Ships are a major component of fiction, be it in myth, epic poetry, legends, or simply entertainment. Handed down in oral traditions and songs, later transcribed on stone and parchment, ships of the ancients include the fishing vessels of the Twelve Apostles, the Ark described in Genesis, the twelve ships of Odysseus lost during his journey home, Charon’s boat used to transport lost souls to the Gates of Hades, and others. King Arthur is usually associated with his Round Table, but according to the legends he also had a ship at his disposal, of numerous names, Prydwen and Britain among them.

In more recent times, writers have created fictional ships sometimes based loosely on historical vessels as settings for their stories. They have served as refuges and as sites of conflict. Others have been born out of the superstitions of sailors, nautical versions of tales told around the campfire to entertain listeners. Here are ten fictional ships, most as famous as any real vessel known to have sailed the seas.

10. Argo

Argo is the mythical ship which carried Jason and his crew of adventurers, known as the Argonauts, on their quest to find the Golden Fleece in ancient Greek mythology. Most versions of the tale, of which there are several variations, claim Argo was built by Argus, the source of its name. Its construction was sanctioned by Hera, Queen of the Olympians. Amongst its mythical powers was the ability of its oaken timbers to speak to the crew in a human voice, foretelling their future in the form of oracles. The communicative prow of the vessel took the appearance of actress Honor Blackman in the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts, rendering it a handsome vessel indeed.

According to the myths surrounding the vessel, Argo eventually killed the heroic Jason, by dropping a heavy spar on him as he slept beneath the mast. In most versions of the myth, the ship which helped find the Golden Fleece is visible today. It was mutated into the stars by the gods, becoming the constellation Argo Navis, visible below the southern tropics as it sails the Milky Way. Only a few of the more than 160 stars which comprise Argo Navis are visible in the Mediterranean, where Argo gained its fame. Astronomers no longer count it as a separate constellation, despite the enduring fame of the ship for which it was named. Eventually broken up into multiple constellations, it is no longer considered a constellation at all.

9. SS Poseidon

Disaster movies were a popular form of cinematic entertainment during the 1970s and have remained so ever since, at least among producers. Their success at the box office has been unsteady. SS Poseidon was a fictional ship created for an early disaster extravaganza, the 1972 film, The Poseidon Adventure. The ship was struck and capsized by a tsunami on New Year’s Eve in that film, which follows a small group of intrepid survivors as they struggle through the vessel in their attempt to escape. Since the ship is inverted on the surface of the water, the survivors must go upwards as they travel downwards into the hull, deep into the hold, seeking the thinnest part of the hull and rescue at its bottom.

There is no known real-life inspiration for SS Poseidon (RMS Queen Mary provided a stand-in for the film). The writer of the novel (Paul Gallico) upon which the film was based was aboard Queen Mary when the liner was hit with a wave which caused a severe roll. Though the ship was never in danger of capsizing, it may have caught his attention sufficiently to inspire the story. Poseidon appeared in additional films, as a continuation of the story and a target for salvagers (Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, 1979); as a target for terrorists (The Poseidon Adventure, 2005 TV film); and once more as the victim of a large wave (Poseidon, 2006). All the films offer the same basic story, with a small party of survivors, drawn from an ensemble cast, struggling to reach a point where rescuers may offer safety.

8. HMS Surprise

Cecil Scott (CS) Forester created the genre of the British naval officer in a nearly personal battle against Napoleon with his fictional Horatio Hornblower in 1937. Eventually, Hornblower became a character of such renown he featured in novels and short stories, film, radio, and television. He, like Sherlock Holmes, became so well-known that some came to believe he was a real person, and the noted historian C. Northcote Parkinson even published a biography of the character, which included a “family tree” of his descendants to the current (1970) day. Hornblower and his adventures became the prototype of other heroes of the Napoleonic era, including Richard Bolitho, Lord Ramage, Richard Sharpe, and Jack Aubrey.

It was Jack Aubrey who gained fame in HMS Surprise, a fictional frigate and later a hydrography research vessel. Aubrey served in the ship as a young midshipman, a captain, and flew his flag in it as an admiral. The small frigate was entirely fictional, though some of its exploits were loosely based on the adventures of real ships of the period. USS Essex had a memorable voyage to the Pacific during the War of 1812, during which it conducted its own refit on little known islands. Aubrey’s version of Surprise had similar adventures in the Galapagos Archipelago, though the circumstances of its voyage were considerably different.

Patrick O’Brian, who authored the Jack Aubrey series, based his fictional HMS Surprise on a real British frigate of the same era, though its adventures under Aubrey were entirely created in the author’s mind. Some placed the fictional ship in the center of historical events, thus altering the past for the entertainment of his fans, The fate of both the real HMS Surprise and that of Jack Aubrey’s favorite command are unknown, though the replica used to film the Aubrey adventure Master and Commander is a tourist attraction today.

7. The Flying Dutchman

The ship known to posterity as the Flying Dutchman is both fictional and legendary. It represents both an unknown Dutch captain and the ship he sailed, at least in one version of the legend. It has been traced to the heyday of the Dutch East India Company of the late 17th century, when the region now known as Netherlands was a major maritime power. Its legend claims that it sails eternally, sometimes attempting to signal other ships or facilities ashore, often with messages addressed to the dead. It is thus known to mariners as a symbol of impending death. Sailors often repeated tales of the ship appearing during dangerously foul weather, usually in regions known for shipwrecks and stormy seas.

It has been claimed in legends, poems, songs, and short stories the Dutchman is crewed by the doomed souls of miscreants consigned to eternal damnation. It sails in search of those destined to join its crew. The origin of the myth is unknown. No less a personage as George, Prince of Wales, later King George V, reported sighting the vessel at sea in 1881. His sighting was reported in the log of HMS Bacchante written either by himself or his brother, Prince Albert Victor (the log was later transcribed by a functionary, and is in neither prince’s hand).  According to the log entry the seaman who had first spotted the Flying Dutchman and called it to the attention of the future King fell from the mast to his death after reporting his observation. The weather was clear, though in repetitions of the story the Dutchman is usually depicted as emerging from storms and fog.

One of the oldest and most well-known myths of the sea, the Flying Dutchman has been the subject of opera, film, plays, novels, and even appears in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, commanded by Davy Jones himself. The ghostly ship and its equally ghostly crew is fictional, except among those who believe the earth and its seas are prowled by evil spirits, eternally doing their master’s bidding while shrouded by storms and darkness.

6. USS Caine

Prolific American author Herman Wouk enjoyed his greatest literary success with the novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, both of which were made into major miniseries in the 1980s. The novels tell the global story of the Second World War, largely through the eyes of the fictional Henry family and their friends and relatives. By the time of their appearance, Wouk was an internationally renowned author. His first major success came with his publication of the novel The Caine Mutiny, followed by the play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. The two works described life aboard a fictional American destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific War, and a mutiny among its officers. Wouk had served as a junior officer on similar ships during the war, and knew life aboard quite well.

The fictional USS Caine represented one of 42 World War I era destroyers converted by the US Navy to serve as high-speed minesweepers during the Second World War. Most of the ships served primarily as convoy escorts, training vessels, and cargo ships. Not until late in the war did they actually operate as minesweepers, with a few exceptions. Such was the fate of the fictional Caine, which Wouk crewed with an incompetent Captain, Philip Francis Queeg, and a wardroom of officers which lacked experience and a grounding in naval tradition. Eventually they relieved their captain in a lapse of naval discipline which became the titular Caine mutiny.

USS Caine was entirely fictional, as the author notes in a foreword to the novel, as was the personage of Captain Queeg and the rest of the characters in the story. Interestingly, the author served in destroyer-minesweepers during the war, USS Zane and later as executive officer of USS Southard. One of his major characters in the novel occupies his spare time writing a novel about life in the Navy, as he did during his service. The author also noted there had never been a mutiny aboard an American ship of war, ignoring the three men hanged for planning a mutiny aboard USS Somers in 1842. How much reality Wouk exposed in the fictional USS Caine was known only to him, and those who served with him.

5. Whaling Ship Pequod

The whaling ship which carried Ahab, Starbuck, Ishmael, and Queequeg on their fateful pursuit of the Great White Whale was fictional, though so like the average whaler of the day it could have been any of them. The whale itself, Moby Dick, was likewise fictional, though based on the legend of an albino sperm whale known to whalermen as Mocha Dick. So named because he was frequently encountered near Mocha Island, Mocha Dick proved inordinately difficult to kill and developed the reputation of attacking the whaling boats which exhibited the impertinence of striking at him with harpoons. Herman Melville, a veteran of the whaler Acushnet, borrowed some of the attributes exhibited by Mocha Dick to create his fictional white whale Moby Dick.

Pequod was typical of the whaling ships of the day, self-contained factories for the transformation of freely swimming mammals into barrels of fine sperm oil, suitable for lighting the lamps of Bedford and other American towns. So, Melville incorporated two areas with which he was intimately familiar, using often florid language and Shakespearean drama, to create the novel Moby Dick. The destruction of Pequod was a fictionalized version of the loss of the whaler Essex, sunk following the attack of a sperm whale in 1820. Melville did not include the episodes of cannibalism which occurred among the survivors of that sea saga, perhaps the reason he allowed for only one survivor from Pequod.

Moby Dick did not appear until 1851, near the end of the heyday of whaling as the primary source of oil for lighting. Within a decade, kerosene derived from petroleum became the preferred source of illumination, followed by natural gas in the succeeding decades. Pequod remains a famous ship, its decks trod by the stumping Ahab, the pragmatic Starbuck, and the cannibal Queequeg, in the tale told by the equally fictional whaler known only as Ishmael.

4. Nautilus

Nautilus was the name of a submarine long before Jules Verne borrowed it for the fabulous undersea vessel he created for his adventure novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, published in 1870. Robert Fulton had used the name for his submarine, first operationally tested in 1801. Nor did Verne’s Nautilus predict the submarine; the French Navy demonstrated a test submarine named Plongeur (Plunger) nearly ten years earlier. Many of the technologies described in the novel were in fact of their time, rather than predictions of the future. Some were already functionally obsolete, having been replaced by newer technologies, including the deep diving suits used by some of the characters.

But Nautilus did introduce a technology unknown at the time of the novel’s publication. The submersible used electricity to operate. As such it became emblematic of the future. The United States Navy operated a submarine named Nautilus during World War II, named for the shellfish as well as Fulton’s earlier vessel. When the US Navy launched the world’s first atomic powered vessel, USS Nautilus, in the 1950s, its being an entirely new technology, as was Verne’s fictional submarine, was stressed in the press.

Nautilus has thus been both a fictional ship as well as historical vessels, making it somewhat unique among ocean-going ships. Today, Verne’s Nautilus can be visited in the pages of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, in the film recreations of the novel, and in graphic novels and comic books. The US Navy’s most recent version of a ship under the fabled name can be visited at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.

3. The African Queen

As previously noted, CS Forester created the character Horatio Hornblower and the genre of the Napoleonic naval hero in the 1930s. He also created one of the more famous fictional vessels of all time, though it never went to sea. Instead, it plied the rivers and lakes of equatorial Africa, under the command of Charlie Allnutt, who also comprised its entire crew. A dilapidated vessel with a motor of questionable reliability, it delivered supplies and mail to outposts along a river in German East Africa just before World War I. Allnutt called his vessel the African Queen, a grandiose appellation given its dubious reliability and seaworthiness.

Circumstances left Allnutt saddled with a passenger, an English spinster, who criticized his boat and person, disposed of his liquor (to his outrage), and convinced him to use his boat in a nearly suicidal attack on a German vessel operating on a lake downriver. As they cruised downriver, enduring brutal heat and humidity, lousy food, getting lost, both rapids and shallows, leeches, and worst of all, each other’s company, they fell in love. By the end of the story they are married, the African Queen victorious, though sunk through its own actions.

For the film version of the story Humphrey Bogart (Allnut) won the Academy Award for Best Actor while Katherine Hepburn (the spinster, whose name was Rose Sayer), was nominated for Best Actress, though she did not win. The ship which portrayed the fictional African Queen in the film was restored and as of 2012 offered tourists and film buffs cruises in the Florida Keys.

2. Pirate Ship Black Pearl

The Golden Age of Piracy is loosely defined as the eight decades beginning in 1650. During that time pirates roamed the Spanish Main, the Indian Ocean, the coast of West Africa, and the waters off the English North American colonies. The names of some pirates remain legendary, Blackbeard (Edward Teach), Bartholomew Roberts, Captain William Kidd, Stede Bonnet, and many others. Some of their ships are legendary as well, Queen Anne’s Revenge (Teach, better known as Blackbeard), Whydah (Black Sam Bellamy), Adventure Galley (Captain Kidd), and Fancy (Henry Every, famed for having never been caught). But possibly the most famed pirate ship of all in the 21st century is an entirely fictional vessel, the Black Pearl.

Black Pearl was originally part of a Disney attraction, known as the pirate ship Wicked Wench in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim. When Pirates of the Caribbean went to film, Wicked Wench went too, renamed Black Pearl, with a suitable back story to explain how it came into the hands of Captain Jack Sparrow. Black Pearl changed hands several times, did battle against Blackbeard and Queen Anne’s Revenge, and proved itself capable of outsailing the Flying Dutchman, supposedly the fastest ship on the oceans. At the end of its most recent appearance in film (Dead Men Tell No Tales, 2017) it remained under the command of Captain Jack Sparrow.

The fictional Black Pearl is relatively lightly armed, since it was intended to attack merchant ships rather than battle men of war. It also uses black sails, rendering it difficult to see at night. Both of those attributes were shared with several real pirate ships, whose masters preferred stealth to combat. Its more supernatural capabilities are shared with several legends of the pirates of the Golden Age, as they were handed down by sailors and storytellers. Most, such as burying treasure, wearing bandannas and walking the plank, are untrue. Although there are claims the legendary privateer/pirate/politician Henry Morgan once sailed a ship named Black Pearl, there is little in the way of historical evidence to support them. More likely it is one more fictional creation out of the minds of the entertainers of the Disney empire.

1. MV Disco Volante

Disco Volante, Italian for Flying Saucer, first appeared in the 1951 novel Thunderball by Ian Fleming, the ninth book of his series of novels and short story collections featuring British agent James Bond. The book was unusual in that it was based on a then unfilmed screen treatment, rather than being a complete novel written by Fleming. As such it was the only of the Bond novels published by Fleming in which authorship was shared, though it required extensive legal action before the credits were finalized. Disco Volante appears as a luxury yacht owned by Emilio Largo, second in command of SPECTRE. The yacht serves to recover stolen atomic bombs as well as providing the means of transporting them to their planned place of detonation. It later appeared in the films Thunderball (1965) and Never Say Never Again (1983), both starring Sean Connery as James Bond.

Besides being a luxury vessel of impressive appointments and power, Disco Volante held a secret weapon. At least the film version did. The yacht could, and did, split into two sections, allowing the forward section containing the bad guys to flee at far greater speeds than the after section containing the stolen bombs. In the novel, Disco Volante was attacked and destroyed by a US nuclear submarine, USS Manta. In the film Thunderball it wrecked on rocks after Bond dispatched Largo in the climactic scene. In Never Say Never Again the US Navy again supported Bond by destroying the villain’s yacht using missiles.

Three vessels were used to portray the Thunderball version of the yacht, one of which was later used as a houseboat in Florida. In Never Say Never Again the vessel was portrayed by the superyacht Nabila, owned at the time by Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi. A line in the film’s credits reads “Thanks A. K.”. It was purchased in the late 1980s by Donald Trump ($29 million), who renamed it Trump Princess and later sold it at a loss of $9 million to another Saudi, who renamed it Kingdom 5KR. As of 2022 it is still owned by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, and is 96th on the list of the largest yachts in the world.

Thousands of people embark on cruises each year to enjoy vacations, holidays, and honeymoons with family and friends. But not everyone returns home from these trips.

Several people have vanished aboard cruise liners, leaving their friends and families heartbroken and confused. Here are 10 times that people mysteriously disappeared from cruise ships.

10 Ships That Simply Vanished Without A Trace

10 Amy Lynn Bradley

While on a family cruise to the Caribbean, Amy Lynn Bradley mysteriously vanished from the Royal Caribbean International Cruise Line’s Rhapsody of the Seas. The American woman was only 23 years old when she disappeared from the vessel on March 24, 1998.

Early that morning, Bradley went missing. She had danced all night with members of Rhapsody’s band, Blue Orchid. She left the band around 1:00 AM, and her father noticed her sleeping on their cabin balcony around 5:30 AM.

Her dad returned to the balcony at 6:00 AM to check on Amy, but she was no longer there. Her father reported her missing to the authorities on the cruise line, and the ship docked at Curacao, Antilles.^[1]

The cruise line and the Netherlands Antilles Coast Guard spent days looking for Amy, but the search ceased on March 29. There have been many theories about her disappearance, but none have been proven to be true.

9 George Allen Smith IV

In July 2005, George Allen Smith IV and his wife, Jennifer, were celebrating their two-week-long honeymoon on a cruise from Greece to Turkey when he mysteriously disappeared. It is believed that he went overboard due to an accident on the ship.

Smith vanished after a long night of drinking and gambling at the ship’s casino. A passenger aboard Brilliance of the Seas claimed that he heard men arguing in the Smiths’ room. Another passenger heard furniture being moved around inside the room, and Jennifer was later found passed out in a hallway.^[2]

Jennifer claimed that she did not remember much from the previous night, and nobody ever admitted to knowing anything about Smith’s disappearance. Some theories claimed that he was thrown overboard by the men with whom he was arguing. Others believe that he accidentally fell into the water after drinking too much.

In 2015, the FBI closed their investigation into the disappearance of Smith. They said that his death could have resulted from an accident, but his family was never convinced. They believe he was murdered.

8 Rebecca Coriam

In 2010, Rebecca Coriam started working for Disney Cruise Line and spent months visiting several ports in the Bahamas. On March 22, 2011, while working on the Disney Wonder, Coriam disappeared.

She was last seen on CCTV footage in the crew’s lounge talking on an internal phone. She was wearing men’s clothing and seemed visibly distressed. After hanging up the phone, she walked away, never to be seen again.^[3]

When she failed to report for her shift, crew members started looking for Coriam. After they were unsuccessful, the United States Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy were alerted and joined the search. But her body was never found.

Some theories claim that she was swept overboard while at the pool. Others say that she jumped or fell from the deck. Her family hasn’t received any answers as to why or how she went missing while aboard the cruise ship.

7 Daniel Kueblboeck

Daniel Kueblboeck, a German pop star, was famous for a short time on the talent show Germany Seeks the Superstar. He disappeared after reportedly either jumping or falling from a cruise ship. The 33-year-old was aboard an AIDA Cruises ship for a holiday from Hamburg to New York when he went missing. The cruise ship was off the coast of Canada when the incident occurred.

Witnesses aboard the ship claim they saw someone jump overboard around 6:00 AM the day he went missing. A month earlier, Daniel had posted on Facebook about being bullied as a kid, how it had affected him deeply, and that he still did not feel better mentally or physically.

Authorities believe that he jumped into the water on purpose. The search for his body was called off after four days.^[4]

6 John Halford

On April 6, 2011, John Halford went missing while aboard Thomson Cruise’s Thomson Spirit. The 63-year-old man disappeared while on a holiday cruise in Egypt. Authorities believe that Halford went missing sometime between 11:45 PM on April 6 and 7:30 AM on April 7. According to authorities, he was last seen at the ship’s bar drinking cocktails.

Halford’s suitcases were found sitting outside his cabin’s door, which is required for guests on the last night of the cruise. The luggage contained gifts that he had purchased for his wife and children. When the cruise ship docked the next morning, he was not in his room or anywhere else on the ship. His body was never found.^[5]

10 People Who Mysteriously Vanished While Traveling

5 Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell and his fiancee, Crystal Tinder, went on a Carnival cruise in July 2004 to Mexico. Carnival Cruise Line’s Carnival Fascination was near Miami on the final night of the trip when Caldwell disappeared.

That last evening, he and his fiancee had gone to dinner with some friends they met on the cruise. They all had a few drinks and decided to hit up some of the nightclubs after dinner.

Crystal then decided to head in for the night, but Caldwell chose to stay in the casino for a while. He told her he would be back shortly. But he never returned to their cabin.^[6]

Surveillance video showed Caldwell leaving the casino at 2:17 AM, and one crew member admitted that a bartender had seen Caldwell on the promenade deck around 3:30 AM. The bartender said that Caldwell had appeared to be very drunk, but the barkeep did not help his customer back to his room.

Caldwell was never seen again. It was believed that he had fallen overboard, and the coast guard spent 36 hours looking for his body. They eventually called off the search, and Caldwell was presumed to be dead.

4 Fariba Amani

Fariba Amani was enjoying a cruise with her boyfriend, Ramiz Golshani, when she mysteriously vanished from the Bahamas Celebration cruise. The 47-year-old mother of two from Canada disappeared on February 29, 2012, somewhere between the Bahamas and Florida.

Ramiz last saw her at the ship’s gift shop, and then he headed to the casino by himself. When he returned to their cabin, Fariba was not there. He eventually fell asleep. When Ramiz woke up, Fariba still had not returned. He spent an hour searching for her on the ship.^[7]

Ramiz alerted the crew about her disappearance shortly after arriving at port. The coast guard began an 84-hour search that spanned 25,900 square kilometers (10,000 mi²), but they were unable to find Fariba.

Police and the FBI also failed to find any evidence or trace of her during their investigation on the ship. The whereabouts of Fariba remain unknown, but her family suspects that Ramiz may have had something to do with her disappearance.

3 Annette Mizener

In December 2004, 37-year-old Annette Mizener embarked on a nine-day cruise with her parents and daughter. On the final day of the trip, she disappeared from Carnival’s ship The Pride.

She was last seen when the ship was around 48 kilometers (30 mi) off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico. Authorities believe that she fell or was pushed overboard, but some strange facts emerged about her vanishing.

Mizener’s beaded purse was found with beads missing near a smoking deck. But her family said she would have stayed away from there. A passenger stated that a nearby camera for that deck was covered, so there was no footage of her.

The captain of the ship waited about three hours before finally turning around and dropping rescue boats to search for Mizener. However, he only did this because he was ordered to do so by the coast guard. Her family believes foul play was involved, but her case remains unsolved.^[8]

2 Merrian Carver

Merrian Carver’s disappearance from a cruise ship around Alaska in 2004 is one of the more absurd stories. The 40-year-old woman vanished from a Royal Caribbean ship that nobody in her family even knew she had boarded.

On the second day of the cruise, a cabin attendant noticed that the bed had not been used and reported it to the boss. The supervisor said, “Just forget it, and do your job.” The attendant did as she was told, although nobody ever used the room. Carver was never seen again.

After the ship docked, her possessions were packed away. The authorities weren’t notified that she was missing. In fact, the police only learned of her disappearance when her father filed a missing person’s report days later. As her family hadn’t known that Carver was on the ship, the police needed time to trace her there.

The cruise line took three more days to confirm to authorities that she had been on the vessel, which was 26 days after she disappeared. By that time, the trail had gone cold.^[9]

1 Hue Pham And Hue Tran

In 2005, Hue Pham, 71, and Hue Tran, 67, took a seven-night Mother’s Day cruise in the Caribbean with their daughter and granddaughter. The couple, who had been married for 49 years, mysteriously vanished while on the Carnival Cruise Line ship.

On May 12, a ship employee found two passports, two pairs of flip-flops, two driver’s licenses, medication, and a wallet containing cash and credit cards. The passports belonged to Hue Pham and Hue Tran.^[10]

A full search and rescue mission began after family members realized the couple was missing, but the mission failed to find anyone. Authorities believe that the couple committed suicide by jumping into the sea together. Their son, Michael Pham, testified before Congress to urge tougher regulation of safety practices on cruise lines.

10 Eerie Last Words Of People Who Then Vanished Without A Trace

About The Author: I’m just another bearded guy trying to write my way through life.

For a long time, if you wanted to get around the world you were going to have to go by water at some point. And the thing about water is that everything is literally smooth sailing on the surface. When things go wrong, however, then you sink. In general, sinking sucks. It’s cold, you can’t breathe, pressure can crush you and all kinds of stuff will eat you. Please avoid sinking at all costs. 

Historically, not everyone or everything has avoided sinking and sometimes the stories of what happened are a lot weirder than you’d think. 

10. The USS Bowfin Is the Only Submarine That Ever Sank a Bus

Submarines, on both sides, sank thousands of ships during WWII. They have proven to be some of the most valuable naval assets a country can have. They are so good at what they do that the USS Bowfin managed to sink a bus. Think about that for a second.

A bus, to clarify, is not an aquatic vehicle. Nevertheless, back in 1944, after a refit at Pearl Harbor the Bowfin set out to sea. It made its way after a Japanese convoy to some islands close to Okinawa. There were three vessels moored in the harbor alongside a pier with a crane and some supplies and such.

Seizing an opportunity, the Bowfin fired three torpedoes, then made a quick position change and fired off three more. The result was the destruction of several Japanese vessels but also the pier. That meant, in addition to sinking enemy ships, the Bowfin managed to take out the crane and a bus that had been parked on the pier as well. It is the only recorded case of a submarine taking out public transportation. 

9. L Ron Hubbard Claimed to Have Sunk Two Mystery Submarines During WWII 

Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard really loved the sea. There’s a whole aquatic division of Scientology that’s a gong show of a story for another time, but Hubbard himself was also a naval man and served at sea in the military. Or, at least, he had some colorful stories about it.

Back in 1943, Hubbard was serving in WWII. According to him, he was an absolute MCU-level hero like Captain America. According to the Navy, not so much. He claimed to have sunk two Japanese vessels in May of that year, just off the Oregon coast. The problem was that the Navy could find no evidence of the vessels, though it seems he had his crew open fire on a log at one point. Hubbard later claimed it was a coverup because the military didn’t want anyone to know the Japanese got so close to the shore.

Hubbard would later lose his command after accidentally sailing into Mexican waters and firing guns at an island for no reason. 

8. North Korea Claimed to Sink a US Vessel That Was Already Decommissioned

Lots of things can be hard to unravel in the fog of war and some fine details have likely been lost to history all over the world in every conflict in recorded history. Sometimes it’s less being unsure of who fired first or what kicked off which battle where and more someone just lying. But if you are going to lie, you want to try to do it believably. North Korea has not mastered this.

North Korea claimed that, back in 1950, they sank the USS Baltimore. She was a heavy cruiser and it would be significant to any military’s history to have taken that ship out. However, official records state that the Baltimore was decommissioned in 1947.

7. The US Military Sank a Radioactive Aircraft Carrier Near San Francisco 

When a boat is sunk on purpose by the military or a company that owns it, it’s called scuttling. There’s nothing wrong with it and sometimes it’s even used to make artificial reefs for fish and cool places to go scuba diving. It’s an effective form of recycling. But you’d hope that, if someone does scuttle a ship, they let people know it’s happening. Especially if the ship is radioactive.

The USS Independence was an aircraft carrier that was involved in nuclear bomb tests. As a result, the ship ended up absorbing more than its fair share of radiation. They used it as a target ship at Bikini Atoll. 

They brought the vessel back to San Francisco in the late 1940s to study nuclear decontamination and then, in 1951, they took it 30 miles offshore and scuttled it. Experts stated the ocean is a good buffer against radiation and the contamination is minimal so the fear of it getting into fish you might eat is also minimal. Which doesn’t mean non-existent, of course. Just minimal. 

6. Titanic’s Sister Ship Sank a U-Boat

RMS Olympic was launched in 1910 and it was the largest ship in the world at the time. It was the first of three revolutionary ocean liners, the third of which was far better known – the Titanic. But before the Titanic stole her thunder, the Olympic was a big deal. She was actually one of the vessels that responded to the Titanic’s distress call when it sank.

Because WWI broke up, no one was taking massive cruise liners across the sea and the Olympic was tweaked with a gray paint job, covered portholes, and other adjustments to make it less noticeable to enemy vessels. She became the HMT Olympic and served as a troopship. The paint job was changed to dazzle camouflage, and she was outfitted with guns.

In 1918, the Olympic crew spotted a German U-boat in the English Channel and countered its torpedoes by full-on ramming the enemy ship, sinking it.

5. There Are Over a Half Dozen Nuclear Subs Sunk at Sea

Nuclear submarines have been around since 1955. With that much history, you can safely assume not all of them are in service anymore, but you may not want to know what happens to all of them since the story is not a comforting one. Not every nuclear sub made it safely back to harbor to be decommissioned in a safe and friendly manner. 

There are at least 8 nuclear submarines which have been lost at sea. That means nuclear reactors and weapons sunk to the icy depths and maybe no one knows where anymore. The general consensus is that this isn’t so bad, since the reactors are shielded and could keep them safe for centuries, by which time most of the fuel will have died, anyway. Fun!

Russia has planned to retrieve some of their lost vessels: K-159, which sank in 1963, and K-27, which was scuttled in 1982 despite being mildly radioactive. So far nothing has happened on that front. 

4. Garfield Phones From a Sunken Shipping Container Have Washed Ashore for Decades

The sea returns all kinds of things to the land over time. Some things can be lost at sea for years before it washes up somewhere. For about 40 years, Garfield phones have been washing up on shore in Brittany and it’s also thanks to a sunken ship with the most impressive cargo of all time. 

In 2019, after being plagued by the phones for years, a shipping container full of them that sank in the ’80s was finally identified. The container had been swept into a cave that could be accessed at low tide, like a strange pirate treasure. 

3. An Overflowing Toilet Sank a U-Boat

U-boats were terrifying during the war and sank as many as 3,000 Allied vessels. That’s obviously a lot of lives lost and damage caused so anything that could take out a U-boat was welcome. And, in one case, it was a toilet that did one in.

U-1206 was in the war towards the end of combat and was one of the most advanced vessels in the fleet. For whatever reason, German engineers decided that removing the septic system to save space was a good idea. Instead, the subs just shot waste into the sea. The problem was that it only worked near the surface. 

After failing to figure the toilet out on their first voyage, the captain called in an engineer who turned the wrong valve and began to flood the sub with seawater and poop. Why was there a valve that let that happen? Who knows?

The mix of poop and seawater flooded the battery room, which was conveniently located under the bathroom. The batteries began to release poisonous gas as a result. 

Flooding and filling with gas, the sub had to surface, and it needed to do so quickly. They fired torpedoes to increase buoyancy and then surfaced right in front of allies who attacked. Most of the crew was taken prisoner and U-1206 sank.

2. The Eastland Sinking Killed More People Than the Titanic

Some nautical disasters can be chalked up to bad luck, but not all of them. The Eastland Disaster was a tragedy and the blame for the death toll falls on extremely poor planning. Unlike the Titanic, the Eastland didn’t head out onto the open sea; it was on Lake Michigan. And when it sank, nearly 850 people died. 

The Eastland was a passenger liner, taking 2,573 passengers from Chicago out across the lake to a park for a day trip and picnic. The boat, one of five carrying employees of Western Electric Company, was already known to be unsteady and had nearly capsized more than once in the past. 

On the day of the fatal voyage, it was listing, in port, before all the passengers were even on board. Rather than cancel the trip, the crew simply tried to use ballast to balance the boat. They fixed it, then it started listing the other way. 

At 7:25 a.m. it was listing 25 degrees to port and was taking on water. At 7:30 it headed out anyway and then rolled to its side. Because there were so many people on board, even though it happened right at the port with people watching, hundreds were crushed under the boat and couldn’t be saved. 844 people in total died.

No one was ever held accountable for the deaths and the cause was speculated to be indirectly related to the Titanic. The boat was outfitted with new lifeboats after the sinking of the Titanic, which didn’t have enough for its passengers. The Eastland’s lifeboats are believed to have made the boat top-heavy, which caused the instability. 

1. The Whaling Ship Essex Was Sunk By a Sperm Whale

The whaling ship Essex sank on November 20, 1820, and may qualify as the most dramatic sinking in history next to the Titanic, at least in terms of the overall impact it has had on culture. This seems hard to understand at first since everyone knows the Titanic and, probably, very few people know the Essex. But it’s less that the Essex sank that it’s famous, and more why it sank.

The Essex was rammed by a sperm whale. It was out on a two-and-a-half-year whaling voyage when it encountered a pod. Smaller boats were sent out to harpoon the whales and one was hit.

At the same time, one whale broke away from the pod and it was a big one. Reports said it was 85 feet, much larger than the average 65 feet for adult sperm whales.  It headed straight for the Essex and smashed into the hull. The size and speed were too much, even for a 238-ton whaling vessel. The hull buckled, and the boat sank. 

If the story sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because this was the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

The ocean likes to cull ships. Over the centuries, storms and reefs have amassed a great collection at the bottom of the sea. Wars added plenty more wrecks. When water conditions are right, skeleton crews and cargoes remain preserved for centuries.

Among other things, divers recently encountered included two of the world’s oldest artifacts on the same wreck, a unique barge, and unexpected Englishmen. The most intriguing cases often involve ships that have vanished. From the missing fleets of Columbus to wrecks disappearing from a World War II battlefield, old ships bring a mystery to match every discovery.

10 The Eira Candidate

Benjamin Leigh Smith was a prolific Arctic explorer. The Englishman saw places that nobody had ever seen and had many named after him. In 1881, his ship, the Eira, sank near an archipelago that today is known as Franz Josef Land.

After safely reaching solid ground, he named it for his famous relative Florence Nightingale. A few makeshift cabins at Cape Flora sheltered Smith and his crew for the next six months. They were rescued, and Smith continued with his career, earning prestigious awards and respect from the scientific world.

Despite the honors he received and the achievements that marked his expeditions, Smith was largely forgotten a few decades after his death. To rectify this, researchers spent years hunting for his steam yacht.

In 2017, a Russian crew surveyed the bottom of the sea at Cape Flora. Scanning equipment located an object the size of the Eira, and video footage gave positive feedback that the wreckage belonged to the yacht. If confirmed, the return of the Eira could help put Smith back on the map.^[1]

9 Sea Champagne

In 2010, divers explored the seafloor off the Finnish Aland archipelago. They found a shipwreck with 168 wine bottles. The 170-year-old beverage turned out to be champagne. Some ended up in the divers’ digestive systems, and the rest made it to a laboratory.

Surprisingly, the wine’s chemical composition closely matched that of modern champagne. But there were differences. The 19th-century wine reflected the era’s sugar worship. Today’s brands contain as little as 6 grams per liter (0.8 ounces per gallon), whereas the shipwreck bottles had a stiff dose of 150 grams per liter (20 ounces per gallon). It also contained more table salt, copper, and iron.

Cork engravings suggested that the wine came from French champagne houses Heidsieck, Juglar, and Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin. The delivery was delayed by the ship’s demise, but the ocean’s conditions mimicked the perfect wine cellar.^[2]

At 50 meters (160 ft) deep, the constant dark and low temperatures aged the wine surprisingly well. Wine tasters described it as “smoky, spicy, with floral and fruity notes” before taking the “smoky” further with flavors like “grilled and leathery.” Overall, a tasty bubbly.

8 Diverse Mary Rose Crew

Over the years, historians populated Tudor England with white people. However, when the Mary Rose was discovered, the warship presented a strong case for a multicultural Tudor era. She was King Henry VIII’s flagship which sank in 1545 during the Battle of the Solent.

The wreck was raised in 1982 along with 30,000 artifacts and bones. The Mary Rose Trust cleaned and cataloged them for years. They recently focused on eight skeletons enigmatic enough to suggest that the warship’s crew and, by extension, perhaps Tudor England were very diverse.

DNA tests and artifacts proved that at least four were not white English.^[3]

One was a Spaniard employed as a ship’s carpenter. There was also an Italian with valuable possessions, including a figurine manufactured in a Venice workshop. Another had African ancestry (northern Sahara), but researchers are almost certain that he was born in England. The fourth man was a Moor with roots along the North African coast. He was no casual passenger. The Moor was a royal archer and likely belonged to the King’s Spears, Henry VIII’s private bodyguards.

7 The Missing Miniature

When Howard Carter found Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, the treasures stunned the world. Among the artifacts were model boats meant to be used by Tutankhamen (1341 BC–1323 BC) as transportation in the afterlife. After Carter removed them, the vessels ended up in the Luxor Museum in Egypt. By 1973, one miniature ship was officially missing.

In 2019, Mohamed Atwa, one of the museum’s directors, prepared for an exhibition. He felt the display could do with some Tut artifacts and rooted through the archives.

In one of the storerooms, Atwa found a box. Inside layers of newspapers rested pieces of a model boat. Atwa recognized the wooden parts at once. The rigging set, mast, and gold-wrapped head matched another tiny vessel from Tutankhamen’s tomb.^[4]

The newspapers were printed in 1933, which was probably the year that the miniature ship went missing. Not from mischief but because somebody forgot to record that they had repacked the artifact and moved the box.

6 The Moving Ghost Fleet

In 2017, a group of fifth graders visited Mallows Bay in Maryland. They looked at 200 wrecks from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and both World Wars. Over the years, the vessels were sunk on purpose. But today, they mesh together an artificial ecosystem for several species.

The children, ages 10 and 11, wanted to know more about the so-called ghost fleet. They pored over aerial maps marking the locations of the wrecks, looking specifically at maps compiled decades apart. The children wanted to see whether any ships had fallen apart or moved.^[5]

The maps showed that the fleet was partially on the move. Some had scooted far from their scuttling positions, moving downriver by as much as 32 kilometers (20 mi). The inquisitive youngsters also found the reason. Over time, sometimes centuries, the wrecks got nudged along by floods and storms.

5 Oldest Bell And Astrolabe

In the maritime tradition, the name Vasco da Gama is well-known. A lesser-known fact is that the Portuguese explorer’s uncle was a pirate. Vicente Sodre captained the Esmeralda, an armed ship assigned to protect Portugal’s trading interests.

In 1502, Sodre sailed with an armada to India. Then he went his own merry way to loot and destroy Arab ships. The following year, a storm sank the Esmeralda in Oman. There she stayed unnoticed until 1998, although excavation didn’t begin until 2013.

Subsequent dives returned to the surface with a fractured ship’s bell and something resembling an astrolabe. The latter was an exceptionally rare navigation device. It was a bit messed up from all the years under the sea, but scans revealed the now-invisible marks that once helped mariners to navigate. Analysis also placed the disk’s manufacturing date around 1496.

This was significant. Not only was it rare but the tool was also the oldest of roughly 100 astrolabes still in existence. Incredibly, the ship’s bell was also the earliest ever discovered. It was dated from an inscription that included the year 1498.^[6]

4 Titanic‘s Fire Damage

The RMS Titanic was on fire before it collided with an iceberg. When the liner departed from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and sailed for Southampton, England, coal bunker No. 6 was already smoldering.

Ship officials knew of the problem and struggled for three days to bring the fire under control. After the ship sank, the fire was brought up at the original inquiry. However, the incident was played down and the official ruling stated that the tragedy was caused by “an act of God.” New evidence suggests that criminal negligence was to blame.^[7]

In 2017, an investigator found new photos of the Titanic showing dark areas on the hull—specifically, near bunker No. 6 where the future iceberg would cause the worst damage. If the investigator’s calculations are correct (he spoke with metallurgy experts), the fire lit the hull to a hellish 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 °F).

This sapped up to 75 percent of the metal’s strength. This frailty amplified the collision’s damage. Healthy panels might have slowed or prevented the unexpected sinking of the Titanic.

3 The Columbus Mystery

The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria became infamous after they carried Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492. Their discovery would be unequaled by any other.

Despite decades of searching, nobody has found a single splinter. Columbus wrote that the Santa Maria hit a reef off Cap Haitien, Haiti, in 1492. The crew used the hull to raise a fortified village called La Navidad (also missing). There is no sign of the Santa Maria in the Caribbean, where teredo worms can consume a wooden wreck within years. The area was also trampled by 500 years’ worth of tropical storms—not good weather for a ship that went down in shallow waters.

Modern technology like sonar also fails to detect ships buried under centuries-old layers of sediment. The ships contained little metal as well, making a critical ship-finder tool, the magnetometer, useless. No record exists of what happened to Nina and Pinta after they returned to Europe. For that matter, Columbus sailed three more times with new fleets and none of those ships were found, either.^[8]

2 Mysterious Baris Found

Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, once described a ship. While moseying through Egypt in 450 BC, he watched the construction of a barge. Called a baris, it had a single rudder that passed through an opening in the keel, a mast of acacia wood, and sails from papyrus.

Herodotus wrote about planks cut in 100-centimeter (40 in) pieces and stacked like bricks. He described beams stretched over certain areas and seams sealed from within using papyrus. Archaeologists had never seen such a boat.

In 2000, an epic find revealed the submerged city of Thonis-Heracleion off the Egyptian coast. Among the ruins were over 70 ancient vessels. Ship 17 might have a boring name, but it was Herodotus’s elusive baris.^[9]

His writings described Ship 17’s unusual architecture. In turn, this explained enigmatic descriptions like “long internal ribs” which nobody understood until they saw Ship 17. Originally measuring 28 meters (92 ft) long, it revealed why the barges vanished. This baris was reused as a jetty, suggesting that the barges were incorporated into other structures as soon as they outlived their usefulness.

1 Missing World War II Wrecks

During World War II, the Battle of the Java Sea was fought between the Allied forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy near Indonesia. Several ships from Britain and the Netherlands were lost as well as a submarine from the United States.

In 2016, the area was scanned with sonar. To the outrage of many, Dutch vessels HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java as well as the British HMS Exeter and HMS Encounter had completely disappeared. Significant portions were also missing from the HMS Electra and HNLMS Kortenaer. The submarine, the USS Perch, was also nowhere to be found.

The region is lucrative for those stealing scrap metal. Indeed, illegal scavengers have been known to disguise themselves as fisherman and blow shipwrecks apart with explosives. This treatment sparked the outrage—the ships that sank in 1942 were also the war graves of hundreds of sailors.^[10]

However, the plot thickened when legal salvage companies and even Indonesian naval representatives claimed that the ships were too large and deep. Any attempt would require cranes, manpower, and months of activity, making a stealthy steal impossible.

We’re all familiar with the story of the RMS Titanic, the British passenger liner that hit an iceberg in the Atlantic ocean and sank during her maiden voyage in 1912. What few people realize, however, is that the Titanic was not the first ship to sink during its first journey, and by no means the last. Some faced a similarly overwhelming number of casualties, while others were more fortunate.

From German battleships to Dutch trading vessels, here are ten lesser-known ships that sank during their maiden voyages.

Related: Top 10 Remarkable Finds Involving Old Ships And Explorers

10 MS Zenobia (1979)

Close to the harbor of Larnaca in Cyprus, the wreck of the MS Zenobia lies 42 meters (138 feet) beneath the azure surface of the Mediterranean Sea. This Swedish-built ferry was put into service in late 1979, leaving on her maiden voyage from Malmö to Tartous in Syria in May 1980. While just off of Larnaca, early in the morning of June 2, 1980, the ship started to list. During the following five days, every possible effort was made to save her. However, in the early hours of June 7, she finally capsized and sank.

The most likely cause of the Zenobia’s sinking was her computerized ballasting system, which had caused reoccurring problems. Engineers discovered that a software error caused the system to pump excess water into the side ballast tanks. When this finally caused the ship to sink, cargo worth millions was taken with her, but remarkably, there were no casualties.^[1]

9 SMS Grosser Kurfürst (1875)

Built for the German Kaiserliche Marine, SMS Grosser Kurfürst was an ironclad turret ship that took eight years to complete. First laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in 1870, she was officially launched in 1875 but only fully completed three years later.

Steaming through the English Channel during her maiden voyage in May 1878, Grosser Kurfürst was accompanied by two other ships: the ironclad SMS König Wilhelm and SMS Preussen. When they encountered a group of fishing boats under sail, the three ships quickly turned to avoid them. In so doing, Grosser Kurfürst was rammed by König Wilhelm after accidentally crossing her path. Sinking within just eight minutes, over half of her 500-man crew were lost.^[2]

8 RMS Tayleur (1854)

Often described as “the first Titanic,” the RMS Tayleur was a full-rigged iron clipper ship chartered to serve the Australian trade routes. Built in just six months, she left Liverpool in England for her maiden voyage in January 1854. Within 48 hours of setting off, the crew believed that they were sailing through the Irish Sea but were, in fact, traveling westwards toward Ireland. It was later found that the ship’s compasses hadn’t worked properly due to the iron hull, so she had headed straight for the island of Lambay while caught in thick fog and storms. With an undersized rudder and slack rigging added to the mix, she ran aground on the east coast of the island.

Unable to lower the lifeboats without them smashing onto the rocks, the crew collapsed a mast onto the shore so that passengers could escape by clambering along it. Some of these individuals had carried ropes from the ship, which they then used to pull others to safety. The ship’s 29-year-old captain waited on board until the sea consumed her, leaving just the tops of her masts showing. After being alerted by a surviving passenger, the coast guard made their way to the wreck, where they encountered the last survivor. A man named William Vivers had managed to climb to the top of the rigging, where he waited 14 hours to be rescued. Of more than 650 passengers who had been on board when the Tayleur set sail, only 280 survived.^[3]

7 CSS Georgiana (1863)

This Confederate steamer was supposed to be one of the best-armed vessels in the Confederate Fleet. The SS Georgiana was built in Scotland before setting sail on its maiden voyage in 1863. Headed for South Carolina, she was due to be fitted out with the guns stored in the hold once she reached Charleston. However, as she approached her destination on March 19, she was met by the yacht America, which swiftly alerted the nearby battleship USS Wissahickon. With all her guns and defenses in storage, she was completely defenseless against the warship’s large guns, which quickly pierced the hull.

With the propeller and rudder destroyed and the hull quickly taking in water, the Georgiana’s captain signaled a surrender before breaching the boat. He then purposefully sank it to prevent it from being boarded before escaping to land with the entire crew. Furious that they wouldn’t be able to gain a reward for capturing the steamer, the Wissahickon crew set her on fire to prevent any looters from salvaging the cargo. The Georgiana was finally lost after burning and taking on water for several days.^[4]

6 RMS Magdalena (1948)

The RMS Magdalena was a passenger and refrigerated cargo ocean liner built in Belfast in 1948. She was built as a replacement for a ship that had been lost in 1940 and was to serve the route between England and South America. Bound for Buenos Aires, she set forth on her maiden voyage in March 1949.

In the early hours of April 25, the Magdalena approached Rio de Janeiro. Her crew found that she was half a nautical mile too far north of her intended position and took measures to correct it to not hit the Tijucas Rocks. Nevertheless, she hit them after the Third Officer mistook them for a ship without lights, then failed to sufficiently maneuver in time. The Brazilian Navy responded to the Magdalena’s SOS forecast by sending three chasers and three submarine destroyers. After many passengers were rescued, attempts were made to refloat the ship and tug her into Rio de Janeiro. She soon split in two, however, and both sections now lay just 11–13 meters (36–42 feet) beneath the waters of Guanabara Bay. While much of the cargo was salvaged, hundreds of oranges that had been on the Magdalena later washed up on Copacabana Beach.^[5]

5 RMS Amazon (1851)

The RMS Amazon was a wooden paddle steamer and Royal Mail Ship built in London to serve routes between Southampton and the Caribbean. The Amazon set sail on her maiden voyage on January 2, 1852, loaded with mail, expensive cargo, and 50 passengers. Within the first 24 hours, she came to a standstill twice after her engine bearings overheated. Then, upon entering the Bay of Biscay on January 4, she caught fire.

The fire quickly intensified to the extent that the engine rooms could no longer be reached. With the crew unable to stop the engines, the ship raced on during attempts to launch the lifeboats. Repeated efforts to lower them caused most of the occupants to be tossed into the water. The fire soon brought down the ship’s fore and mainmast, and the deck collapsed after the explosion of her magazine brought down the mizzen mast. Glowing red-hot, she finally sank about thirty minutes later, just off the coast of the Isles of Scilly.^[6]

4 KMS Bismarck (1941)

Intended to herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet, the state-of-the-art battleship Bismarck was launched at Hamburg on February 14, 1939. However, it wasn’t until two years later that she was able to make her maiden voyage. The British had been closely guarding ocean routes against Germany since the outbreak of the Second World War, meaning only U-Boats could move freely through the war zone. In May 1941, the Bismarck finally broke out into the Atlantic Ocean. Knowing that she would be impossible to track down in the open water and likely cause devastation on Allied convoys, the British sent almost their entire Home Fleet in pursuit.

The British Battleships Hood and Prince of Wales intercepted the Bismarck near Iceland, and a raging battle ensued. In a ferocious exchange, the Hood lost all but three of its 1,421 crew after she exploded and sank. Leaking fuel, the Bismarck then fled for occupied France but was soon sighted and attacked by British aircraft. Three British warships were then able to descend upon the Bismarck to inflict heavy damage. With numerous fires aboard, the pride of the German navy was soon unable to steer and listing severely, rendering her guns almost completely useless. The Bismarck quickly sank after the command went out to scuttle her, leaving only 115 of her 2,221 crew to survive.^[7]

3 MS Georges Philippar (1932)

Completed in January 1932, the ocean liner Georges Philippar was constructed for France’s Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes. The ship’s maiden voyage from Marseilles to China and Japan commenced in February 1932, despite prior threats made against her.

On May 16, as the Georges Philippar approached the Horn of Africa during her homeward run, a fire broke out in a piece of electrical equipment. Despite cutting power from the affected section of the ship, the fire spread rapidly, filling the cabins and passageways with dense smoke and affecting communications. She was brought to a stop to enable the lifeboats to be lowered, and while she listed, the order was given to abandon ship. The lifeboats had to be hosed down while they were launched to prevent them from being consumed by the flames. Many of the passengers even had to leap directly into the ocean to avoid the blaze, particularly those who had become trapped in their cabins. After being completely abandoned, the Georges Philippar drifted for a while before finally sinking to the depths of the ocean.^[8]

2 Batavia (1628)

Built in Amsterdam in 1628, the Batavia was the new flagship of the Dutch East India Company. She set sail on her maiden voyage in October 1628, headed for the Dutch East Indies. Valuable cargo and 340 passengers were on board, as well as a huge supply of trade gold and silver. What was to ensue has become known as one of the worst horror stories in maritime history.

A bankrupt merchant named Jeronimus Cornelisz was present on board and, together with a small number of the crew, planned a brutal mutiny. A crew member deliberately steered the ship off course, which caused her to hit Morning Reef near Beacon Island off the coast of Australia. Approximately forty people drowned as the ship sank, while the remaining passengers and crew were able to get ashore. With no water and limited food on the islands they were marooned on, the captain and his crew took off in a longboat to search for water.

As one of the survivors left behind, Cornelisz designated himself as the leader and gathered a band of supporters and fellow mutineers to help him eliminate any opponents. Together, they brutally murdered around 125 of the men, women, and children who had survived the wreck, keeping a small number of women as sex slaves. When the Batavia’s captain was eventually able to return with help, the mutineers were quickly arrested and later executed. Only one-third of the original passengers had survived Cornelisz’s atrocities.^[9]

1 Vasa (1628)

The vast, ornately decorated Swedish ship Vasa was the world’s most advanced warship when she set sail from Stockholm in 1628. Carrying an unprecedented number of bronze cannons and covered in intricate wooden carvings, the ship was celebrated by a huge public crowd that had gathered to see her embark on her maiden voyage. Just twenty minutes after setting sail, however, they watched on, horrified, as a strong gust of wind caused Europe’s most ambitious warship to topple over and sink.

A later inquest found that the ship had been too unstable, likely because the gun deck was far too heavy. This was probably the result of being designed and built by someone with no experience in building such a well-armed ship, as well as the construction being rushed by the king. The Vasa was raised intact in 1961 and, perfectly preserved, can be visited today in Stockholm’s Vasa Museum.^[10]

Mankind has been creating boats for about 8,000 years now. The earliest boats were either rafts or canoes and obviously pretty simple in their construction and function. If you’ve ever seen a modern super-yacht or aircraft carrier you know how significantly the times have changed. But the path from ancient raft of reeds strapped together up to your modern aircraft carriers is far from a straight line. There have been a number of curious twists and turns along the way.

10. SS Baychimo

You may not have heard of the SS Baychimo but it’s one of the most unusual ships in all of naval history. The thing that makes it unusual is the fact that, as of right now, no one even knows where it is.

Launched in 1914 by the Hudson Bay Company, the SS Baychimo was originally named Ångermanelfven after a river in Sweden, where it was built. It was a massive vessel that weighed 1,322 tons and was over 200 feet long. It was used throughout the Arctic of Canada to deliver provisions after the war. Prior to that it made runs from Sweden to Germany.

In 1931 it got trapped in the ice off the coast of Alaska. The crew left the ship and walked to the nearest town. Later, as the weather grew worse, storms ravaged it and at one point the temperature went from -60 all the way up to zero. When the crew went to check on the ship trapped in the ice they discovered it no longer was trapped. It just wasn’t there anymore.

Over the next several decades the ship was sighted again and again, sailing as a ghost ship across the ocean. It was last seen in 1969, nearly 40 years after it had been set loose to do its own thing.

Because it’s been so long since it’s been seen most people assume it sank some time ago, but no wreckage has ever been found and the path it managed to wander through the oceans was one that spanned hundreds of miles. So it’s entirely possible that it’s still out there somewhere. 

9. Project Habakkuk

During the Second World War, the British planned to create an aircraft carrier unlike any that had ever been seen before. Called Project Habakkuk, it wasn’t a vessel created from steel or wood; it was to be a 2,000 foot long vessel made from a substance called pykrete. Pykrete is what happens when you mix wood pulp into water and then freeze it. The result is even stronger than concrete. Bullets ricochet right off it. The entire vessel would be one giant, dirty ice cube.

While Habakkuk never came to fruition for the British in the war, a test version of it was constructed in Canada. Set into Lake Patricia in Alberta, Canada, the scale model was 60 feet long and weighed 1,000 tons. A 1-horsepower motor was used to keep it frozen. The project was eventually abandoned due to numerous impracticalities.

8. The FLIP Buoy 

The Floating Instrument Platform, or FLIP, is what happens when you want to have both a boat and a buoy at the same time and can’t decide between the two. It’s a research vessel on which scientists will spend weeks at a time doing studies on the open water. And while in motion it’s a ship that’s over 355 feet long, when it’s ready to do work the ballast tanks fill with water down three hundred feet of its entire length, causing it to flip forward at a right angle until only the habitable end is sticking up out of the water.

With three hundred feet of vessel under the water and just the last 50 ft floating above, it’s able to weather nearly any kind of rough seas without a risk of flipping over or sinking. The length of the vessel is well below the water that is disturbed by surface waves, so it’s simply bobs calmly on top of the water.

When the research is done, compressed air is forced into the ballast, the water drains out, and the boat flips back into position so that it can sail home again.

7.  The Plongeur Submarine

The French Plongeur submarine has a special place in history. It was the first submarine that was able to propel itself through mechanical power. First launched in 1863, you can imagine how terrifying it must have been at that time to trust a machine to take you under the water and somehow keep you alive.

Earlier subs had been powered by human energy — crews pedaling to keep the ship moving like an underwater bicycle. The Plongeur had a compressed air-powered engine and was far larger than anything before it. At 140 feet long, the ship also contained 23 tanks of compressed air which took up 403 cubic feet of space. 

The Plongeur made several successful journeys before it was decommissioned, mostly out of fears of its unstable design, it’s limited air supply, and the fact that technology improved enough to make better vessels 

6. Camel Supply 

If you’ve ever wondered how camels travel the world, then wonder no longer. The tale of the USS Supply, the most uncreatively named supply ship in US Naval history, can answer that question for you. 

In 1855, US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis crafted a mission to acquire camels so that the US Army could have a camel division. The goal was to have camels to navigate deserts in Mexico. The thinking was clearly that since camels were adapted to desert climates in the Middle East, they could handle desert climates in North America just as easily and give soldiers an upper hand. 

A 60 foot long camel barn was constructed on the USS Supply. By 1865 the ship had reached the Middle East and was loaded down with 33 camels from different regions of the Middle East to see which would adapt best to life in North America. 

It took 87 days to get back to America and inexplicably, despite leaving with 33 camels, they arrived home with 34 since a new one had been born along the way. Camels adapt well to ocean travel. A second trip brought back 41 camels.

The USS Supply had proven its worth as a camel carrier, but the camels themselves ended up being a failure as they adapted poorly to combat, they smelled terrible, and they had rather unpleasant attitudes if they didn’t like the person who was handling them. 

5. The Hughes Glomar Explorer

While the idea of a covert spy ship doesn’t seem that unusual, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was the CIA‘s clever attempt to retrieve a sunken Soviet vessel without anyone having any idea what was going on. The plan was for it to sneak in and snag a Soviet nuclear sub and then take off again without any outward sign that anything that ever happened.

The Explorer was originally built after a Soviet ballistic missile nuclear sub sank at the height of the Cold War. The Soviets were unable to determine exactly where the sub had gone down so they couldn’t salvage it themselves. Then the US Navy discovered it. 

The top secret construction of the vessel proved to be one of the strangest missions the CIA has ever conducted. The final product was so large it couldn’t even fit down the Panama Canal. The front and back ends of the ship were meant to bob and weave on waves while the center remained stable. The reason for that was it was essentially one of those giant claw machines you see in supermarkets. The plan was to grasp the sunken submarine some 17,000 feet below the surface of the ocean and make off with it. The ball bearings were apparently the size of bowling balls. 

Even more impressive than the construction was the fact that this all had to be done super secretly. Obviously the Soviets would not have approved if word got out, so the CIA came up with a cover story. Billionaire Howard Hughes designed the ship so he could farm manganese nodules at the bottom of the ocean. Front companies were set up and stories were leaked to the press. 

The ruse worked for a time, but the claw apparatus broke and then the cover story was blown. They never actually managed to retrieve the sub, but it was an impressive effort. 

4. USS Wolverine 

Most everyone knows what an aircraft carrier looks like. They’re the largest vessels on the sea and weigh upwards of 40,000 tons. It’s hard to imagine, then, that there was a second kind of aircraft carrier designed for use in freshwater. The Great Lakes had their own aircraft carriers, including the USS Wolverine. It was originally a side paddlewheel steamer that transported people from Cleveland to Buffalo. 

The Navy purchased the vessel in 1942 and set it up as a freshwater training aircraft carrier in the Great Lakes. It had none of the armaments that a normal carrier is outfitted with, and was smaller than a modern carrier, but it saw extensive use as a training vessel for pilots. In fact, over 17,000 pilots trained to land and take off from the Wolverine during the Second World War. 

3. HMS Zubian

During the First World War the Royal British Navy had two Tribal-Class warships known as the HMS Zulu and the HMS Nubian. Both vessels were badly damaged in 1916 but not destroyed. So, in a feat of naval ingenuity, the front of the Zulu was welded onto the back of the Nubian to create a brand new vessel – the HMS Zubian.

Despite being a Frankensten vessel, the Zubian saw extensive service during the war and proved its worth more than once. It even managed to sink a German U-Boat in 1918. The threat of submarines was so great the Navy couldn’t afford to lose any ships if they could avoid it, and forging a new ship from two old ones was more cost-effective and faster than starting from scratch.

2. Baron of Renfrew

We live in what some people call a disposable culture these days. Everything from razors to coffee pods are designed to be used and tossed out. That seems normal to us, but the idea of a 304 foot long wooden ship, the largest wooden ship ever built, being built to be tossed out still seems a little odd.

The Baron of Renfrew was built as a single use vessel. It was a little bit of a scam, meant to ship timber from the New World to Europe. The ship itself would be taken apart when it got where it was going and the wood that was used in its construction would be tax exempt because it was part of the ship, as opposed to the cargo. Things didn’t go quite as planned and the ship started taking on water. Timber washed up on shore in France, having almost reached its destination.

1. Ramform Titan

When you need to measure seismic activity or do surveys at sea the Ramform Titan is the ship on which to do it. Shaped like a giant wedge of cheese, the Titan has an insanely powerful engine that produces 26.4 megawatts of power. For some perspective, a giant wind turbine produces about two megawatts of power, which is enough to power about 400 average homes. So the engine here could power over 5,000 homes.

The massive design is meant to be stable in any weather, so crews could safely work even in the middle of a storm at sea. The vessel is capable of running survey streams behind it, 24 in total, that can span well over 100 kilometers in length. In fact, in 2015 they ran 129.6 kilometers of streamers during a survey, breaking a world record.