On Google Maps it looks like we know so much… but we know less about the ocean floor than we do the surface of Mars.
And that’s a big problem, because we are using the ocean all the time: We’re laying internet cables across it, we fight wars in it, we search it during a crisis - like the imploded OceanGate Titan submersible or the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Video showing how deep our oceans really are. Video by MetaBallStudioshttps://t.co/RihK6ZT8oM
71% of the surface of the Earth is water! And yet we have a surprisingly limited view of what’s below it.
But that’s also understandable. Because cartographically speaking, water sucks. For Mars or Earth’s surface, we can take pictures. But light doesn’t get to the ocean floor, so we need other ways to see it.
The good news is, we’re developing that tech right now, and an international group called Seabed 2030 is working to piece together a better map.
There is a terrifying, incredible, alien world on our own planet, and we’re FINALLY using technology to see it more clearly.
In this episode of Huge If True, I dive deep - with help from my friend and fellow video journalist @johnnyharris - to show you how we’re mapping the ocean, the surprising things we’ve discovered in the depths, and why this new technology could be… huge if true :)
This stunning image by amateur photographer Nima Sarikhani just won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award.
"Sarikhani's breathtaking and poignant image allows us to see the beauty and fragility of our planet," Natural History Museum director Dr Douglas Gurr said.
"His thought-provoking image is a stark reminder of the integral bond between an animal and its habitat and serves as a visual representation of the detrimental impacts of climate warming and habitat loss."
Sarikhani made the image after three days searching for polar bears through thick fog off Norway's Svalbard archipelago.
It’s the body of water that instils fear and inspires sailors in equal measure. Six hundred miles of open sea, and some of the roughest conditions on the planet – with an equally inhospitable land of snow and ice awaiting you at the end of it.
“The most dreaded bit of ocean on the globe – and rightly so,” Alfred Lansing wrote of explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1916 voyage across it in a small lifeboat. It is, of course, the Drake Passage, connecting the southern tip of the South American continent with the northernmost point of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Once the preserve of explorers and sea dogs, the Drake is today a daunting challenge for an ever-increasing number of travelers to Antarctica – and not just because it takes up to 48 hours to cross it. For many, being able to boast of surviving the “Drake shake” is part of the attraction of going to the “white continent.” But what causes those “shakes,” which can see waves topping nearly 50 feet battering the ships? And how do sailors navigate the planet’s wildest waters? For oceanographers, it turns out, the Drake is a fascinating place because of what’s going on under the surface of those thrashing waters. And for ship captains, it’s a challenge that needs to be approached with a healthy dose of fear.
The world’s strongest storms
The Drake Passage can see waves of up to 49 feet. Mike Hill/Stone RF/Getty Images
At around 600 miles wide and up to 6,000 meters (nearly four miles) deep, the Drake is objectively a vast body of water. To us, that is. To the planet as a whole, less so.
The Antarctic Peninsula, where tourists visit, isn’t even Antarctica proper. It’s a thinning peninsula, rotating northwards from the vast continent of Antarctica, and reaching towards the southern tip of South America – the two pointing towards each other, a bit like a tectonic version of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel.
That creates a pinch point effect, with the water being squeezed between the two land masses – the ocean is surging through the gap between the continents.
“It’s the only place in the world where those winds can push all around the globe without hitting land – and land tends to dampen storms,” says oceanographer Alexander Brearley, head of open oceans at the British Antarctic Survey.
Winds tend to blow west to east, he says – and the latitudes of 40 to 60 are notorious for strong winds. Hence their nicknames of the “roaring forties,” “furious fifties” and “screaming sixties” (Antarctica officially starts at 60 degrees).
But winds are slowed by landmass – which is why Atlantic storms tend to smash into Ireland and the UK (as they did, causing havoc, with Storm Isha in January buffeting planes to entirely different countries) and then weaken as they continue east to the European continent.
With no land to slow them down at the Drake’s latitude anywhere on the planet, winds can hurtle around the globe, gathering pace – and smashing into ships.
Drake Passage with the GeoGarage platform (UKHO nautical raster map)
“In the middle of the Drake Passage the winds may have blown over thousands of kilometers to where you are,” says Brearley. “Kinetic energy is converted from wind into waves, and builds up storm waves.” Those can reach up to 15 meters, or 49 feet, he says. Although before you get too alarmed, know that the mean wave height on the Drake is rather less – four to five meters, or 13-16 feet. That’s still double what you’ll find in the Atlantic, by way of comparison.
And it’s not just the winds making the waters rough – the Drake is basically one big surge of water. “The Southern Ocean is very stormy in general [but] in the Drake you’re really squeezing [the water] between the Antarctic and the southern hemisphere,” he adds. “That intensifies the storms as they come through.” He calls it a “funneling effect.”
Then there’s the speed at which the water is thrashing through. The Drake is part of the most voluminous ocean current in the world, with up to 5,300 million cubic feet flowing per second. Squeezed into the narrow passage, the current increases, traveling west to east. Brearley says that at surface level, that current is less perceptible – just a couple of knots – so you won’t really sense it onboard. “But it does mean you’ll travel a bit more slowly,” he says.
For oceanographers, he says, the Drake is “a fascinating place.”
It’s home to what he calls “underwater mountains” below the surface – and the enormous current squeezing through the (relatively) narrow passage causes waves to break against them underwater. These “internal waves,” as he calls them, create vortices which bring colder water from the depths of the ocean higher up – important for the planet’s climate.
“It’s not just turbulent at the surface, though obviously that’s what you feel the most – but it’s actually turbulent all the way through the water column,” says Brearley, who regularly crosses the Drake on a research ship. Does he get scared?
“I don’t think I’ve ever been really fearful, but it can be very unpleasant in terms of how rough it is,” he says candidly. Fear breeds fear
In 2010, tourist ship Clelia II declared an emergency after suffering engine failure in the Drake.
Fiona Stewart, Garett McIntosh/AP
One other key thing that makes the Drake so scary: our fear of the Drake itself.
Brearley points out that until the Panama Canal opened in 1914, ships going from Europe to the west coast of the Americas had to dip round Cape Horn – the southern tip of South America – and then trundle up the Pacific coast.
“Let’s say you were shipping goods from western Europe to California. You either had to offload them in New York and do the journey across the US, or you had to go all the way around,” he says. It wasn’t just large cargo ships, either; passenger ships made the same route.
There’s even a monument at the tip of Cape Horn, in memorial of the more than 10,000 sailors who are believed to have died traveling through.
“The routes between the south of South Africa and Australia, or Australia or New Zealand to Antarctica, don’t really lie on any major shipping routes,” says Brearley. “The reason it’s been so feared over the centuries is because the Drake is where ships really have to go. Other parts [of the Southern Ocean] can be avoided.”
‘We don’t gamble’
Captain Stanislas Devorsine regularly crosses the Drake. Sue Flood/Ponant Photo Ambassador
Navigating the Drake is an extremely complex task that demands humility and a side of fear, says Captain Stanislas Devorsine, one of three captains of Le Commandant Charcot, a polar vessel of adventure cruise company Ponant. “You have to have a healthy fear,” he says of the Drake. “It’s something that keeps you focused, alert, sensitive to the ship and the weather. You need to be aware that it can be dangerous – that it’s never routine.”
Devorsine made his Drake debut as a captain over 20 years ago, sailing an icebreaker full of scientists over to Antarctica for a research stint. “We had very, very rough seas – more than 20 meter [66 feet] swells,” he says. “It was very windy, very rough.” Not that Ponant’s clients face anything like that. Devorsine is quick to point out that the comfort levels for a research ship – and the conditions it will sail in – are very different from those for a cruise. “We are extremely cautious – the ocean is stronger than us,” he says. “We’re not able to go in terrible weather. We go in rough seas but always with a big safety margin. We’re not gambling.”
Even with that extra safety margin, though, he admits that crossing the Drake can be a hairy experience. “It can be very rough and very dangerous, so we take special care,” he says. “We have to choose the best time to cross the Drake. We have to adapt our course – sometimes we don’t head in our final direction, we alter the course to have a better angle with the waves. We might slow down to leave a low pressure path ahead, or speed up to pass one before it arrives.” The ‘Drake shake’ and broken plates
Captains check the weather up to six times a day before departure to ensure a safe crossing. Jamie Lafferty
Of course, every time you get on a ship – whether it’s a simple ferry ride or a fancy cruise – the crew will already have meticulously planned the journey, checking everything from the weather to the tides and currents. But planning for a crossing of the Drake is on a whole new level.
Weather forecasting has improved in the two decades since Devorsine’s first ride, he says – and these days crew start planning the voyage while passengers are making their way to South America from all over the globe.
Sometimes they leave late; sometimes they head back early, to beat bad weather. Devorsine – who makes the return journey about six to eight times per year – estimates that the unusually calm “Drake lake” effect happens once in every 10 crossings, with particularly rough conditions (that “Drake shake”) once or twice in every 10 journeys.
Of course, he knows what’s in store long before the passengers reach the ship.
“We look ahead to have the best option to cross. Normally I look at the weather 10 days or a week before, just to have an idea of what it could be,” he says.
“Then I check the forecast once per day, then two or three days before departure I start looking at it twice per day. If it’s going to be a challenging passage you look every six hours. If you have to adjust your departure time, then you look at it very closely to be very accurate.”
His safety margin means that he’s calculating a route that will get you across not just alive, but also as comfortably as possible. Hearing an anecdote about broken crockery and furniture on another operator, he sighs, “That’s a bit too far for me.”
“Before you have any issue with a storm, you have to keep a comfortable ship,” he says. The safety margin is to be sure that the guests will enjoy being in Antarctica, and that we won’t turn around because we have a problem… like injured people.”
In extreme conditions, he orders extra weather advice from Ponant HQ, but if you’re imagining the staff on the bridge desperately radioing for advice as waves batter the ship, think again.
“It would never happen to be in the middle of the Drake with bad conditions, needing assistance from headquarters because it would mean we didn’t have any safety margin before departure. When we cross and it’s going to be challenging, we have a big safety margin and the ship is not at all in danger.”
They are in contact with headquarters with high level satellite antennae throughout the crossing, with both satellite and radio backup if needed – Devorsine says he can’t imagine ever losing contact, whatever the weather.
A dangerous thrill
Aurora Expeditions' Greg Mortimer ship has a patented bow to make a Drake crossing more stable. Tyson Mayr/Aurora Expeditions
Devorsine, who now spends 90% of his time sailing in polar waters, feels at home on the Drake. “When I was a little child, I read books about the maritime adventures of sailors and polar heroes,” he says. “I was attracted by tough things – I like challenges. This is why I followed the path to be able to sail in these areas.”
His first experience of the area was doing a “race around the world” in a sailboat as a youngster, heading south from his native France and rounding Cape Horn. “It was my dream because it’s difficult, dangerous and challenging,” he says.
He’s not the only one. Some guests are drawn to Antarctica trips because of the tough journey. “I guess [they] are attracted by these areas [of the Southern Ocean] because it’s wild, it can be rough, and it’s a unique experience to go there,” he says.
Not everone’s a thrill-seeker though. As managing director of Mundy Adventures, an adventure travel agency, Edwina Lonsdale is dealing with a clientele already used to discomfort – yet she says crossing the Drake is a “conversation topic” during booking. “it’s something we would raise to make sure people are completely aware of what they’re buying,” she says. “[Going to Antarctica] is a huge investment – you need to talk through every aspect and make sure nothing’s an absolute no.”
Lonsdale advises that passengers nervous of feeling sick should choose their ship carefully. In the past, vessels heading to Antarctica tended to be uncomfortable metal boxes built to take a heavy beating. But in recent years, companies have introduced more technically advanced vessels: like Le Commandant Charcot, which was the world’s first passenger vessel with a Polar Class 2 hull – meaning it can go deeper and further into the ice in polar regions – when it debuted in 2021.
Movie recorded on an Expedition Cruise to the Antarctic Circle, February/March 2011.
On Sunday 6th March we were sailing through the Drake Passage back to mainland Argentina on our ship, the MS Expedition, when a big storm blew up.
The Captain reported it was a Force 12, with gusts of wind upto 70 Knots and 30-40ft waves/swell. Certainly a lovely and exciting crossing, and totally living upto the name "Drake Shake", when storms like this happen on this stretch of water.
Two of Aurora Expeditions’ ships, the Greg Mortimer and Sylvia Earle, use a patented inverted bow, designed to slide gently through the waves, reducing impact and vibration and improving stability, rather than “punching” through the water as a regular bow shape does, which makes the bow rock up and down.
Lonsdale says that the fancier the vessel and the offerings onboard, the more distractions you’ll have if bad weather hits. Newer boats often have more spacious rooms and bigger windows so that you can watch the horizon, which helps to lessen seasickness. If the budget allows, she says, book a suite – you won’t just get more space, you’ll (likely) have floor-to-ceiling windows, too.
But a word of advice – she recommends a careful selection not just of the right operator for you, but of the ship itself. “Just because a company has a fleet with a very modern ship doesn’t mean the whole fleet will be like that,” she says.
‘Act before you start spewing’
At Cape Horn there's a monument marking the 10,000 sailors thought to have died navigating the Drake. DreamPictures/Photodisc/Getty Images
So you’ve conquered your fears, booked your ticket and you’re about to set sail. Bad news: the captain is predicting the Drake shake. What to do?
Hopefully you’ve come prepared. Most ships have ginger candies on offer during bad weather, but bring your own, as well as any anti-seasickness medication you want to take. Some passengers swear by acupressure “seeds”: tiny spikes, attached to your ears with a sticking plaster, designed to stimulate acupuncture points. Some ships offer acupuncture onboard; alternatively you can get it done beforehand, since the seeds last for some time.
Devorsine’s top tips are to keep your eyes on the horizon, hold onto the handrail when walking around, be careful around doors, and “don’t jump out of bed.”
Jamie Lafferty, a photographer who leads excursions on Antarctic cruises, says that of his 30-odd crossings, “I’ve had one where it felt like I was going to fall out of bed and that was the second time, way back in 2010 when there was a lot more guesswork involved. Crossing the Drake Passage is much, much more benign than it used to be thanks to the accuracy of modern forecasting models and stabilizers on more modern cruise ships. This doesn’t mean it’ll be smooth, but it’s vastly less chaotic and unpredictable than it used to be.”
His top tip? “Take seasickness medication before heading out into open sea – once you start spewing, tablets aren’t going to be any use.”
Warren Cairns, senior researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy, has a bit of extra help.
“The only thing that works for me is going to the ship’s medic for a scopolamine patch,” he says. “It’s so rough, normal seasickness pills are just to get me to the infirmary.” Although he has it worse than the average tourist – on trips to Antarctica, their research ships have to pause for hours to take samples. “The waves come from all sorts of directions as the thrusters keep it in place,” he says. “When you’re underway it’s a much more regular motion.”
Lonsdale says it’s important not to fight it if you feel ill: “Just go to bed.” But equally, she says, don’t expect it: “It may be calm. You may not feel ill.”
People suffer differently from seasickness she says. “The Pacific has very long, slow swells, Channel crossings [between the UK and France] have quite a bouncy experience. Lots of people say crossing the Drake in very rough weather is uneven enough to not make them ill at all.” On that plate-smashing crossing, for example, this reporter – who was watching 40-foot waves from the observation deck – never got sick.
Remember that however it feels, you’re safe. “There’s an extraordinary level of safety in the build of those ships doing this,” says Lonsdale. Add in the safety margins that the likes of Devorsine build in, and you’re in uncomfortable, but not dangerous, territory.
And if all else fails, remember why you’re there.
“The motivation and excitement to discover those latitudes is very important to fight the seasickness,” says Devorsine. Lonsdale agrees. “If you were going to the moon, you’d expect the journey to be uncomfortable but it’d be worth it,” she says. “You just have to think, ‘This is what I need to get from one world to another.’”
Which is annoying; wave energy is super-reliable, super-predictable, and available 24/7 at coastlines worldwide, which is right where a lot of people tend to like living.
It should be a dream addition to the renewable energy mix.
But it's moving so slowly that you have to wonder where the holdup is.
WaveRoller - Plug Into Wave Energy
The idea behind the Waveroller struck when a diver noticed a large hatch on a shipwreck moving back and forth with considerable power as waves passed over it, and wondered if the same "surge" effect, which causes water particles to move back and forth in horizontal elliptical shapes close to the shore, could be harnessed to drive a hydraulic piston and generate electricity.
That light bulb moment was in 1993, when Michael Jordan was cementing Charles Barkeley's legacy as a ringless wonder in the NBA Finals, and The Simpsons was hitting its stride in season five.
We're talking "who needs a Quickie-Mart" and Homer joining a barbershop quartet.
That long ago.
It took until 1999 to test a proof of concept, then until 2005 before small-scale test farms were installed in Scotland and Ecuador, then until 2016 to get a design manufactured, assembled, tested and certified around Europe.
The first commercial WaveRoller, a 350-kW unit, was connected to the grid in 2019, 800 m (2,600 ft) off the Portuguese coast at Peniche.
Here it is, brand spankers, being towed out and deployed.
WaveRoller deployment
Aaaand here it is, being pulled out for inspection two years later.
Part of the problem might be fairly clear; the ocean is a harsh mistress.
Anything you leave in there is battered by salt, eaten by corrosion and merrily settled by barnacles
Mind you, AW Energy wasn't unhappy with this result: "We are delighted to confirm that the unit and its external components are in excellent condition, just take a look at the photo as proof of this system’s durability and quality," reads the company Facebook page from the day it was hauled ashore.
Since 2020, the company has worked on a project supported by EU funding, to adapt the WaveRoller and its associated bits and pieces for serial manufacturing, as well as for deployment in arrays of between 10-24 WaveRoller units.
These arrays, called WaveFarms, will sit on the sea bed between 8 and 12 meters of depth, no further than 2 km (1.3 miles) from shore.
Each WaveRoller is rated for 1 MW of peak power production, and in a 2023 study published in Renewable Energy, we learn that each is expected to produce between 624-813 MWh per year.
In terms of levelized cost of energy (LCoE), the WaveRoller comes out by far the most cost-competitive of the five technologies studied, with a LCoE of US$100-150/MWh.
That's well within reach of offshore wind, for comparison, which cost somewhere between US$82-255/MWh in 2022 according to the US DoE, and has enjoyed many years of commercial development to get costs into that ballpark.
The WaveRoller sits on the sea floor, partially or fully submerged, harnessing the surge effect caused by waves as they approach the shore
Matthew Pech, CFO of AW-Energy, said in a press release that WaveRoller can “deliver electricity closer to baseload power than other renewables, and keep Europe at the forefront of innovative renewable technologies.”
The WaveFarm project "enabled AW-Energy to take significant steps towards positive cash generation, both for the company and the European ocean energy sector, by readying the technology and the company for commercial deployment of the devices, and in developing the sales pipeline itself. ”
The company "envisions a global project pipeline of 150 MW for the WaveFarm solution," and "anticipates an addition of €275 million to the European economy and the creation of 500 jobs over the next decade."
Said pipeline is looking a tad bare as it stands; the company has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a clean energy company in Namibia, with a view to deploy a WaveFarm on the coast of Swakopmud.
The MoU is a rather slippery document, worth more than a handshake but much less than a contract. That's about all we can find at this point, no matter how much the company is envisioning.
Forgive our impatience here, but we're gunning for cost-effective clean energy solutions that can bolster renewable power grids globally.
It's been 31 years since the light bulb moment in this case, so how long's it going to be until waves are powering more actual light bulbs?
The United Nations believes that there are at least three million shipwrecks on the ocean floors, sparking a centuries-long obsession with these sunken vessels and the wealth they might carry.
Shipwrecks–there’s something infinitely fascinating about them. Whether it be a wreck as famous as the Titanic or the lesser-known shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, every single one of them is interesting. These shipwrecks have spawned books, movies, and even songs like Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.
Maritime history is full to the brim of shipwreck stories, and their individual tales of heroism, tragedy, and everything in between.
For those interested in the history of shipwrecks, there is plenty of material to keep them busy, because it’s estimated that there are at least 3 million shipwrecks scattered across the ocean floors.
Here we won’t be able to go over those 3 million wrecks, but we are going to take a look at the most famous shipwrecks in history. When it comes to man versus the power of the ocean (or lake!) we don’t always win, and these shipwrecks offer a stark reminder of that truth.
The USS Arizona
Name: USS Arizona (BB-39) Type of Ship: Pennsylvania-class battleship Length: 608 ft (185.3 m) Date of Wreck: December 7, 1942 Reason for Wreck: Sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor
The USS Arizona was the second Pennsylvania-class battleship ever built, and it would be the last. Like other ships on that fateful day, the USS Arizona was sunk when Japan launched its attack on Pearl Harbor off the coast of Hawaii.
Just past 8 a.m. on December 7, ten Nakajima B5N2 Japanese torpedo bombers attacked the Arizona. The Arizona was hit by a number of bombs, causing the battleship to sink beneath the waves, killing 1,177 crew members that were aboard.
USS Arizona
While the four hits landed by the Japanese planes were the catalyst for the sinking, what truly destroyed the battleship was the magazine explosion that detonated in response to the bombs.
The results of the magazine explosion were devastating, sealing the fate of the USS Arizona.
In 1989, the USS Arizona was declared a National Historic Landmark. It remains where it sank, and is visited by over 2 million people a year.
RMS Titanic
Name: RMS Titanic Type of Ship: Olympic-class ocean liner Length: 882 ft 9 in (269.1 m) Date of Wreck: April 15, 1912 Reason for Wreck: Struck an iceberg, broke in half, and sank.
No list of famous shipwrecks is complete without the RMS Titanic. Once called the unsinkable ship, the RMS Titanic sank on its maiden voyage, cementing itself in history as the most memorable shipwreck of all time.
When the ship went down, it took 1,514 lives with it. The Titanic’s tragic sinking inspired media such as James Cameron’s 1997 hit movie Titanic.
In 1985 an expedition was finally able to find the remains of the Titanic, and this allowed the discovery that the ship had been split in two before sinking. For the first time since its sinking, the world was able to look upon the Titanic once more, reigniting interest in the ship that is still going strong today.
Subsequent expeditions to the Titanic have been fairly common, but the depth that the ship is at makes visiting it incredibly dangerous.
This was made tragically apparent when in June 2023 a submarine, Titan, created by the company OceanGate was lost while taking civilians down to see the Titanic. The small submersible imploded, and all 5 lives on board were lost.
RMS Lusitania
Name: RMS Lusitania Type of Ship: Ocean liner Length: 787 ft (239.9 m) Date of Wreck: May 7, 1915 Reason for Wreck: Hit by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat
Unlike the aforementioned ocean liner, the Titanic, the RMS Lusitania lived a long and productive life before her sinking. Lusitania completed 202 trans-Atlantic crossings during her time in service.
During World War I, many ships were converted for battle, and while Lusitania could be converted to an armed merchant cruiser if needed, she was operating as a commercial passenger ship (although she was carrying some munitions, they made up a small portion of her total cargo).
It was during one of these commercial cruises when a torpedo from German U-boat U-20 struck her on the starboard bow.
The loss of life was catastrophic–out of 1,962 passengers and crew, 1,191 perished.
It didn’t take long to locate the wreckage of the Lusitania–it was found on October 6, 1935, only 11 miles from the lighthouse at Kinsale, Ireland. Due to the nature of its sinking, it was in poor shape, but four propellers were recovered, with three being put on display.
The sinking of the Lusitania caused anger and shock to ripple across the world, and along with Pearl Harbor, her sinking greatly contributed to the US joining World War II.
HMS Erebus and Terror
Name: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror Type of Ship: Hecla-class bomb vessel and Vesuvius-class bomb vessel Length: 105 ft (32 m) and 102 ft (31.09 m) Date of Wreck: Roughly assumed to have been abandoned in April of 1848 Reason for Wreck: Caught in ice flow, damaged, and abandoned.
Once one of the greatest mysteries in maritime history, some light has been shed on the sinking of the Erebus and Terror in recent years, but there are still countless unanswered questions.
Unlike most of the ships on our list, it’s difficult to pinpoint when the Erebus and Terror sank, but what we do know is that the entire crew of both ships were lost.
The Erebus and Terror set off from Europe to find the Northwest Passage in 1845. The expedition was named after the captain of the Erebus, Captain Sir John Franklin. Within 3 years, the ships were abandoned, trapped in the ice, and hopelessly stuck.
What happened to the crew from there is still unknown, but some hypotheses are death by exposure after abandoning the ships or lead poisoning from faulty welding on the cans of food.
Many missions were sent out over the years to discover the fate of the Franklin Expedition, but it wasn’t until September 2, 2014, that the Erebus was discovered. Almost exactly two years later on September 3, 2016, the Terror was also found.
Both wrecks were in amazing condition considering how old they were. Remarkably, the ship’s bell was recovered from the Erebus and can be viewed at Nattilik Heritage Centre, in Gjoa Haven, King William Island, Nunavut, Canada.
SS Sultana
Name: Sultana Type of Ship: Steamboat Length: 260 feet Date of Wreck: April 27, 1865 Reason for Wreck: Boiler explosion caused by faulty repairs
It might surprise you to learn that the deadliest maritime disaster in United States history isn’t an ocean liner or even a battleship. The holder of this unfortunate record is actually a steamboat, called the SS Sultana, and she went down in the Mississippi River.
Sultana was a passenger steamboat, and her capacity was listed at 376 passengers. On the morning of April 15, 1865, steamboat Captain James Mason was offered a deal.
A boat was needed to take released Union prisoners of war from the south to the northern states now that they were free. Mason would be paid by the head for the prisoners he could take, and he readily agreed.
On April 24, she was loaded with prisoners as well as normal passengers and crew members. Despite the Sultana only having a capacity of 376, she was severely overloaded, and by the time she left port she was carrying 2,128 people.
The overloaded ship, combined with a faulty boiler that had only been haphazardly repaired, was a recipe for disaster.
On the night of April 27, the boilers on board violently exploded without warning. The hot steam and the force of the explosion killed many people in an instant. The steamboat caught fire once the furnace boxes were exposed, and even more lives were lost when the damaged smokestacks began to collapse on passengers.
Those who survived the initial blast had to compete with the freezing water of the Mississippi. Luckily, some were saved by other nearby ships, but many weren’t so fortunate.
The wreck of the Sultana was not found at the bottom of the river when it was discovered. Instead, the burnt wreckage was found in 1982 beneath a Soybean field in Arkansas.
This strange placement occurred because of the Mississippi River’s ever-changing course, which left the remains of the tragic steamboat on dry land.
MV Doña Paz
Name: MV Doña Paz (formerly the Himeyuri Maru) Type of Ship: Passenger ferry Length: 305 ft (93.1 m) Date of Wreck: December 20, 1987 Reason for Wreck: Collision with the MT Vector
When the Doña Paz was first built, she went by a much different name, the Himeyuri Maru. Built in Japan, Doña Paz was launched in 1963, but by 1975 she was purchased by a shipping line in the Philippines known as Sulpicio Lines.
The capacity of the Doña Paz was 1,518 passengers, but the night she sank, she was severely overcrowded and was carrying over 4,000 passengers.
Thousands of these passengers were not listed on the manifest, making rescue and recovery even more difficult.
Doña Paz was on the way to Manila when, on December 20, 1987, she collided with an oil tanker called the MT Vector.
The collision itself was terrible and violent, but it also caused oil to leak from the Vector and both ships to catch fire. One survivor recounts that there was so much oil that even the sea was burning.
Along with being overcrowded, the Doña Paz was wholly unfit for any sort of passenger travel, but this wasn’t known until it was too late.
Sources suggest that the Doña Paz didn’t have a radio, making it impossible for the Vector to warn them of the oncoming collision. This also made it impossible for Doña Paz to call for help once she was struck. Even worse, the crew made no efforts to organize or provide any assistance to the passengers in the panic.
But the worst piece of negligence discovered was that the life jacket lockers were locked up.
Doña Paz sank in two hours, and her few survivors were forced into the freezing, shark-filled water in the dark. They were surrounded by the dead and the drowning with no life jackets and no sense of where they were. Two hours after that, the Vector sank as well.
The sinking of the Doña Paz is the deadliest peacetime disaster in maritime history. While the true number of passengers is unknown, when combined with the death toll from the Vector, 4,385 people died that night, and only 26 would survive.
The wrecks of both the Doña Paz and the Vector were found at the same time, in April 2019. Video footage of the discovery was released, and both ships were found to be in good condition.
SS Edmund Fitzgerald
Name: SS Edmund Fitzgerald Type of Ship: Lake freighter Length: 729 ft (222 m) Date of Wreck: November 10, 1975 Reason for Wreck: Lost in a storm on Lake Superior
When she was launched, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, and while she doesn’t hold that distinction anymore, she does remain the largest to ever sink on the Great Lakes.
The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is somewhat of a mystery–not for the reason, which was unquestionably the storm over Lake Superior that night–but in the details. The last time the ship was radioed, her captain answered a simple “We’re holding our own.”
And the Edmund Fitzgerald was never heard from again.
We don’t have an exact time that the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, but we do know that it was on November 10, 1975. At the time, the storm that the ship was mired in had sustained winds over 50 knots, and waves as high as 25 were recorded.
By the time she sank, Edmund Fitzgerald had reported to the ship that was following behind, the Arthur M. Anderson, that she was taking on water, and that the ship had developed a list.
Not long after that report, Captain Earnest M. McSorley of the Edmund Fitzgerald radioed the Arthur M. Anderson to let her know that the radar on the Fitzgerald had failed and asked the Anderson to keep track of the ailing ship.
The last haunting correspondence was received on the Anderson at 7:10 p.m. that night. The Anderson couldn’t find Fitzgerlad on their radar, and there was no sign of the bigger ship.
Captain Cooper of the Arthur M. Anderson was a hero that night, even if the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost. Cooper waited only nine minutes after the last transmission to call the United States Coast Guard and report trouble for the other ship.
He was initially brushed off, and Cooper contacted other ships to have them check their radar for the Edmund Fitzgerald instead, to no avail. He continued to call the USCG throughout the night until finally he was taken seriously.
The discovery of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was accomplished by a U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft that was used to detect magnetic anomalies–usually submarines, but in this case, the lake freighter–on November 14, 1975.
