On May 13th, 1912 the Oceanic was sailing to New York when she stumbled upon a collapsable
lifeboat drifting in the open sea. They soon found that the small boat, Collapsable A,
belonged to the RMS Titanic, already the greatest maritime mystery of all time, having vanished
on her maiden voyage only a month before with all of her passengers and crew presumed dead.
This, of course, isn’t what actually happened but it was a more likely scenario than you
might have thought. On April 13th, 1912, only one day before she hit the iceberg, the Titanic’s
Marconi wireless set stopped working. According to the rules at the time, wireless operators
Jack Philips and Harold Bride were not allowed to repair the equipment on their own. Instead,
the instructions stated that they had to wait until the ship docked for the set to be properly
serviced.
Without an operational wireless set, the Titanic would have been on her own on that fateful
night, with no way to call for help or tell the world what happened. Without the Carpathia
or any other ship speeding to their rescue, her lifeboats would have been left to drift
on their own as the remaining survivors slowly succumbed to the elements, leaving no one
alive to tell what happened that night. Titanic’s story would have been lost forever.
But instead of following instructions, Philps and Bride took matters into their own hands.
They spent most of that day repairing the equipment and finally got the wireless set
back up and running only hours before every soul on board would need it the most.
In the days before passenger liners were equipped with wireless technology, a voyage across
the world’s oceans was long and isolated. From the moment you left port to the moment
you arrived at your destination, you were almost always on your own. If something went
wrong, your chances of survival were slim. No one would know what happened to you as
you simply vanished from the world.
SS Lord Spencer: A Mystery Ship in the Darkness
If you believe that renaming a ship is a bad omen, this one if for you. Originally built
for the Cunard Line in 1865 by J. G. Thompson & Company in Glasglow, Scotland the SS Java
was a 2,696-ton iron-hulled steamship designed to carry cargo and passengers between Liverpool
and New York. As she entered service, she quickly earned the nickname “jumping Java”
due to her erratic rolling in difficult weather.
The ship was reengineered with compound engines in 1877 and was briefly chartered to the Warren
Line. One year later she was sold to the Red Star Line and renamed SS Zeeland. A decade
after that, in 1889, she was sold to French owners and renamed Electrique. By 1892, she
moved on to her 4th name, the SS Lord Spencer and passed back to British ownership where
she was converted to a fully rigged sailing ship.
The Lord Spencer was going on 30 years of service when she left San Francisco for Cork
on April 9th, 1895. But when she failed to arrive at her destination, she was eventually
declared missing.
Her fate remained a mystery until November 1895, when her owners caught word of another
disaster with a possible connection. On the night of July 14th, 1895, around 350 miles
from Brazil, a small cargo ship called the Prince Oscar was sailing through heavy swells.
In his statement after the incident, Captain Henderson recalled that it was an excessively
dark night. Just after 12:30, their lookout spotted a large vessel off their port bow,
running without any lights. Then, the unknown vessel abruptly changed course and flashed
a red light before colliding with the Prince Oscar. The damage was considerable. The mystery
ship sank almost instantly while the Prince Oscar followed soon after. Her crew managed
to launch two lifeboats but the smaller one was quickly swamped. 6 crew either didn’t
make it off the ship in time or were lost with the smaller lifeboat. The remaining 15
crew members survived in their lifeboat for three days. They were near death when they
were discovered and rescued by a ship called the Dharwar.
The incident happened quickly. Most of the Prince Oscar’s survivors didn’t even catch
a glimpse of the ship they collided with before she disappeared in the darkness. Some speculated
that the mystery ship could have been the Lord Downshire, which also disappeared around
the same time, but later investigation suggested that the time and location of the incident
made that connection unlikely.
Survivor reports and the general location could potentially match the Lord Spencer.
Her owners certainly thought so. But we’ll likely never know what actually happened that
night in the darkness or if the mystery ship was the Lord Spencer or some other wayward
vessel. Today, the Lord Spencer is all but forgotten and her fate will probably remain
a mystery.
SS Pacific: A Shattering Record
The record for the fastest Atlantic crossing by a passenger-carrying ocean liner is currently
held by the SS United States. She won the Blue Riband in 1952, which happens to be just
over 100 years since the last time a ship from the United States won the award.
By the mid-1800s, competition for the transatlantic passenger trade was dominated by the British
shipping lines. In 1845, the United States Congress decided to fund an American rival
through lucrative postal subsidies. The ambitious Edward Collins submitted a winning proposal
for his company, the Collins Line to build four modern steamships capable of maintaining
a bi-weekly service. These ships would be twice as large as Cunard’s largest liners
at the time. They would offer a host of new amenities, making them some of the most luxurious
liners afloat. And most importantly, their 12-knot maximum service speed would place
them in line for the Blue Riband and offer a speedy and reliable mail service, upholding
the almost unrealistic stipulations of their government contract.
The first of these liners, the SS Atlantic sailed her maiden voyage on April 27th, 1850.
She was by far the most successful of the four ships, which also included the Baltic,
the Arctic, and the Pacific.
The company was almost immediately plagued with financial and operational challenges.
In a sense, they were victims of their own ambitions. It soon became clear that their
federal subsidy was woefully inadequate to maintain the expectations of their contract.
Their main rival, the Cunard Line, was far more established and enjoyed reliable support
from the British government, with subsidies that doubled those of the Collins Line by
1852.
To make matters worse, the struggling company was soon hit with tragedy. On September 27th,
1854, the SS Arctic was traveling at full speed through a fog bank when she collided
with a smaller French steamer called the Vesta. Of the 400 on board, only 24 passengers and
61 crew survived. Every woman and child drowned including Edward Collins’ wife and two of
his children as well as other influential figures in the company.
But a much more mysterious fate awaited the SS Pacific, which sailed her maiden voyage
only one month after the Atlantic on May 25th, 1850. The Pacific was 2,707 tons, with a length
of 281 feet, or 85.6 meters, and a beam of 45 feet, or 13.7 meters. Her keel and hull
were built with yellow pine, white oak, and chestnut. She was powered by two side-lever
steam engines and was equipped with three square-rigged masts for auxiliary power. On
September 21st, 1850, the Pacific claimed the Blue Riband and for a few years she, like
her 3 sisters, proved popular with passengers.
On January 23rd, 1856, the Pacific departed Liverpool for a routine voyage to New York.
She was commanded by Captain Asa Eldridge. While this was only Eldridge’s second voyage
with the Pacific, he was an experienced and respected captain. On this voyage, the liner
carried just 45 passengers and 141 crew but this was typical for an off-season winter
crossing.
The Pacific was never seen again after she departed Liverpool. When she failed to arrive
in New York, searches were sent in an attempt to locate her but no trace of the missing
vessel was ever found. These searches and other traffic on the same route noted that
the ice had been particularly bad that year and many came to the conclusion that the Pacific
likely hit an iceberg off Newfoundland.
With half of their new liners gone and facing mounting financial strain, the Collins Line
suspended operations in 1858, selling their remaining liners in April of that year. As
the company faded into memory, so too did the ill-fated Pacific. But then in 1861, a
bottle with a message inside was found on the remote Hebrides island in Scotland. The
message read: On board the Pacific from Liverpool to N.Y. - Ship going down. Confusion on board
- icebergs around us on every side. I know I cannot escape. I write the cause of our
loss that friends may not live in suspense. The finder will please get it published. W.M.
GRAHAM.
It was found that there was indeed a British sea captain named William Graham on her passenger
list. With that discovery, it seemed all but certain what happened. The Pacific, likely
sailing at or near full speed in order to fulfill her unrealistic contract, collided
with an iceberg and sank. Not too different from the fate of the Titanic.
It seems that the words of William Graham, if authentic, severed their intended purpose,
shedding some light on what might have happened to the SS Pacific and those on board.
SS City of Glasgow: Fleeting Innovation
While mostly forgotten today, the Inman Line was one of the three largest British passenger
shipping companies in the second half of the 19th century, alongside the White Star and
Cunard Lines. In 1850, they launched their first steamer, the City of Glasgow, at the
Tod & Macgregor shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland. The company was one of the first to move away
from wooden hulled paddle steamers and the innovative City of Glasgow was an iron-hulled,
single-screw steamship. Her iron hull proved superior to wood and her single-screw design
opened up a considerable amount of space for passengers and cargo. The 1600-ton, 227.5
foot or 69.3 meter-long liner could carry 137 cabin passengers with a crew of 70. She
was later modified to carry an additional 400 steerage passengers.
The City of Glasgow was designed for efficiency over speed and she was able to achieve 9.5
knots while only consuming 20 tons of coal per day. This become the blueprint of operation
for future Inman Liners and helped the company grow without the aid of government subsidies.
She quickly proved a great success and a sister ship, the City of Manchester was quickly ordered,
followed by a series of slightly larger new vessels with gradual design improvements.
But 1854 proved a challenging year for the company. Their third liner, the City of Philadelphia
wrecked near Cape Race in September during her maiden voyage. While there was no loss
of life, the liner was a total loss.
Earlier that year, the City of Glasgow met a stranger fate. She departed Liverpool on
March 1st, 1854 with 480 people on board including 111 cabin passengers, 293 steerage passengers,
and 76 crew. She was commanded by Captain K. Morrison. While he was an experienced navigator
and had served as chief officer on the ship for many months, this was his first voyage
as captain.
The ship was due in Philidelphia on March 25th but the liner never arrived and no trace
of her was ever found. Sailing the same route a week later, her sister ship, the City of
Manchester reported an unusually large number of icebergs sighted during their journey.
At first, her owners believed that she had simply been delayed by an ice flow but by
the end of May, she was accepted as lost. Soon after her loss was reported a number
of contradictory and some impossible sightings were reported from all over the Atlantic.
Then at the end of October 1854, the bow section of a ship bearing the name City of Glasgow
washed ashore near Campbeltown in Scotland. But in a strange coincidence, it’s more
likely that this belonged to a smaller vessel with the same name that was presumed lost
in a storm in the area earlier that month.
With almost nothing to go on, what happened to the City of Glasgow, an innovative and
influential liner, will probably never be known.
SS City of Boston: Fire or Ice?
The City of Glasgow wasn’t the Inman Line’s only liner to disappear without a trace. After
their early setbacks, the company soon returned to building innovative and successful liners.
In 1857, following the collapse of the Collins Line, Inman picked up their United States
Postal contract, and by the 1860s the company was growing rapidly, soon building liners
that rivaled the speed records held by Cunard.
On November 1864 they launched the City of Boston, again at the Tod & Macgregor shipyard
in Partick, Glasgow. She came in at 2,213 tons with a length of 305 feet or 93 meters
and a beam of 39 feet or 12 meters. Her two steam engines powered a single screw that
could achieve a very respectable 12-knot service speed.
On January 28th, 1870, the City of Boston left Halix bound for Liverpool as part of
her regular New York - Halifax - Liverpool route. She was commanded by Captain Halcrow
and carried 55 cabin passengers, 52 steerage passengers, and a crew of 84 though some sources
say she had 207 people on board.
As you can probably guess by this point in the video, the City of Boston never arrived
in Liverpool. For weeks after her scheduled arrival date, it was hoped that she just suffered
an engine failure and would soon be discovered by another vessel. This was, after all, still
the early days of steam power, and breakdowns and delays were common. But as the weeks turned
to months, it became clear that something terrible happened. Many suspected that she
got stuck in a violent snowstorm that hit the area two days after she departed Halifax
and perhaps collided with an iceberg. It was also reported that she might have been overloaded,
making her less capable of handling rough weather.
The incident received a considerable amount of attention and a number of other theories
were floated. A series of bottle messages were discovered in the following months. One
claimed that the City of Boston collided with another vessel. Another reported that a fire
broke out, crippling her engines. The signatures on both these messages didn’t match anyone
known to be on board. For some reason, fake bottle message hoaxes seemed to be all the
rage back then.
But another message, discovered in Princess Bay in Staten Island, New York seemed the
most credible. Dated March 2nd, this message reported that an engine room fire had overtaken
the ship, driving everyone to the bow and she was swamped as the crew attempted to launch
the lifeboats. The letter was signed by someone named James with a last name that ended with
the letters “nas”, the rest of the name was illegible. There was a steerage passenger
on board named James McManus. While the message could be authentic, the listed date would
mean the fire happened 35 days after the City of Boston left Halifax. More than double the
duration of her scheduled voyage.
It’s notable that two separate bottle messages reported a fire but with it being impossible
to verify the authenticity of these reports, they fail to provide any clear answers. The
fate of the City of Boston will probably never be known. The tragedy was one of many that
plagued the Inman Line as they vied for a place in the competitive transatlantic market.
While they enjoyed a few decades of success and even claimed the Blue Riband with the
City of Paris in 1889 and the City of New York in 1892, by the end of the 19th century
challenges mounted and the company was folded into the American Line in 1893.
Thank you so much for watching. If you want to hear the story of an ocean liner that disappeared
in the twentieth century, check out my video on the SS Waratah, linked down below. If you
enjoyed this video help out this channel with a like, comment, and subscribe if you haven’t
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All right crew, that’s all I’ve got. Until the next one, be nice to people.