Did a Rogue Wave Sink the MS München?

foreign just after midnight on December 12 1978 Heinz sloman the radio operator on a German cruise ship the MS Caribe was chatting with a friend York Ernst the radio operator on the cargo ship Ms Munchen sailing about 2 400 nautical miles away their conversation was casual and they used a frequency designated for unofficial Communications the connection was hampered by atmospheric interference and Lowman could barely hear Ernst as he told him that the moonshin was fighting through a massive storm on the North Atlantic The Heavy Seas already smashed in some portholes and did some minor damage to our bridge but Ernst was unconcerned the moonshin was a modern vessel designed to handle the worst that the North Atlantic could throw at it she was considered practically Unsinkable after a minute or two ernst's Transmissions became nearly inaudible asked if he wanted to try another frequency but he declined and they decided to end their transmission Ernst signed off by telling his friend have a good trip and see you soon three hours later at 3 10 a.m the Greek freighter Marion picked up a faint SOS signal sent using Morse code the message was almost indecipherable but they were able to make out the munchen's call sign a position that would later prove to be incorrect In the words 50 degrees starboard not long after signals were received from the moonshin's automatic emergency beacons and soon a massive International search and rescue operation was launched but the moonshin and her crew were never seen again only traces of the massive cargo ship were ever found leaving only a few clues that hinted at a horrifying end [Music] on September 1st 1970 the two Legacy German shipping companies Hamburg American line or Hauppauge and Nord Deutscher Lloyd merged to create hop hog void today it is the fifth largest container shipping company in the world on May 12 1972 as they expanded and modernized their Fleet the company launched a new vessel labeled hole number 860 at the Cockrell shipyards in Belgium Christen the MS Munchen the German name for the city of Munich the new vessel was unique in that she was the only German flag lash carrier A Lash or lighter abort ship was a design developed in the 1960s by the American engineer Jerome Goldman similar to container ships these vessels were designed to carry a number of small barges called lighters they typically came equipped with a large crane that can lower individual lighters into the water where they can be towed by a tug of smaller waterways this made it faster and easier to unload and distribute cargo the moonshin was 857.5 feet or 261.4 meters in length with a beam of 105.5 feet or 32.2 meters and came in at 37 134 gross registered tons she was powered by a nine cylinder soulzer 9 r d 90 diesel engine that generated 26 100 horsepower driving a single five-bladed propeller to achieve an 18 knot service speed she was well equipped and designed a power through even hurricane fort's weather conditions Ms Munchen was delivered to hotpog loy on December 22 1972 and she sailed her maiden voyage a month later on October 19th she had an identical sister the MS Builder Dyke which was built for the Holland America line and sailed until she was retired at the end of 2007 in scrapped in their early years both ships proved capable and their Crews have little reason to worry even when navigating through harsh conditions which they frequently sailed through as they delivered cargo throughout the year [Music] The mujin Departed bremerhaven for her 60-second Voyage on December 7th 1978. she was bound for her typical destination in Savannah Georgia and her route would take her through a powerful storm that had been ravaging over the North Atlantic since November but these were the types of conditions the Mansion was designed to handle and she had already weathered similar storms during her career there was no reason to believe this would be anything other than a rough but overall routine voyage she was commanded by Captain Johann Dana comp and had 28 people on board including 25 men and three women her cargo consisted of 83 riders that contained mostly steel products as well as a replacement nuclear reactor vessel head for a company called combustion engineering Incorporated The Voyage began just like any other but as the munching continued to the North Atlantic conditions rapidly deteriorated as they approached the outer edges of the storm and by the evening of December 11th just north of the Azores they found themselves sailing through the heart of the Gale a nearby British weather station called the storm the monster of the month wind speeds reached 93 miles or 150 kilometers per hour in waves easily reached nearly 50 feet or 15 meters high still the crew of the moonshin indicated no concern as radio operator York Ernst conversed with its friend Heinz lohmann on the German cruise ship Caribe 2400 nautical miles away just after midnight on December 12th he casually noted that the ship was fighting through a rough storm he'd taken some damage to the bridge and some portholes but he seemed largely unfazed this was not the first time the seasoned radio men experienced a winter storm on the North Atlantic Ernst continued to describe their situation but Lowman could not understand the rest of the message he asked Ernst if he wanted to try and find a stronger frequency but Ernst declined signed off by telling his friend have a good trip and see you soon the night continued and the storm raged on [Music] at around 3 10 AM the radio operator on the Greek freighter Marion picked up a chilling signal badly distorted by atmospheric interference he could just barely decipher a weak SOS message sent in Morse code soon a Soviet vessel the Maria urmilova also began picking up these distress calls over a series of messages the Marion was able to make out the word forward as well as the ship's name and position another ship picked up the words 50 degrees starboard and the word arcticus these fragmented messages presented a puzzle that continues to baffle investigators and will explore their possible meanings later in this video radio operators all over the North Atlantic continued to receive fragmented messages from the moonshin broadcast using Emergency Equipment suggesting the mujin had lost power at 43 am multiple radio stations began receiving automatic emergency signals from the ship this continued until 7 34 when U.S stations change to another frequency but it's thought that these messages continue to transmit for hours initially despite the concerning calls for help there was very little alarm the moonshin was well known to be a capable vessel and while it was clear that she had run into trouble in the storm few thought that the situation was as dire as it would soon prove to be but by mid-morning as the week messages continued and the storm raged on an international search and rescue effort was soon organized within hours it would balloon into a massive search effort that would uncover a series of clues that hinted to a horrifying end for the moonshin and her crew [Music] for centuries Sailors have told stories about massive walls of water that come out of nowhere and swallow ships in an instant but by 1978 the field of oceanography had yet to recognized this phenomenon as shifts became larger and more resilient encounters with freak waves became more survivable and in the 20th century a handful of notable ships began returning to port with horrifying stories to share in January of 1910 a massive wave smashed into the RMS Lusitania permanently damaging her Bridge in December 1942 while carrying over 11 000 U.S troops the RMS Queen Mary was hit broadside by a 92 foot or 28 meter wave after listing a terrifying 52 degrees Deport she slowly rided herself the incident inspired the 1969 novel in subsequent 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure and in 1966 one of these massive walls of water smashed into the Italian luxury liner Michelangelo ripping into her superstructure and killing three on board but without any official recordings or studies these occurrences were poorly understood for a number of years researchers used a mathematical formula called the gaussian function to predict wave height this formula showed that waves over 98 feet or 30 meters were only possible once every 10 000 years while researchers suspected that this phenomenon was more common it wasn't until January 1st 1995 when a wave that reached 84 feet or 25.6 meters was recorded by sensors on the dropner gas platform in the North Sea this event set off Research into the Rogue phenomenon that continues to this day a rogue wave is defined as a wave that reaches more than twice the significant wave height in the area at the time while still rare oceanographers now know that these massive waves happen several times a year all over the world we're only just beginning to understand rogue waves but it's believed that there is no one cause that triggers these events rather they are created by a series of factors that converge when conditions are just right it's thought that high winds and currents can create an unusual sea state where a normal wave begins to draw in energy from the waves around it generating one massive wave for a brief period of time areas with strong currents that run counter to wave direction seem to create these conditions more often cape agolas in South Africa has been identified as a prime example of one of these locations though researchers are beginning to understand rogue waves we're still a long way from accurately predicting this deadly phenomenon but we know much more than we did when the moonshin sailed into that brutal North Atlantic storm in 1978 [Music] while the moonshin's SOS messages were picked up as early as 3 10 am on December 12th hot dog Lloyd didn't receive word of the unfolding crisis until 6 am an international search and rescue operation coordinated by his Majesty's Coast Guard at Lands End in Cornwall began organizing at 7 30 and the first Royal Air Force reconnaissance aircraft a hawker sidley Nimrod took off at 9 30 to begin the search these initial efforts were slowed by the ongoing intensity of the storm winds continued to exceed hurricane Force as Searchers began arriving in the general area reported by the munchen's distress calls at 3 30 PM the Coast Guard appointed the Dutch Salvage tug Smit Rotterdam commanded by Captain PF Denise as the on-scene search and rescue coordinator by the next day December 13th three planes and six ships searched for the moonshin at 906 that morning Michael F Senate an amateur radio Enthusiast in Brussels picked up a voice transmission on a strange radio frequency typically used by a German radio station the transmission was clear but background noise made it difficult to make out the full message but Senate was able to hear the Merchant's name and call sign he only had a receiver for that particular frequency so he was unable to communicate with the messages sender he relayed the message to officials and later he told investigators that the voice he heard was calm and spoken English with a heavy German accent later that afternoon between 5 and 7 14 PM the U.S naval station in Rhoda Spain picked up 10 weak Mayday calls sent using Morse code these messages mentioned 28 persons on board and the moonshin's call sign they were likely recorded and played on a loo as the day went on the search continued wind speeds remained high and visibility was limited to just two to four nautical miles the next day December 14th the German Navy joined the search efforts adding additional planes and vessels winds decreased slightly but still presented a challenge by now all radio messages from the merchant had stopped but signals were still heard from her emergency buoy finally at 7 pm the British freighter King George found the first traces of the missing ship a single unused life raft soon the hotdog void freighter air longan found three of the merchant sliders over the following days as wind speeds eased the search grew on December 15th a British Nimrod aircraft spotted two of the ship's orange buoys and a salvage tug called the Titan picked up another life raft this one was covered in oil with no signs that it had ever been used by any of the moonshin's crew on December 16th a third unused life raft was found by the NS badenstein by December 17th the weather had comped considerably making search efforts easier ships calm the area spaced three nautical miles apart covering a massive expanse soon a fourth life raft was found by the Sea land consumer three life vests were also cited and that afternoon the Dusseldorf Express discovered the munchen's emergency radio buoy smeared with oil over the next few days the search continued to grow but hope that anyone from the ill-fated cargo ship could be found alive was fading days passed without any additional discoveries and on December 20th the international search effort was called all the German government and Hauppauge void decided to continue leading search efforts for another two days but this also proved unsuccessful at sundown on December 22nd the last efforts to find any of the moonshin surviving crew members were called off over 80 Merchant and Naval vessels from a number of countries and 13 aircraft from the United Kingdom United States Portugal and Germany all took part in the massive search effort the last critical trace of the moochin was found on February 16 1979 when the car transporter Don Carlos discovered and salvaged her starboard side Lifeboat no other trace of the Moonshine has ever been found [Music] an official investigation into the loss of the Munchen was conducted by the maritime Authority in bremerhaven they released an official report on the incident in June 1980. in it they found no evidence of any defect in the design Furnishings equipment condition loading or Manning of the ship that could have caused her sinking investigators zeroed in on the lone starboard Lifeboat they found that the large vertical pens that once held the Lifeboat in place were bent back from forward to aft indicating that a massive Force struck the forward starboard side of the ship forcing the Lifeboat back and tearing it from its pens the lifeboat's position on the ship's superstructure was usually 66 feet or 20 meters above the water line investigators concluded that the severe weather the moonshin encountered created an unusual event that led to her sinking this was before rogue waves were understood or even widely thought to exist so the vocabulary used in the report was left big officially the exact fate of the merchant remains unsolved but taken altogether the investigation and radio messages received over the course of the event paint a compelling picture of what likely happened to the moonshin on that fateful night dozens of radio messages were received by numerous operators both onshore and on various vessels in the area most of these messages were nearly unintelligible but a handful of words and phrases were deciphered including the ship's name and position as well as the words forward 50 degrees starboard arcticus and collision the words forward and collision probably refer to the event that caused the ship's distress 50 degrees starboard could likely refer to a list but it's been pointed out that these words could also refer to an overtaking angle or a localization the word arcticus has sparked a great deal of speculation the investigation figured that this was a recording error and the word was supposed to be antennas which would make sense in describing the damage but others have suggested that this could have referred to a Russian ship in the area named the artemia which was likely the closest ship to the Moonshine at the time of the message fortunately the position given in these Transmissions proved to be at least 100 nautical miles off from the munchen's actual location at the time this critical mistake slowed search efforts and those critical early hours the transmission picked up by Michael Epstein on December 13th is by far the strangest the frequency typically used by a German radio station was one that the munchen's emergency power would not have been strong enough to broadcast on if this message was authentic it would suggest that the moonshin was briefly able to restore power long enough to transmit but why they would choose that frequency is a mystery hot dog Lloyd officials believed that the messages were authentic while strange they would support the widely held theory of what happened to the moonshin taken all together with a modern understanding of rogue waves it's now commonly believed that on the night of December 12th while the moonshin was fighting through the storm she suddenly fell into a deep trough before she could recover a massive wall of water likely 100 feet or 30 meters high smashed into the ship the force of the water did major damage to her superstructure ripping the Lifeboat from its paintings caving in Windows and likely destroying critical equipment the crippled ship now powerless and unable to steer was left to the mercy of the storm where she was battered by waves until she eventually flooded and perhaps even capsized based on the length of time that emergency messages were transmitted it's believed that the Munchen remained floating for up to 33 hours she likely drifted with a heavy list making it almost impossible to move around trapping her crew all over the Doom's ship until she finally disappeared beneath the waves it's a chilling end to a ship that was once thought to be practically Unsinkable as of the making of this video The Wreck of the moonshin has never been found but her story serves as a reminder of the incredible bravery shown by Merchant Mariners including those who sail today boost shipping is considerably safer thanks to Lessons Learned From tragedies like the moonshin Sailors still sacrifice and endure the terrifying might of the Seas all to keep our world moving forward thank you so much for watching this topic was heavily requested and I'm glad I finally got a chance to share it what story should I cover next let me know in the comments below if you like this video leave a like And subscribe if you haven't already for more stories like this one I'd like to give a special shout out to my supporters on patreon they would definitely give me a ride to the airport all right crew that's all I've got till the next one be nice to people [Music]

Channel: Big Old Boats

Views: 299,770

Keywords: MS München, rogue wave, ships sunk by a rogue wave, disaster at sea, rogue wave strike, giant wave, disaster at sea documentary, hapag-lloyd, München, big waves, muenchen, maritime history, lash carrier ship, lash barge ship, freak wave, ship in storm, huge waves, monster wave

Id: tgkRPEj_zUs

Length: 22min 55sec (1375 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023