This might sound weird but my Great Grandfather was the second mate on the Naronic. He lived with his young family in Seaforth and after the tragedy his wife and children went to live in Ilford Essex with her sister. Can you tell me whether the photo of the officers is actually of the Naronic crew and which one of them might be Herbert Burbidge ? Thank you in advance Mark Burbidge.
@@fredrichnicecar You're quite welcome. If you are a Titanic fan, the two officers in back are (L) Charles Lightoller and (R) with the darker moustache, William Murdoch.
As a child I remember actually writing to Harland and Wolff practically begging them for any resources on the Naronic and Bovic. I got a response with their listed tonnages and that was about it. Great to see more ppl hearing about the story
A lot of the old White Star records have been lost to time and more specifically fires and bombings during both World Wars and the included century of time that came with them. I remember following Titanic Honor and Glory who talked about H&W actually accidentally finding old plans for the Olympic class ships clearing out an old building. Tragically wrecks and disappearances are the only way these ships gain any form of memorial immortality. Unless we can find the wreck their Listed Tonnage and maybe a blueprint will likely be all that's left. Trust me I understand your desire to know more though I feel the same about the 1850's Collins Steamer Atlantic that sank in a collision with another ship also in the same region as the Titanic disaster.
One would think the White Star Line would have learned their lesson sailing into the Bermuda triangle of the North Atlantic in Jan/Feb----- With gales and icebergs always prevalent in the area----- But, this was a time when man thought he had conquered nature--- IE: The Greatest, The Biggest, The Grandest, and the UNSINKABLE------ The Titanic, the Hindenburg, and failed missions to Mt. Everest and the Antarctic have proven time and time again that Mother Nature will always win out--------
Your comment about the crews being replaceable reminds me of the most heinous practice of the day. Had anyone survived, their pay would have been stopped from the moment she sank.
You would think it would behoove the White Star company to take a more southernly route through the Atlantic. It seems their ships and icebergs didn't get along too well.
The further south you go, the longer the route. Another words it’s cheaper to go further north from Liverpool to New York. It’s part of a great circle route.
People often talk about how passengers were reluctant to get into the lifeboats on the Titanic, but the reality was that lifeboats were death traps and really the very last resort. Most of the deaths on the Britannic were people in the lifeboats. Getting into the lifeboats too soon was also a problem: this is likely what happened on the Mary Celeste.
When the SS Clallam ran aground, the decision was made far too early to launch the life boats. The boats were mostly filled with all of the women and children aboard, and the only deaths of Clallam’s sinking were those in the lifeboats. All who remained aboard her survived.
In rough seas, sure. But in the conditions of April 12, 1912, where the seas were as flat as glass, they were fine and anyone with a brain should've seen that.
@@rickelmonoggin They died because the lifeboats were launched without permission. Unknown to the crew who launched the lifeboats, the ship was steaming straight for Kea with a list so great that one of the propellers was above the waterline. Those in the 2 lifeboats that were launched before they were supposed to be, got sucked up and diced up by the exposed spinning propeller. Without the lifeboats, the death toll would have been far greater.. The damage done to Britanic was to great to save her. The water tight bulkheads were deformed from the blast, and couldn't be closed. The nurses had opened all the portholes a few hours before to let fresh air in the ship. As soon as water started pouring in through the portholes, the decent beneath the waves was only accelerated. The decision to try to save Britanic actually caused the only deaths during the disaster.
“No one sent a search party” “They called the messages in the bottles fake” Among other unbelievable things in this story..no wonder that entire line was doomed
Your videos are very well researched and written. I might suggest investing in a higher quality microphone for your voice-overs. Too much background echo makes it difficult to hear narration.
He still gets the boats buling locationg wrong in everyvideo so na id say hes not so good if he cant even distinguished northern ireland from ireland i bet hed fuck a few more things up if he cant even say where its built smh.
I've often wondered what it would have been like to be a survivor in the boats after titanic was gone wondering if anyone was coming to save you. Had it not been for the Marconi radio no one would have. I've never heard this story until now and now I can't even imagine how different Titanic's story would be if she just disappeared completely with 2200 people. Naronic is out there somewhere buried in the seabed but we will never find it.
Now THERE`S a challenge for Dr Robert Ballard and co.! Despite being interested in ship disasters and in particular the Battle of the Atlantic, I`d not heard of this one.Titanic, whilst very interesting has been flogged to death, so more obscure events are VERY welcome-more please, and, of course, SUBSCRIBED!!!
Would there be anything to find? Titanic has a few years left at best. This ship went down twenty years earlier and by now I'm sure it's just a pile of mud.
I liked your comment, but I'm still helplessly obsessed with Titanic. The first thing that gets me is that she was believed to be "unsinkable". The informing of the passengers was met with such absolute disbelief. Some went back to bed or refused to accept it. At first... The Sage family were father, mother and nine children going to begin a new life in America. Third class and all perished. Some passengers had premonitions. So many individual stories and such far reaching consequences. Such a paltry little was paid out by White Star. Will I ever get over the ship of dreams?
@@josephdockemeyer6782 I don't mind people being obsessed with Titanic but I just think that it's about time that other wrecks get the spotlight some more instead of only Titanic.
I had never heard of the Naronic and thank you for your well-done video and compassionate narrative. What a tragedy for those families to never learn what happened to their loved ones.
so the first thing the dude guessed while sinking was "i must write a note to my employer to let them know i wont be coming to work on monday on the account of being dead in the sea" lol what a champion of duty
I'm guessing here but he addressed it to anyone else no one would give a crap and just keep the letter as a "one time I found a letter in a bottle" memento. Maybe the dude had a brain.
I’m in Western Australia and this brings to mind the search for MH 70 off our coast in the Indian Ocean. Poignantly, they found evidence of long lost shipwrecks, one image they showed was of the steering wheel and anchor of a long lost sailing vessel. Sobering to think of the countless people lost at sea through history and the terrors they suffered.
yes indeed, I believe they have not been able to positively identify the shipwrecks but there are a number of likely candidates of historic ships which are known to have disappeared. It really beggars belief that MH370 hasn't been found, can't imagine what that puts the relatives through. I really hope one day they find the black boxes and the data is recoverable.
Facts man, it is terrifying knowing so many men and ships were lost to the sea and nobody will ever know their names or even the name of the ship they died in.
My great uncle (David Smith) was a Captain for White Star Steamship Lines in the 1920s and 1930s. I inherited a few things from him, I did not know him but was very close to his wife Bessie who was actually my blood relative. Bessie's Sister Lucille Teft was in the silent movie "Cleopatra" with Theda Barra. My "auntie cille" lived to 106 years old. Her Brother Leon was a machinast mate during WWII and my Brother inherited the medal Leon received for being part of the crew that captured the only U-BOAT during wartime, the medal was made of the pig iron ballast of the U-BOAT. I worked at the same shipyard that my Grandmother worked during WWII (Todd Shipyard) in San Pedro CA.
Very well done, and sensitively told. I'd not heard of the Naronic - as you say, almost completely forgotten. I like the first generation iron hulled steamships, and their immediate predecessors, both military and commercial - the infinite number of experimental ideas they had while finding the most successful design formula are fascinating. Sadly so many of these true ocean mysteries will never be solved - their victims lie too far down, in hard to access places, for their stories to ever be fully learned.
Almost as if that part of the ocean is cold and dangerous, and that they didn't learn the first time. Almost as if ocean liners were build similarly to each other. Almost as if they followed the same routes. Do you see what I'm getting at? There's nothing spooky about it. Just two unfortunate accidents.
I really fell very sad for what happened. This video and the heart touching way it was narrated was fantastic. I'm fascinated by this kind of mystery and I often try to imagine how the people who are going to disappear to never be hear of again feel like.
I was just surfing TH-cam and found your channel. I'm so glad I did. The story of the Naronic is new to me and so fascinating and sad. Your presentation is excellent. I am now a new subscriber looking forward to the next video and reviewing your past content.
Y'know... Have you ever considered making a video about the S.S. Waratah? It was a British ocean liner that also went missing, like the Naronic. I know many other TH-camrs have covered the Waratah, but this video sends chills down the viewer's spine and makes them feel like they were actually on board the Naronic when it went down.
I have just found you and I am addicted already. You're storytelling is sublime. Thank you for these. With your deep research and sympathetic commemtary they are just fantastic.
Regarding your thought on the lonely terror of the victims; have you ever heard the hymn “eternal father strong to save“? Or the prayer “O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small”? I remember a TDY Tiger Cruise; a chief found a few of us standing at the rail, staring out at the horizon, humbled by our insignificance and that of (what from shore had seemed to be) the great bulk of the carrier. He says to us “big damn ocean, ain’t it? Mighty wet, too!“ & grins. A gator freighter we were in heading to Desert Shield hove to for a steel beach party before transiting Gibraltar; a Gunny had a similar thought. Watching sailors and Marines paddle around off the fantail and in the well deck, he says “Kinda fun, ain’t it? Try not to think about the fact that the bottom’s a couple of miles straight down!“
Mate. You've stated on other movies and adds that you have anxiety problems and such. I'm a power house of such problems, and I think you're bloody awesome! I love the professionalism and knowledge you bring to these movies. Keep up the great work, I love the cut of your jib, Mate. CRack on!
Not really; the cargo was livestock and coals, not people. Travelling across the Atlantic on a short voyage in a ship was relatively safe, and people had no other way of crossing the Atlantic. It took no more courage than it does now to get on an aircraft. You could liken the Titanic to Japan Air Lines Flight 123 or the Tenerife airport disaster. At that time emigrating to Australia was a considerably more difficult (and dangerous) challenge.
Haitian migrants leave an earthquake destroyed island and end up under a bridge in America. All after their president was assassinated by the cia. Planned
I'd say the Collins Line was just as tragic as WSL, even if they had fewer ships. Look up videos on the SS Arctic and the SS Pacific, along with the SS Atlantic
Sulpicio Lines (Dõna Paz, Dõna Marlyn, Princess of the Stars, Etc.) More apalling is there are millenials and Gen Z who are alive today when this company existed as Sulpicio, so the ships should have had all safety features but they didn't. The Dõna Paz notably didn't have a working radio, and out of 4700 only 27 survived.
Very meaningful. Interweaving of history, event and emotion is like a sophisticated tapestry. (If more distance between you and the microphone, you'll be able to 'float' that fine voice more easily and 'crackle free'.)
Maybe someday when technology gets better we will find the wrecks of missing ships but it is race against the time since the wrecks are decaying pretty fast.
@@Valtsuuu We Actually have ships but... It costs money, time and ambition to find one for example Military warships tend to be popular & protected (government urging? and something interesting you could make a documentary on and of course petitions) ask microsoft and any company research ships & Oceanic WIldlife guys who would spend hours scanning deep & since the ocean's weather can be random, large and tricky. (Location, salary, Oil, ship maintainance, and training/expertise of crew or historians is a factor too)
@@Valtsuuu Not to mention Naronic could have gone down virtually anywhere along her route. At least with Titanic we already had a general idea where she was thanks to the distress signals and Carpathia picking up the survivors. Where does one start looking for a ship that vanished without a trace?
No kidding. Im sitting here thinking, imagine if a letter in a bottle was quite normal for people to do because no other way of communicating to others.
That surreal, If a boat that size went down today. The Coast Guard will be out there with search planes and more even a few days after the incident looking for any survivors. The messages in the bottle was all the people on board could do to tell their story of what happening. One last-ditch effort to let the world know.
The bottles might have been found before the story was released and just discounted until they heard the ships name in the media... Iceberg theory seems logical to me Titanics suvivors lilely would only had to endure the lifeboats a bit longer had they not had the radio as they were in the shipping lanes and with bilowing smoke able to be seen for 20+ miles they could row nearer to them...but who knows
Titanic did have an emergency back up radio. Its range was much more limited which is likely why Harold and Bride spent the time to fix the main radio. Nonetheless it probably still could have been picked by Carpathia if they had been forced to use it.
The more I think about it, the more likely the bottles were a hoax in my opinion. Just too convenient. I think Neuronic was lost due to brittle steel in cold water and maybe even ice impacts but rogue waves are real and possible. Without eyewitness testimony or finding and examining the wreck we just cant know.
" It`s one thing to loose someone you love, but a completely different thing, losing someone, and not knowing what happened to them ".....it`ll eat a person up. I just saw a documentary on The Danish sailing ship " København ", who vanished between South America and Australia in 1928. The only thing left, was a lifewest, who washed on to the shore of Tristan Da Cunha, in the middle of The South Atlantic. The impact it had on the families, not knowing their husbands and childrens fate, took a heavy toll. It was a so-called " School Ship ", so the crew was mostly boys, aged 15-20. Some of the families, never got over this.
Very interesting 👌🏼 nicely narrated... I’ve never heard of this ship, good to see other interesting pieces of white star line history being told. Nice job!
I heard the name Naronic, but that was it. I didn't know this happened to them. I believe the bottle messages. Doesn't matter if the names may not have matched the ones originally listed: who else could've been in that area on that date, which would have roughly matched the location the ship was at and the time she was there? Heartbreaking to hear these stories, where men and women are taken by the sea with next to no chance of survival. It's even worse when nobody knows what happened. Lastly further props to Titanic's wireless operators. Did not know that the law said to wait until you get to shore to repair your radios. If they had actually listened, it would have only added on to what another guy in another video said where if the disaster had been any more catastrophic, that we wouldn't look at it as the "sinking of the Titanic"; we'd be looking at this as the "disappearance of the Titanic." Chilling really. Those guys were truly heroes. I plan on writing a book on Titanic later in the future. It is meant to be one of my defining works (I've been writing for a long time now) as well as the last word in all things Titanic unless anything new comes up, whilst providing a detailed look at the history of ocean liners and what the world was like back then. Without question the Naronic will be mentioned in the story. Thanks man. Rest in peace to those men (and the animals) who died that night.
Wasn't a law but company policy to wait until you got to shore to fix the radios. At that time the radio and it's operators didn't belong to the ship's owner but to the Marconi company. Harold Bride and Jack Phillips were employees of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and not the White Star line.
An interesting thumbnail option, but I do like it since she was the replacement for Naronic. I just came back from your Queen Elizabeth video, and I loved that and this one too!
Thank you! Yeah, it's tough since there are no known photos of her and I didn't want to use an illustration. So I went with something similar with good image quality. Good eye!
Wow, what an excellent video. The narration was so well written. The visual part was also very well done. The entire story is haunting. Whoever penned the narration for this video is a properly talented writer. A real writer.
[ 2:24 ] Same mistake many still make : Belfast is the capital city of NORTHERN IRELAND. The Ireland which you refer to, is a separate country whose capital city is Dublin. Belfast and Northern Ireland was then and still is part of the United Kingdom. If you are going to research, then do it right.
What makes this even more sad is we probably won’t ever find the wreckage of the naronic because she will disappear from metal eating bacteria. Just think how much the titanic has deteriorated over the last 110 years, the naronic has been down there for almost 130 years and probably not much or even anything is there now
As uninteresting or unexciting as it may be, the iceberg theory seems quite plausible and straightforward. Any gaps or inconsistencies in facts have logical potential explanations, no flights of fancy required.
The Naronic was no more of a mystery ship than any of the hundreds of others that simply disappeared. Nobody would have known a thing about the Titanic's fate if the ship hadn't had radio. In fact, Marconi and his firm were celebrated as heroes after the sinking because so many had been saved. None of the lifeboats could have transported anyone to safety. The contents of the bottled notes is utterly chilling.
Not as Chilling as the SS Pacifics note... It read: On board the Pacific, from L'pool to N. York. Ship going down. Great confusion on board. Icebergs around us on every side. I know I cannot escape. I write the cause of our loss, that friends may not live in suspense. The finder of this will please get it published, WM. GRAHAM. Chilling and mysterious. Surrounded by icebergs? How does that happen... And not as utterly chilling as the sorroful travesty of the SS Artic in the year nineteen o' hundred and fifty four.
Super interesting! The Titanic wasn't the first. Those were some horrible people that were in charge of that company. Sounds like the Titanics fate was supposed to be much worse but the wireless got fixed!
Excellent comment It is surprising that more do not immediately suspect insurance fraud. The owners of this ship could have removed passengers and crew in some safe place, hacked holes in the ship's hull, and set her adrift to sink in deeper water. Record of the insurance pay out should still be available.Who profited? Probably the same ship owners who dropped identifiable debris right where it would just happen to be found by a passing ship. There should be records of payments to family members of passengers and crew. Probably are not Insurance fraud by ship owners has always been a common occurrence.
The closing on this video was extremely poetic albeit dark. It really got to me to hear you are observation of the humanity in death on the sea. I hope that you continue to make these statements so beautifully
Excellent narration and a very respectful, sober, examination of what we can only imagine these tragic souls suffered through in their dying moments. We become desensitized to tragedy and heartbreak and what happens after a tragedy is no longer in the constant news cycle. We can't dwell but we have to take a closer look outside of our own frame and acknowledge that these were real people and they met an end that seems almost hard to fathom, in our age of geo-location technology and satellite phones and epirbs, but even if they got into a lifeboat, then what? No one knows you're in danger or where you are, nor could they reach you in time to attempt a rescue. That was it.
Translated from a Norwegian newspaper from april 30 1897. "A bottle containing a written note was washed ashore on the 2nd of this month at the Wash-Woods life-saving station near Norfolk, Va. The content of the note read: 'Onboard the steamer "Naronic" 500 miles east of Cape Hatteras. Struck by a cyclone and is now in a sinking condition. As we leave the ship in the only remaining boat, we throw this bottle overboard in the hope that it will reach land and tell of our fate. Farewell.' "Naronic" departed from Liverpool on February 11, 1893, destined for New York. Nothing has been heard of the ship's fate until now." Very interesting new info, not heard this bottle message before!! So the coordinates of the wreck site could possibly be around here? 35.2506° N, 66.0982° W
It is interesting that this excellent video about the mysterious sinking of the White Star Line's SS Naronic in 1893 states that the ship on its' last voyage had 50 crewmembers and 24 passengers, but the Wikipedia online encyclopedia article states that there were 60 crewmen and 14 passengers onboard the ship. The article also states that a number of ships reported seeing ice in the vicinity of where the ship sank even though the official inquiry concluded that the SS Naronic was at least 100 miles from the nearest ice.
Looked into Gessler Rousseau. Super interesting. Found a newspaper article from the Auburn Journal, 19 Jan. 1905, which mentions his capture. They suspected the Rousseau identity was a pseudonym, and connected him with two failed attacks: one on the RMS Umbria, and one on the statue of Frederick the Great in Washington D.C. Police said he was “an American patriotic fanatic,” which would explain his attack on a statue depicting a German, as well as on British ships. Interesting to see how far back incidents of American domestic and international terrorism go. Edit: Also, great vid! I’m glad I found your channel.
A suggestion in similar vain to this video, the MTS Oceanos. She launched in 52 and sank in 91. A modernish ship with no casualties, built during the intermediate years between true ocean liners like the golden aged ships of the Olympic class, and Lusitania sisters, but not yet truly the modern age of ugly floating hotels.
The piston theory is not unreasonable. In 1927, the Principessa Matalda sank after her propeller shaft broke opening a gash on her hull. Iceberg, Storm or mechanical fault, i can only imagine how terrifing must have been beeing a part of a sinking without a marconi radio to seek for help in the middle of the nort atlantic.
Maybe my 2nd comment ever? Great job, fascinating presentation and terrific delivery. Always loved liners and you've just made my heart smile. Well done!
My wife and mother-in-law love to go sailing. If I can't see the opposite shoreline as I get onboard a boat, I'm not going. Lakes are the most I do! That is why I didn't join the Navy.
The mention of the Saboteur begs the question: Could an explosion below decks be perceived as striking an iceberg? The answer may be obvious, but I don't know, especially with such rough seas.
You have good material. But please find a way to resolve the strong room echo. It makes it very difficult to hear what you’re saying. [You can even try recording your voiceover in or next to a closet full of hanging clothes. That will dampen the echo and make your videos sound more professional.]
Love the vid, thank you for this eerie and mysterious story. Love ocean liners and infamous ones but I had never heard of the Naronic before. It definitely reminds me of the Edmund Fitzgerald Cargo ship that sank in the Great Lakes during a storm. One second, things were intense but manageable and the next, she vanished from radar, comms, and was later on found split in two at the bottom of the lake with no survivors
What baffles me is why no one questioned white star lines credibility after so many sinking's, surely they'd have been run out of business long before even commissioning the titanic given the half arsed way they handled things.
The channel and content I didn’t know I needed! This might become a binge. One small point of constructive critique, speak up a bit, you have a good and articulate way of narrating, let it be heard. If one, like myself in one ear, some are in both, hard hearing it’s very difficult to understand at times without turning volume way up.
Thank you everyone for watching! What ship should I cover next?
S S france
Ah, but which SS France?
There is no wrong answer.
@@monsieurcommissaire1628 the ocean liner
SS Normandie and United States!
United States
France (1910
This might sound weird but my Great Grandfather was the second mate on the Naronic. He lived with his young family in Seaforth and after the tragedy his wife and children went to live in Ilford Essex with her sister. Can you tell me whether the photo of the officers is actually of the Naronic crew and which one of them might be Herbert Burbidge ? Thank you in advance Mark Burbidge.
The photo of the officers is actually of the captain and the officers of the Medic, one of White Star's Jubilee-class liners.
@@harrietharlow9929 Thank you.
@@fredrichnicecar You're quite welcome. If you are a Titanic fan, the two officers in back are (L) Charles Lightoller and (R) with the darker moustache, William Murdoch.
Excellent commentary
@David Brazier EXCELLENT
As a child I remember actually writing to Harland and Wolff practically begging them for any resources on the Naronic and Bovic. I got a response with their listed tonnages and that was about it. Great to see more ppl hearing about the story
A lot of the old White Star records have been lost to time and more specifically fires and bombings during both World Wars and the included century of time that came with them. I remember following Titanic Honor and Glory who talked about H&W actually accidentally finding old plans for the Olympic class ships clearing out an old building. Tragically wrecks and disappearances are the only way these ships gain any form of memorial immortality. Unless we can find the wreck their Listed Tonnage and maybe a blueprint will likely be all that's left.
Trust me I understand your desire to know more though I feel the same about the 1850's Collins Steamer Atlantic that sank in a collision with another ship also in the same region as the Titanic disaster.
The StonedAbbitt -Naronic Hard number 251 launched 26 May 1892 6594 tons -her sister ship was the Bovic launched a month later .
Definitely check out Part Time Explorer (Tom one of the original THG staff) He did a series on the Collins Line.
One would think the White Star Line would have learned their lesson sailing into the Bermuda triangle of the North Atlantic in Jan/Feb----- With gales and icebergs always prevalent in the area----- But, this was a time when man thought he had conquered nature--- IE: The Greatest, The Biggest, The Grandest,
and the UNSINKABLE------ The Titanic, the Hindenburg, and failed missions to Mt. Everest and the Antarctic have proven time and time again that Mother Nature will always win out--------
You are doing something truly important. These ships and the folks that lost their lives on them deserve to be remembered.
Your comment about the crews being replaceable reminds me of the most heinous practice of the day. Had anyone survived, their pay would have been stopped from the moment she sank.
They used to *sneak* the dead and injured workers out of the shipyard gates too, to avoid liability.. kids, usually
what do you mean "of the day"
@@eifionjones559 "during that period of time"
@@unbearifiedbear1885 it is same today , ship sinks wages stop, though some companies are different but that is still the law
You would think it would behoove the White Star company to take a more southernly route through the Atlantic. It seems their ships and icebergs didn't get along too well.
... and maybe shoot for second largest whatever it is.
The further south you go, the longer the route. Another words it’s cheaper to go further north from Liverpool to New York. It’s part of a great circle route.
@@justin8894 ...and on the return trip the ships take a more southerly route to pickup the Gulf Stream.
Titanic was taking a southerly route, at least more than usual.
That April was one of hte warmest on records.
This was one of two to hit an iceberg lol
Irc
People often talk about how passengers were reluctant to get into the lifeboats on the Titanic, but the reality was that lifeboats were death traps and really the very last resort. Most of the deaths on the Britannic were people in the lifeboats. Getting into the lifeboats too soon was also a problem: this is likely what happened on the Mary Celeste.
When the SS Clallam ran aground, the decision was made far too early to launch the life boats. The boats were mostly filled with all of the women and children aboard, and the only deaths of Clallam’s sinking were those in the lifeboats. All who remained aboard her survived.
In rough seas, sure. But in the conditions of April 12, 1912, where the seas were as flat as glass, they were fine and anyone with a brain should've seen that.
@@randomlyentertaining8287 they were calm during the sinking of the Britannic and I think all the deaths occurred in the life boats
@@rickelmonoggin They died because the lifeboats were launched without permission. Unknown to the crew who launched the lifeboats, the ship was steaming straight for Kea with a list so great that one of the propellers was above the waterline. Those in the 2 lifeboats that were launched before they were supposed to be, got sucked up and diced up by the exposed spinning propeller. Without the lifeboats, the death toll would have been far greater.. The damage done to Britanic was to great to save her. The water tight bulkheads were deformed from the blast, and couldn't be closed. The nurses had opened all the portholes a few hours before to let fresh air in the ship. As soon as water started pouring in through the portholes, the decent beneath the waves was only accelerated. The decision to try to save Britanic actually caused the only deaths during the disaster.
“No one sent a search party”
“They called the messages in the bottles fake”
Among other unbelievable things in this story..no wonder that entire line was doomed
Your videos are very well researched and written. I might suggest investing in a higher quality microphone for your voice-overs. Too much background echo makes it difficult to hear narration.
And drop the clanging bell..
Or just get closer to the mic, that'll fix it.
Maybe some foam mats to dampen the echo from the room. Should be fine then
He still gets the boats buling locationg wrong in everyvideo so na id say hes not so good if he cant even distinguished northern ireland from ireland i bet hed fuck a few more things up if he cant even say where its built smh.
I think the echo was an artistic device, however well-chosen. I saw many things to like in this video; but I am no authority on the history.
I've often wondered what it would have been like to be a survivor in the boats after titanic was gone wondering if anyone was coming to save you. Had it not been for the Marconi radio no one would have.
I've never heard this story until now and now I can't even imagine how different Titanic's story would be if she just disappeared completely with 2200 people. Naronic is out there somewhere buried in the seabed but we will never find it.
Very scary to think about for how long humanity has been sailing across the vast ocean without any means of signaling anyone if they got in trouble
But,that almost happened,if Marconi wierles wasn't fixed by it's operators,moste Likely we would see this repeating
Now THERE`S a challenge for Dr Robert Ballard and co.! Despite being interested in ship disasters and in particular the Battle of the Atlantic, I`d not heard of this one.Titanic, whilst very interesting has been flogged to death, so more obscure events are VERY welcome-more please, and, of course, SUBSCRIBED!!!
The Wilhelm Gustloff
Would there be anything to find? Titanic has a few years left at best. This ship went down twenty years earlier and by now I'm sure it's just a pile of mud.
@@domm4633 There is still the possibility that it's preserved. So if we find it I guess there still will be a hull left, just not entirely intact.
I liked your comment, but I'm still helplessly obsessed with Titanic. The first thing that gets me is that she was believed to be "unsinkable". The informing of the passengers was met with such absolute disbelief. Some went back to bed or refused to accept it. At first...
The Sage family were father, mother and nine children going to begin a new life in America. Third class and all perished. Some passengers had premonitions. So many individual stories and such far reaching consequences. Such a paltry little was paid out by White Star.
Will I ever get over the ship of dreams?
@@josephdockemeyer6782 I don't mind people being obsessed with Titanic but I just think that it's about time that other wrecks get the spotlight some more instead of only Titanic.
I had never heard of the Naronic and thank you for your well-done video and compassionate narrative. What a tragedy for those families to never learn what happened to their loved ones.
so the first thing the dude guessed while sinking was "i must write a note to my employer to let them know i wont be coming to work on monday on the account of being dead in the sea" lol what a champion of duty
I'm guessing here but he addressed it to anyone else no one would give a crap and just keep the letter as a "one time I found a letter in a bottle" memento. Maybe the dude had a brain.
I’m in Western Australia and this brings to mind the search for MH 70 off our coast in the Indian Ocean. Poignantly, they found evidence of long lost shipwrecks, one image they showed was of the steering wheel and anchor of a long lost sailing vessel. Sobering to think of the countless people lost at sea through history and the terrors they suffered.
yes indeed, I believe they have not been able to positively identify the shipwrecks but there are a number of likely candidates of historic ships which are known to have disappeared. It really beggars belief that MH370 hasn't been found, can't imagine what that puts the relatives through. I really hope one day they find the black boxes and the data is recoverable.
Facts man, it is terrifying knowing so many men and ships were lost to the sea and nobody will ever know their names or even the name of the ship they died in.
6:13 - I wonder if the "...no time to say more" note was actually signed w/ a cross rather than a "T".
My great uncle (David Smith) was a Captain for White Star Steamship Lines in the 1920s and 1930s. I inherited a few things from him, I did not know him but was very close to his wife Bessie who was actually my blood relative. Bessie's Sister Lucille Teft was in the silent movie "Cleopatra" with Theda Barra. My "auntie cille" lived to 106 years old. Her Brother Leon was a machinast mate during WWII and my Brother inherited the medal Leon received for being part of the crew that captured the only U-BOAT during wartime, the medal was made of the pig iron ballast of the U-BOAT. I worked at the same shipyard that my Grandmother worked during WWII (Todd Shipyard) in San Pedro CA.
Very well done, and sensitively told. I'd not heard of the Naronic - as you say, almost completely forgotten. I like the first generation iron hulled steamships, and their immediate predecessors, both military and commercial - the infinite number of experimental ideas they had while finding the most successful design formula are fascinating. Sadly so many of these true ocean mysteries will never be solved - their victims lie too far down, in hard to access places, for their stories to ever be fully learned.
Also the wooden hulls turn into sand like material after being ground by the sand, makes it hard to find them.
So strange that both the Naronic and Titanic struck an iceberg late at night, took about 2 hours to sink, and both were in roughly the same area...
Spooky
It really is interesting.
Almost as if that part of the ocean is cold and dangerous, and that they didn't learn the first time.
Almost as if ocean liners were build similarly to each other. Almost as if they followed the same routes.
Do you see what I'm getting at?
There's nothing spooky about it. Just two unfortunate accidents.
@@I_am_a_cat_ almost as if a conspiracy. Spooky indeed.
Ismay must have had a subscription for icebergs, I suppose *. . .*
I really fell very sad for what happened. This video and the heart touching way it was narrated was fantastic. I'm fascinated by this kind of mystery and I often try to imagine how the people who are going to disappear to never be hear of again feel like.
I was just surfing TH-cam and found your channel. I'm so glad I did. The story of the Naronic is new to me and so fascinating and sad. Your presentation is excellent. I am now a new subscriber looking forward to the next video and reviewing your past content.
Y'know... Have you ever considered making a video about the S.S. Waratah? It was a British ocean liner that also went missing, like the Naronic.
I know many other TH-camrs have covered the Waratah, but this video sends chills down the viewer's spine and makes them feel like they were actually on board the Naronic when it went down.
I also requested that to.
I would also be interested in seeing that. The Waratah was a liner built for the Melbourne run. It was heading for Australia when it disappeared.
Your wish is now a thing
Glad I found your channel!
Welcome aboard!
I have just found you and I am addicted already. You're storytelling is sublime. Thank you for these. With your deep research and sympathetic commemtary they are just fantastic.
Regarding your thought on the lonely terror of the victims; have you ever heard the hymn “eternal father strong to save“? Or the prayer “O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small”? I remember a TDY Tiger Cruise; a chief found a few of us standing at the rail, staring out at the horizon, humbled by our insignificance and that of (what from shore had seemed to be) the great bulk of the carrier. He says to us “big damn ocean, ain’t it? Mighty wet, too!“ & grins. A gator freighter we were in heading to Desert Shield hove to for a steel beach party before transiting Gibraltar; a Gunny had a similar thought. Watching sailors and Marines paddle around off the fantail and in the well deck, he says “Kinda fun, ain’t it? Try not to think about the fact that the bottom’s a couple of miles straight down!“
Props for displaying a period-correct bottle
If you find the story of the SS Naronic interesting, check out the sinking of the Hans Hedtoft. Lots of mystery on the ocean.
Mate.
You've stated on other movies and adds that you have anxiety problems and such.
I'm a power house of such problems, and I think you're bloody awesome!
I love the professionalism and knowledge you bring to these movies.
Keep up the great work, I love the cut of your jib, Mate.
CRack on!
FYI: The microphone issues have been fixed in his newer videos.
I was looking for this comment thanks
You're videos are very well researched keep up the good work from Alma and Glen Australia
This speaks to the courage of those who risked all to emigrate across volatile oceans to a new life in America!
Not really; the cargo was livestock and coals, not people.
Travelling across the Atlantic on a short voyage in a ship was relatively safe, and people had no other way of crossing the Atlantic. It took no more courage than it does now to get on an aircraft. You could liken the Titanic to Japan Air Lines Flight 123 or the Tenerife airport disaster. At that time emigrating to Australia was a considerably more difficult (and dangerous) challenge.
Haitian migrants leave an earthquake destroyed island and end up under a bridge in America. All after their president was assassinated by the cia.
Planned
Your content is incredible... Please fix the echo in your audio and tone down the background music, it was incredibly hard to hear and understand you.
Just found your page man, binging all your videos as we speak! Awesome work. Keep it up!
Has any other Ship Line suffered as many strange tragedies?
of course. Ships sank all the time in the past. Sailing was dangerous
I'd say the Collins Line was just as tragic as WSL, even if they had fewer ships. Look up videos on the SS Arctic and the SS Pacific, along with the SS Atlantic
Sulpicio Lines (Dõna Paz, Dõna Marlyn, Princess of the Stars, Etc.) More apalling is there are millenials and Gen Z who are alive today when this company existed as Sulpicio, so the ships should have had all safety features but they didn't. The Dõna Paz notably didn't have a working radio, and out of 4700 only 27 survived.
Very meaningful. Interweaving of history, event and emotion is like a sophisticated tapestry. (If more distance between you and the microphone, you'll be able to 'float' that fine voice more easily and 'crackle free'.)
Unfortunately what happened to the s.s Naronic and her crew will likely remain a mystery
Maybe someday when technology gets better we will find the wrecks of missing ships but it is race against the time since the wrecks are decaying pretty fast.
Sad
@@Valtsuuu We Actually have ships but... It costs money, time and ambition to find one for example Military warships tend to be popular & protected (government urging? and something interesting you could make a documentary on and of course petitions) ask microsoft and any company research ships & Oceanic WIldlife guys who would spend hours scanning deep & since the ocean's weather can be random, large and tricky. (Location, salary, Oil, ship maintainance, and training/expertise of crew or historians is a factor too)
Oil companies scan the bottom. They find most of the hidden underwater world.
Carbon 12 climate change blaming will end the age of discovery.
@@Valtsuuu
Not to mention Naronic could have gone down virtually anywhere along her route. At least with Titanic we already had a general idea where she was thanks to the distress signals and Carpathia picking up the survivors. Where does one start looking for a ship that vanished without a trace?
Crazy to think that only little over a century ago; if you were out of visual sight at Sea - you were totally by yourselves
No kidding. Im sitting here thinking, imagine if a letter in a bottle was quite normal for people to do because no other way of communicating to others.
15mi circular view from a mast-top.
Even today, if you’re floating in a lifeboat and don’t have a radar reflector it’s very easy to be missed
That surreal, If a boat that size went down today. The Coast Guard will be out there with search planes and more even a few days after the incident looking for any survivors. The messages in the bottle was all the people on board could do to tell their story of what happening. One last-ditch effort to let the world know.
Don't forget the ill fated SS Moronic. A ship so dumb it couldn't obey gravity, and gently ascended, never to be seen again.
The bottles might have been found before the story was released and just discounted until they heard the ships name in the media...
Iceberg theory seems logical to me
Titanics suvivors lilely would only had to endure the lifeboats a bit longer had they not had the radio as they were in the shipping lanes and with bilowing smoke able to be seen for 20+ miles they could row nearer to them...but who knows
Titanic did have an emergency back up radio. Its range was much more limited which is likely why Harold and Bride spent the time to fix the main radio. Nonetheless it probably still could have been picked by Carpathia if they had been forced to use it.
The more I think about it, the more likely the bottles were a hoax in my opinion. Just too convenient. I think Neuronic was lost due to brittle steel in cold water and maybe even ice impacts but rogue waves are real and possible.
Without eyewitness testimony or finding and examining the wreck we just cant know.
Like your narration style and soft background music. Good research too.
" It`s one thing to loose someone you love, but a completely different thing, losing someone, and not knowing what happened to them ".....it`ll eat a person up. I just saw a documentary on The Danish sailing ship " København ", who vanished between South America and Australia in 1928. The only thing left, was a lifewest, who washed on to the shore of Tristan Da Cunha, in the middle of The South Atlantic. The impact it had on the families, not knowing their husbands and childrens fate, took a heavy toll. It was a so-called " School Ship ", so the crew was mostly boys, aged 15-20. Some of the families, never got over this.
Many thanks for sharing , very well made video.
Very interesting 👌🏼 nicely narrated... I’ve never heard of this ship, good to see other interesting pieces of white star line history being told. Nice job!
I heard the name Naronic, but that was it. I didn't know this happened to them. I believe the bottle messages. Doesn't matter if the names may not have matched the ones originally listed: who else could've been in that area on that date, which would have roughly matched the location the ship was at and the time she was there? Heartbreaking to hear these stories, where men and women are taken by the sea with next to no chance of survival. It's even worse when nobody knows what happened.
Lastly further props to Titanic's wireless operators. Did not know that the law said to wait until you get to shore to repair your radios. If they had actually listened, it would have only added on to what another guy in another video said where if the disaster had been any more catastrophic, that we wouldn't look at it as the "sinking of the Titanic"; we'd be looking at this as the "disappearance of the Titanic." Chilling really. Those guys were truly heroes. I plan on writing a book on Titanic later in the future. It is meant to be one of my defining works (I've been writing for a long time now) as well as the last word in all things Titanic unless anything new comes up, whilst providing a detailed look at the history of ocean liners and what the world was like back then. Without question the Naronic will be mentioned in the story. Thanks man. Rest in peace to those men (and the animals) who died that night.
Wasn't a law but company policy to wait until you got to shore to fix the radios. At that time the radio and it's operators didn't belong to the ship's owner but to the Marconi company. Harold Bride and Jack Phillips were employees of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and not the White Star line.
@@zombieshoot4318 I stand corrected: company policy. Thanks for that. :)
First time seeing your channel. Great video! Subscribed.
such a good storyteller
Thank you, you covered the history and the tragedy sensitively. RIP all who sailed.
Messages in bottles so sad. Thank you for posting this. Very interesting.
An interesting thumbnail option, but I do like it since she was the replacement for Naronic. I just came back from your Queen Elizabeth video, and I loved that and this one too!
Thank you! Yeah, it's tough since there are no known photos of her and I didn't want to use an illustration. So I went with something similar with good image quality. Good eye!
@@BigOldBoats I actually have really bad vision, which is quite ironic to be honest but I do try to spot differences between liners :)
Wow, what an excellent video. The narration was so well written. The visual part was also very well done.
The entire story is haunting.
Whoever penned the narration for this video is a properly talented writer. A real writer.
Nicely done sir.
Thank you!
[ 2:24 ] Same mistake many still make : Belfast is the capital city of NORTHERN IRELAND. The Ireland which you refer to, is a separate country whose capital city is Dublin. Belfast and Northern Ireland was then and still is part of the United Kingdom. If you are going to research, then do it right.
"Northern Ireland" didn't exist back then.
Ireland is Ireland.
Great video! I had never heard of the Naronic!
what does it mean?
Thank your for that. Great sea story and, of course, like so many other mysterious disappearances, always interesting.
Very interesting...loved the video.
Nice vid thanks, glad your later videos have better audio though!
What makes this even more sad is we probably won’t ever find the wreckage of the naronic because she will disappear from metal eating bacteria. Just think how much the titanic has deteriorated over the last 110 years, the naronic has been down there for almost 130 years and probably not much or even anything is there now
As uninteresting or unexciting as it may be, the iceberg theory seems quite plausible and straightforward. Any gaps or inconsistencies in facts have logical potential explanations, no flights of fancy required.
The Naronic was no more of a mystery ship than any of the hundreds of others that simply disappeared. Nobody would have known a thing about the Titanic's fate if the ship hadn't had radio. In fact, Marconi and his firm were celebrated as heroes after the sinking because so many had been saved. None of the lifeboats could have transported anyone to safety. The contents of the bottled notes is utterly chilling.
Not as Chilling as the SS Pacifics note...
It read: On board the Pacific, from L'pool to N. York. Ship going down. Great confusion on board. Icebergs around us on every side. I know I cannot escape. I write the cause of our loss, that friends may not live in suspense. The finder of this will please get it published, WM. GRAHAM.
Chilling and mysterious. Surrounded by icebergs? How does that happen...
And not as utterly chilling as the sorroful travesty of the SS Artic in the year nineteen o' hundred and fifty four.
Super interesting! The Titanic wasn't the first. Those were some horrible people that were in charge of that company. Sounds like the Titanics fate was supposed to be much worse but the wireless got fixed!
Excellent comment
It is surprising that more do not immediately suspect insurance fraud. The owners of this ship could have removed passengers and crew in some safe place, hacked holes in the ship's hull, and set her adrift to sink in deeper water. Record of the insurance pay out should still be available.Who profited? Probably the same ship owners who dropped identifiable debris right where it would just happen to be found by a passing ship. There should be records of payments to family members of passengers and crew. Probably are not
Insurance fraud by ship owners has always been a common occurrence.
The closing on this video was extremely poetic albeit dark. It really got to me to hear you are observation of the humanity in death on the sea. I hope that you continue to make these statements so beautifully
Excellent narration and a very respectful, sober, examination of what we can only imagine these tragic souls suffered through in their dying moments. We become desensitized to tragedy and heartbreak and what happens after a tragedy is no longer in the constant news cycle. We can't dwell but we have to take a closer look outside of our own frame and acknowledge that these were real people and they met an end that seems almost hard to fathom, in our age of geo-location technology and satellite phones and epirbs, but even if they got into a lifeboat, then what? No one knows you're in danger or where you are, nor could they reach you in time to attempt a rescue. That was it.
Translated from a Norwegian newspaper from april 30 1897.
"A bottle containing a written note was washed ashore on the 2nd of this month at the Wash-Woods life-saving station near Norfolk, Va. The content of the note read:
'Onboard the steamer "Naronic" 500 miles east of Cape Hatteras. Struck by a cyclone and is now in a sinking condition. As we leave the ship in the only remaining boat, we throw this bottle overboard in the hope that it will reach land and tell of our fate. Farewell.'
"Naronic" departed from Liverpool on February 11, 1893, destined for New York. Nothing has been heard of the ship's fate until now."
Very interesting new info, not heard this bottle message before!!
So the coordinates of the wreck site could possibly be around here?
35.2506° N, 66.0982° W
I'd never heard this sad story before. Thank you.
It is interesting that this excellent video about the mysterious sinking of the White Star Line's SS Naronic in 1893 states that the ship on its' last voyage had 50 crewmembers and 24 passengers, but the Wikipedia online encyclopedia article states that there were 60 crewmen and 14 passengers onboard the ship. The article also states that a number of ships reported seeing ice in the vicinity of where the ship sank even though the official inquiry concluded that the SS Naronic was at least 100 miles from the nearest ice.
I always question official report it's like they don't want to admit the truth or something
Knowing how much they keep secret around Lusitania, I wouldn’t be so trusting of official reports.
May would have been able to hear you if you would have lowered the background sound.
Nice video. Moody without being maudlin. Well done! :-)
Brilliant never heard this story 👍
Looked into Gessler Rousseau. Super interesting. Found a newspaper article from the Auburn Journal, 19 Jan. 1905, which mentions his capture. They suspected the Rousseau identity was a pseudonym, and connected him with two failed attacks: one on the RMS Umbria, and one on the statue of Frederick the Great in Washington D.C. Police said he was “an American patriotic fanatic,” which would explain his attack on a statue depicting a German, as well as on British ships. Interesting to see how far back incidents of American domestic and international terrorism go.
Edit: Also, great vid! I’m glad I found your channel.
Very interesting story thank you for sharing it with us informational and entertaining great job thumbs up 👍👍👍👍
Minor point on "boats or ships" a boat is quite small and can be loaded on a ship. ( surface vessel's ) a ship is what carries boats.
Except with vessels on the Great Lakes like Edmund Fitzgerald or Arthur M. Anderson, which are 700 feet or more and traditionally still called boats
@@thepapistyourmotherwarnedy752 submarines are also called boats.
Glad I found your channel. Nicely researched and narrated. You've got a new subscriber
A suggestion in similar vain to this video, the MTS Oceanos. She launched in 52 and sank in 91. A modernish ship with no casualties, built during the intermediate years between true ocean liners like the golden aged ships of the Olympic class, and Lusitania sisters, but not yet truly the modern age of ugly floating hotels.
Thank you!
Those floating hotels are CRUISE liners, not ocean liners.
Fascinating, thank you !
0:53 Isn't that one of the Titanic's boats?
Yeah, it's collapsable B. There are no known photos of Naronic or her lifeboats.
Thank you so much, this was so interesting!!
What is it with the white star line and icebergs ?
Sound. You have to do something about the acoustics here. Are you recording your narrative in a small room?
The piston theory is not unreasonable. In 1927, the Principessa Matalda sank after her propeller shaft broke opening a gash on her hull.
Iceberg, Storm or mechanical fault, i can only imagine how terrifing must have been beeing a part of a sinking without a marconi radio to seek for help in the middle of the nort atlantic.
It was scary even with a Marconi wireless, without it sinking ship was absolute doom
Maybe my 2nd comment ever? Great job, fascinating presentation and terrific delivery. Always loved liners and you've just made my heart smile. Well done!
Thank you so much for the nice comment, really glad you enjoyed it!
really well done, thank you!
Your underlying music makes it difficult to understand the verbal comments. Please make the music softer.
My wife and mother-in-law love to go sailing. If I can't see the opposite shoreline as I get onboard a boat, I'm not going. Lakes are the most I do! That is why I didn't join the Navy.
Makes whatever problems you have now are not actually so bad...
Very well done. Thanks!
This is really interesting! It's a shame it's damaged by ads interrupting mid-sentence.
"Real company man right here" LOL
Great video!
The mention of the Saboteur begs the question: Could an explosion below decks be perceived as striking an iceberg? The answer may be obvious, but I don't know, especially with such rough seas.
You have good material. But please find a way to resolve the strong room echo. It makes it very difficult to hear what you’re saying. [You can even try recording your voiceover in or next to a closet full of hanging clothes. That will dampen the echo and make your videos sound more professional.]
Aw I was hoping there were more of these videos.
Love the vid, thank you for this eerie and mysterious story. Love ocean liners and infamous ones but I had never heard of the Naronic before. It definitely reminds me of the Edmund Fitzgerald Cargo ship that sank in the Great Lakes during a storm. One second, things were intense but manageable and the next, she vanished from radar, comms, and was later on found split in two at the bottom of the lake with no survivors
You really need to work on your sound.
What baffles me is why no one questioned white star lines credibility after so many sinking's, surely they'd have been run out of business long before even commissioning the titanic given the half arsed way they handled things.
The channel and content I didn’t know I needed! This might become a binge.
One small point of constructive critique, speak up a bit, you have a good and articulate way of narrating, let it be heard. If one, like myself in one ear, some are in both, hard hearing it’s very difficult to understand at times without turning volume way up.
My grandfather was a sailor from back in the twenties and thirties and he told me the story of the naronic, when I was a wee little boy
This is giving me chills bro
Sorry but I don’t think I would’ve trusted the White Star on a fresh water lake in East Texas
3:34 the guy third from the left, is that Williman Murdoch? Titanic's 1st officer?
Thank you I had never heard of this.
Really interesting story, both tragic and fascinating. Thanks for sharing!