Abandon ship! Those famous last words no crew member or passenger ever wants to hear. I’m
Paul DuVall and you’re watching 11 most chilling abandoned ships on earth. Ready or
not, let’s dive in. Starting us off at number 11, we have La Famille
Express. While much of this ship’s history remains shrouded in mystery, here’s what
we do know. Constructed in 1952 by the Soviet Union, the ship was first named Fort Shevchenko,
after the military port town in the Caspian Sea. She began her life in the Soviet Navy
as an oil rig service ship, transferring supplies to remote offshore oil wells. Fort Shevchenko
was decommissioned in 1992 and later sold to an islander in the Turks and Caicos, where
she was renamed La Famille Express and served as a regional freighter ship in the Caribbean.
Skip forward to 2004 when Hurricane Frances is ravaging the Caribbean, forcing La Famille
Express to drift 12 miles away from the dock, dragging her anchor along with her, until
she crashed into her final resting place, a reef two miles away from the Caicos Banks
shore. All alone on the reef, slowly rusting and decaying since the day she was wrecked,
La Famille Express now serves as a visual landmark for boaters as well as a hidden attraction
for the more daring tourists on the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Next over at number 10, the SS Maheno was an ocean liner belonging to the Union Company
of New Zealand that began operation in 1905 in the Tasman Sea, transporting passengers
between New Zealand and Australia. She also served in the important role of His Majesty’s
New Zealand Hospital Ship No. 1 by the New Zealand Naval Forces during World War I. The
Maheno was converted and fitted with eight wards and two operating theatres, carrying
large numbers of wounded and sick troops during key moments of the war. When the war ended
in 1918, the Maheno was released from military service and returned to her original owner,
resuming life as a commercial ship. Now here’s where things get really interesting. In 1935,
the SS Maheno was sold to a Japanese company to be melted down into scrap metal in Osaka,
Japan, but she never made it to her destination. The Maheno’s crew found themselves in the
middle of a seasonal cyclone off the coastline of Fraser’s Island. Their link to the ship
towing them snapped, and they washed up on the shores of 75 Mile Beach. The crew members
camped on the shore for 3 days before finally being spotted by a plane. After multiple failed
attempts to fix and refloat the ship, the SS Maheno was abandoned and soon became a
sacred gathering place for the native aboriginals. Up next at number 9, in 1968 a Spanish transport
ship named Cabo Santa Maria was on her way to Brazil and Argentina with a load of precious
cargo, including expensive cars, clothes, medicine and four church bells meant for a
new cathedral in Brasilia. Of course, as we all know by now, things didn’t go according
to plan, and on September 1st, as the Cabo Santa Maria was coming alongside the Cabo
Verde islands, she ran aground on the coast of Boa Esperança. Local tugboats tried desperately
to loosen her, but their efforts were to no avail, and the Cabo Santa Maria was soon abandoned.
Nearby locals used mules and donkeys to remove the cargo from the ship, leaving the Cabo
Santa Maria behind to slowly succumb to the relentless wind and pummeling waves.
Now over at number 8, the SS America is a ship with a particularly fascinating history.
Built in 1940 for the United States Lines as a cruise ship, she was acquired by the
US Navy in 1941 to be used as a troop transport as the threat of war loomed large on the United
States’ horizon. During her naval service, she carried a total of over 350,000 troops,
which was the largest total of any Navy troopship in service during World War II. Following
the end of the war, the SS America returned to her leisurely cruise days, sailing a US
to Europe route, as well as tropical ports in Bermuda and the Caribbean. She changed
ownership multiple times over the decades and was finally sold in 1992 with the intention
of being refitted as a five-star hotel ship in Thailand, and she was renamed American
Star. However, shortly into the trip, her tow lines broke, and crew members were unsuccessful
in their attempts to reconnect her to her tow ship. While the crew was rescued by helicopter,
the stars did not align for the American Star. The ship was left adrift, and she ran aground
at Playa de Garcey, off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. Within
the first 48 hours of grounding, the pounding Atlantic surf snapped her in half just past
the second funnel. Nature was not kind to the American Star, and very little of her
mutilated remains are visible above the water. And at number 7, built from white cedar, she
started her life in 1881 as a steamer hauling goods between Oregon and San Francisco, then
as a whaler in Alaska, next as a service vessel in the Alaskan cannery trade, and finally
as a tugboat. The Mary D. Hume, named after the wife of her first owner, R. D. Hume, was
finally retired in 1977 after a long 96-year life, only a few hundred feet from where she
was originally constructed. Abandoned and forgotten in the shallows of Oregon’s Rogue
River, the decaying ruins of this bygone steamer can best be seen during low tide, where much
of the ravaged hull is still visible. Next over at number 6, completed in Bremerhaven,
Germany in 1974, the MS World Discoverer was truly a ship made for uhhh… discovering
the world. Wow, Paul that was really original. Constructed with a double hull, she was built
to handle the frigid Antarctic polar regions, allowing her passengers to closely observe
ice floe movements without fear of the ship suffering damage from minor ice collisions.
A small fleet of dinghies would land passengers on various shorelines for observation of local
wildlife. Then on April 30, 2000 at 4 p.m. local time, the World Discoverer struck a
large uncharted reef in the Sandfly Passage of the Solomon Islands. A distress signal
was sent out, and soon a passenger ferry arrived and transported the passengers to safety.
The captain then navigated the ship to her final resting place, grounding her in Roderick
Bay. Salvage companies found the ship ransacked by locals and other factions as the Solomon
Islands were undergoing civil war at the time, and salvage attempts were abandoned after
shots were exchanged with the local tribe. And up next at number 5, Empire Strength was
built in 1942 in Harland and Wolff’s Belfast yard. If that sounds familiar to you, it’s
because it’s the very same shipyard where the Titanic and her sister ships were built.
The Empire Strength was made for the UK Ministry of War Transport, and spent her early life
shipping frozen meat to Britain and the Mediterranean. Jump forward to October 15, 1968, now hailing
by the name MV E Evangelia and flying the Greek flag, she was sailing from Yugoslavia
to Romania, when she ran aground in the Black Sea off Costinești, a mere 16 nautical miles
from her destination. There’s an interesting theory that she was intentionally run aground
to collect on insurance money, as she was swiftly declared to be a total loss.
And at number 4, embedded deep in the desolate sands of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast lies the
wreck of the Eduard Bohlen, a German cargo ship completed in 1891. Now, do I have your
attention? Nod your head yes if I do because what I’m about to say is extremely fascinating.
On September 5th, 1909, the Eduard Bohlen was scheduled to offload equipment for diamond
diggers near Conception Bay on her voyage from Swakopmund to Table Bay. However, she
lost her bearings in a heavy fog and ran aground on a sandbank about 100 meters from the beach.
Following a failed attempt to tow her from the sandbank, all 30 passengers disembarked,
and over the next ten days, reports say that so much sand had already settled around the
Eduard Bohlen that it was possible to walk from the beach to the stranded ship at low
tide. Not only that, but diamond miners in the vicinity decided she was perfect for a
hotel, and the manager of the mine moved into the captain’s quarters. When mining operations
ceased the Eduard Bohlen was finally abandoned to the sands. Due to the constantly expanding
desert, this iconic wreck now lies several hundred meters inland alongside countless
other wrecks in Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. Now over at number 3, we have the Dimitrios,
a cargo ship built in Denmark in 1950 that you could say had a smoky past, as it is widely
rumored that she was used to smuggle illegal cigarettes between Turkey and Italy. On December
4th, 1980, the ship made an emergency docking at Gythio, Greece because her seriously ill
captain needed access to a hospital, and shortly after that, her crew was fired. Bereft of
her captain and crew, port authorities declared the Dimitrios unsafe due to wear on the docking
ropes and starboard list from water entering her hull. And at 12:30 p.m. on November 9th,
1981, she was swept about 2 miles from the shore due to severe weather conditions and
drifted to her final destination on the beach of Valtaki two weeks later.
Coming down to number 2, launched in 1922 in Hamburg, Germany, the cargo ship known
as Arcadia, was sold in 1924, and renamed Elbing. Then in 1945, with World War 2 nearing
its end, she was seized by the Allies and passed to the United Kingdom’s Ministry
of War Transport. Fast forward to November of 1960. Now named the Francisco Morazan and
flying the Liberian flag, she was carrying mixed cargo in Lake Michigan when heavy snow
and 40 mile per hour winds pushed her off course into a shoal just 300 yards off the
shore of South Manitou Island. She was abandoned five days later, and local islanders salvaged
much of the cargo over the next eight years until the Francisco Morazan was mysteriously
set on fire in August of 1968. Her mangled and rusted hull is still visible today, a
far cry from the mighty vessel she once was. And finally, at number 1, the Coaster General
Cargo ship known as Saint Bedan was launched in 1937 from a shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland.
She was built with a shallow hull, granting her the ability to pass through many areas
that other ships couldn’t. It’s also worth noting that Saint Bedan was one of the ships
heroically used in the famous Dunkirk Evacuations during World War Two. She was later renamed
to MV Panagiotis, and on October 1st, 1980, she was making her way to Turkey carrying
a freight of contraband cigarettes, and as she was drawing near the Ionian islands, the
Greek Navy spotted her and gave chase. While the MV Panagiotis managed to evade the Greek
Navy, in the process she encountered mythologically heavy storms, that swept her dangerously close
to Zakynthos, where she then ran aground on the beach. After the crew abandoned her, locals
raided the cargo that MV Panagiotis’ was carrying, and subsequently no ‘official’
tobacco product was sold on the island for four years following the wrecking. Nowadays
the MV Panagiotis lies abandoned, surrounded by towering white cliffs, left to the unrelenting
mercy of winter storms, and slowly being lost to the elements.
What would you like to see in my next video? Dive down to the comment section and let me
know. I’m Paul DuVall, satisfying your curiosity craving. Be sure to subscribe and hit the
bell, and I’ll see you in the future.