men decided to stay behind on the island while the other 17 got back in
the whaleboats.
Those three men were eventually found and rescued nearly a year after the sinking of
the Essex.
With the intention of reaching Easter Island, those who opted to get back into the whaleboats
were in really bad shape.
On January 10, 1821, the first of the crew had died.
Another died on January 18, and yet another on February 8.
The men realized that with no food, the only way to survive was to resort to cannibalism.
Ultimately, only eight of the twenty men survived the ordeal.
This chilling tale of shipwreck survivors inspired the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
#1 Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition survivors
On August 1, 1914, Shackleton and his 28-man crew departed from London on a quest to reach
the South Pole.
Everything was going well until January of 1915, when the Endurance became trapped in
ice.
The crew deboarded the ship and had no choice but to camp on ice.
After months of this, the ship’s condition worsened due to the ice, and eventually completely
sank.
In an effort to find a safe place, the crew got into three small boats and made the journey
to Elephant Island.
The only problem was the island was remote, and there was zero chance that there would
be a passing vessel.
Like a true leader, Shackleton recruited five members of his crew to accompany him on a
20-foot lifeboat to South Georgia with the intention of finding help.
After the 16-day journey, they arrived and put together a rescue mission.
On August 25, 1916, Shackleton returned to Elephant Island with help and was able to
rescue the entire crew.
Would you rather be eaten by a whale, or your own crewmates?
Let us know in the comments section below.
Wow, that one was dark.