4 Ocean Liners that Vanished Without a Trace

Before the days of wireless communication, ships would often disappear. With no way to call for help, if something went wrong, a vessel and the souls on board would be on their own. The isolation of the world's oceans meant that a ship that encountered a problem would often vanish without a trace.

Chapters:
0:00 The Titanic Mystery
2:21 SS Lord Spencer: A Mystery Ship in the Darkness
5:48 SS Pacific: A Shattering Record
10:59 SS City of Glasgow: Fleeting Innovation
14:16 SS City of Boston: Fire or Ice?

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[BigOldBoats]

Thanks for watching! What's your favorite maritime mystery?

[carolinem]

I’ve switched from true crime to stories about boats going missing in the ocean so in my head it’s like “the sails were cut off, the anchor was cut off, the rudder was cutoff”

[ExUSSailor]

When you take into consideration just how vast the oceans truly are, it's a miracle there aren't far more unexplained ship disappearances.

[wallykimball]

It's kind of like if, before radio, when you went sailing you were like Schrodinger's cat. Theoretically both alive and dead. No one knew for sure until you either showed up at port or didn't. They ought to contact those firms that send submersibles out to search. It'd be really cool to find a lot of these old shipwrecks.

[felixcat]

That a huge vessel with 458 people on board could simply vanish without trace is truly horrific!

Whilst the 458 people on board knew what befell their ship, none lived to share their tale of horror.

Suffice to say that they died terrible deaths, trapped in the sinking, flooding vessel with no hope of escape or rescue.

Crossing the Atlantic Ocean was a high risk affair...

[Jedi_Master_Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

Everytime I think of a Ocean Liner going missing, I always think of the fictional Italian Ocean liner Antonia Graza (based on the Andrea Doria) from the movie Ghost Ship. The thought of a liner crossing the North Atlantic with over a thousand people on board disappearing without a trace then being found floating and derelict by a salvage team in the Bering Strait decades later without any sign of what happened is haunting

[juliadagnall]

As a note: the rule about operators not being allowed to repair their equipment existed as a way for Marconi to protect his patents and stave off competition. Early electric companies did something similar, they actually owned the lightbulbs installed in private homes and when one died they would send someone out to replace it. Having developed and promoted the technology they wanted to be able to keep profiting off it without having to constantly ward off imitators. In the case of the wireless operators the downside of this was that they were employees of the Marconi company rather than members of the ship’s crew, so they weren’t really integrated into the command structure

[baraxor]

In the days before watertight compartmentation, a major breach in the hull from collision, whether with an iceberg or another ship, meant foundering in pretty short order.

If you were in the middle of the ocean, out of sight from any other vessel and no time to even launch distress rockets, you were flat out of luck.

[gordonhardwick]

We hear about the Titanic so often, yet few people can be aware of the Republic’s sinking, and even fewer of its significance to the Titanic’s designers. That’s an amazing story and brilliantly told. It deserves a million views! Thanks very much.

[sevierno]

Another great video. Reminded me of another passenger liner mystery that you could do in the future. The Adelaide Steamship Company's SS Koombana disappeared during a cyclone of the coast of Western Australia in 1912 and has never been found. It was a fate shared by another ASC ship, the SS Yongala in 1911, which wasn't found until 1958.

[briansnyder]

Some of these comments….even if BOB did “steal” Mike’s idea, he talked about 3 different ships, none of which I had heard of. But just looking at the production values of this video it’s obvious that this wasn’t made in 2 days. It’s just a coincidence.

[annohalloran]

Nautical artworks are so beautiful. Thanks for promoting them. It must be quite difficult to achieve the colors of water in the light.

[furripupau]

A theory about the SS Pacific that was put forward by a patent lawyer named Dickerson was that its engines raced out of control, self destructing, due to a fault in the design of the valve gear, and that this caused the loss of the ship. However, Dickerson was not an engineer (though he claimed to be many times, and made much money off of these claims) and had a vested interest in disparaging engines which infringed or bypassed the patents of his clients.

[DeliveryMcGee]

Even when in constant radio contact, large ships can suddenly cease to exist with no explanation, pretty common in the Great Lakes.

The WW2 German Kriegsmarine's U-boats, though outside the scope of this channel, definitely hold the record for "assumed lost with all hands but we don't know exactly when, where, or who killed them."

[HeWhoDrivesATruck]

The SS City of New York and City of Paris were beautiful ships in 1889. I've seen some beautiful color paintings of the SS New York (as it was later renamed, and was the ship that almost collided with the Titanic as she was leaving port) and they're breathtaking with her long bowsprit.

[MiniMC]

Others commenting that BOB stole the idea from Oceanliner Designs but Mike Brady talked about SS Naronic, MS Hans Hedtoft, SS Waratah, and Collins Line Pacific. BOB talked about SS Lord Spencer, SS City of Glasgow, and SS City of Boston. Both Big Old Boats and Oceanliner Designs talked about the Collins Line ship Pacific. It would be called stealing if BOB even used Oceanliner Designs' animations without giving him any credit.

[antonbrakhage]

Having a rule that you can't repair the only means of calling for help while at sea is one of those things that is just so phenomenally stupid its amazing that anyone actually thought it was a good idea. Right up there with not having enough life boats for all on board.

[mbvoelker]

Cool that you and Oceanliner Designs were working on similar videos at the same time. Happened to 2 of the Aviation Disasters channels one time a while back too.

YouTube must be telling you what we like to see.

[willbreckinridge]

Wow, two disappearing ship videos from the two biggest ocean liner channels on YouTube? Did you and Mike coordinate this? XD

[toolsteel]

I absolutely love these documentaries, thanks for presenting. I especially love that era of ships that had both sail and steam power. Also, I really like the paintings of ships In the midst of heavy seas ; one can almost feel the struggle of the vessel portrayed; I love ship art.