The Most Mysterious Missing Ships

since humans first took to the sea countless ships have been lost to storms mutiny piracy and even a few accidental bombings according to unesco more than three million sunken ships many of which were lost thousands of years ago litter the ocean floors worldwide there's always something ghoulishly fascinating about a mysterious disappearance that our vast fathomless oceans seem to provide endless opportunities for ships to vanish without a trace while many of the better known shipwrecks such as the titanic were well documented analyzed and understood there are certain notable exceptions in today's video we're going to discuss seven shipwrecks that remain veiled in mystery to this day [Music] la griffin was a sailing vessel constructed in 1679 by fur trader and explorer renee robert cavelier despite many famous searches conducted over the years by experienced divers and shipwreck hunters the disappearance of le griffin and its ultimate fate still remain a mystery in august of 1679 the ship departed on its maiden voyage with a 34-man crew intending to map the great lakes the idea was to find the fabled northwest passage a hypothetical east-west sailing route that could potentially decrease the amount of time needed to travel to asia at the time the griffin was navigating uncharted waters that only canoes had previously explored believed to be the first ship to have traversed many of the great lakes the griffin was something of a trailblazer between the lakes the ship had to be manually pulled with ropes through the narrow channel of sinclair river for more than 40 miles during this time the crew faced brutal storms as they undertook a thousand mile voyage across three of the five great lakes eventually the ship landed on an island in lake michigan located at the mouth of the body of water now known as green bay on the island the local native american inhabitants had gathered to trade with the french visitors according to surviving records the captain and many of the crew disembarked the vessel on september the 18th and the ship was sent back to niagara with a skeleton crew of just six they had apparently intended to explore the head of lake michigan and some of the crew members sailed back to niagara to sell furs and purchase essential supplies for the return journey during this trip back from the island griffin disappeared without a trace with its load of furs animal pelts as well as its six crew members over the years many theories have been proposed about what might have happened to the ship during the last leg of its voyage while there is no clear consensus among experts many speculate that the ship might have been lost in a storm attacked by hostile tribes or even abandoned by the crew who simply decided to run off with the cargo [Music] launched in may 1836 the poor poise was an 88-foot 224-ton dolphin-class brigantine authorized by congress for coastal surveying operations before joining the u.s exploring expedition in 1838 the porpoise hunted pirates along the southern coast serving on anti-piracy patrols with the expedition it circumnavigated the world and charted vast areas of the south pacific between 1838 and 1842 upon its return four years later the ship was refitted and deployed to the west coast of africa to patrol for slavers and participate in anti-slavery cruises between 1845 and 47 the porpoise cruised the gulf of mexico participating in various naval operations during the mexican war the repeated brigantine joined the north pacific exploring and surveying expedition in 1853 and charted the islands and coasts of southeast asia in september 1854 the porpoise parted company with the other vessels between formosa and china to explore the bonins and the marianas after leaving the north pacific expedition the ship was never heard from again speculation abounds about what might have happened to the poor boys after its separation from the squadron most historians and naval experts believe that the ship was lost while transiting the daiwan strait amidst a heavy typhoon the porpoise was last sighted by a ship on september 21 1854 before disappearing without a trace [Music] originally named the anger man elven this ship was built in sweden in the year 1914. later it was purchased by a german shipping company which used it primarily as a transport vessel for the trade of goods between different european countries after the first world war however the hudson bay company gained ownership of the vessel as part of the german reparations now called ss baychimo the ship was used by the company to deliver food fuel and supplies to trading posts along the victoria island coast on august 26 1931 the ship stopped at herschel island to deliver some goods on its way to vancouver the weather began showing signs of winter-like conditions despite it being the tail end of summer believing that the cold inhospitable weather was only temporary captain sidney cornwell insisted that they continue on their journey setting sail for vancouver on the following day unfortunately this turned out to be a mistake winter arrived earlier than usual and an unprecedented storm blew in on the first of october trapping the ss bay chimo in an ice-covered ocean near point barrow a headland on the north coast of alaska the crew signaled for help but the high winds blowing snow and icy waters made the stranded ship impossible to reach on october 10th the hudson bay company sent rescue plane and airlifted the crew members to safety captain cornwell along with some of his crew built a temporary wooden shelter near the ship in order to monitor it until it eventually broke free from the ice a strong blizzard hit the area on november 24 1931 forcing the crew to retreat to the town of barrow in alaska when they returned they found the ship had vanished initially it was assumed that the bay chimo had sunk during the blizzard however one week later a hunter reported that the ship was floating near skull cliff about 50 miles from where it had originally been trapped when captain cornwell and his crew finally found the ship it was severely damaged giving the impression that it would soon break apart and sink consequently the crew decided to salvage the valuable cargo of furs and leave the vessel behind this should have been the last time anyone heard of the ss bay chimo but it wasn't over the years local residents as well as other ships navigating in the area have reported spotting the unmanned vessel gliding silently across the arctic waters drifting from shore to shore completely intact it was last cited in 1969 floating between barrow and icy cape as late as 2006 the state of alaska deployed a formal search team to locate the elusive wandering ship of the arctic even with all of their advanced equipment however the team was unable to find it and what exactly happened to the bay chimo may forever remain a mystery [Music] dating from the second half of the first century bce the antikythera shipwreck was first discovered in 1900 by sponge divers near the greek island of antikythera over the years marine archaeologists have recovered several surviving artifacts from the site of the shipwreck including some bronze and marble statues jewelry silver coins and amphora or ceramic jar several pieces of glass work and a bronze la numerous works of art were also recovered including a seven foot tall statue of heracles many scholars believe that this roman era shipwreck submerged at the crossroads of the mediterranean and aegean seas was originally a greek trading or cargo ship that went down while carrying some of the treasures looted from athens in 86 bc by the roman general sula lucian of samasata had in some of his writings made reference to one of sula's ships sinking in the antikythera region which might lend some credence to this theory domestic utensils and accessories recovered from the wreck such as roman ceramics and amphorae also seemed to support this theory during the first excavation of the antikythera shipwreck an unassuming lump of bronze was discovered which later turned out to be an early mechanical computer used to plan important religious rituals agricultural activities and sporting events the so-called antikythera mechanism comprised a complex set of interlocking gears used to predict the movements of celestial bodies including the sun the moon and several planets from the inscriptions and gear settings scientists deduced that the mechanism could also predict the timing of lunar and solar eclipses years in advance the reason for the loss of the greek vessel almost 2 000 years ago is still unclear but the artifacts recovered from the shipwreck have made it one of the most important discoveries in the world of marine archaeology it has changed many assumptions in the scientific community about the limits of ancient technology the antikythera mechanism for instance predates any other object approaching the same level of sophistication by at least a thousand years [Music] the merchant role was a 17th century english merchant ship that traded with spanish colonies in the west indies between 1637 and 1640. at the time spain and england were at peace with one another the merchant role under the command of captain john limbre was tasked with transporting treasures from the new world to spain the treasures were to be used to pay the salaries of the 30 000 spanish soldiers stationed in flanders belgium in september of 1641 the ship was loaded with 400 bars of mexican silver 500 000 silver coins a huge quantity of precious jewels and a hundred thousand pounds of gold the ship was apparently leaking badly after its long voyage from the west indies to europe as it entered english waters the weather conditions deteriorated the pumps on board broke down and the ship began to take on water 18 men drowned when the merchant rolls sank somewhere off the coast of land's end captain limbre soon fired the ship's cannon asking nearby vessels for assistance he and 40 of his crew members were rescued by the dover merchant another merchant ship sailing in the vicinity however they could not save any of the cargo resulting in a loss of more than 1.1 billion pounds in today's money countless people have over the years tried to find the wreck and recover its valuable cargo in 2007 an american company by the name of odyssey marine exploration engaged in deep sea ocean exploration for the extraction of subsea mineral resources salvaged five hundred thousand pieces of gold and silver coins from a shipwreck that was originally rumored to be the merchant royal however the wreck discovered by this company was later identified as the nestra sonora de las mercedes a spanish ship lost in 1804. hence the incredible long-lost treasures of the merchant role still await discovery the uss cyclops was a proteus class collier ship launched in 1910 and commissioned by the united states navy during world war one in march of 1918 the ship disappeared without a trace near sinkits island along with all 306 passengers crew members and officers on board at the time of its disappearance the ship was on its way back to the u.s from brazil having completed an assignment under lieutenant commander george w walley to aid in the refueling of british ships the ship was last sighted in the vicinity of barbados on the 4th of march 1918. interestingly the cyclops vanished without a trace in an area commonly known as the bermuda triangle and it wasn't the first ship to have disappeared mysteriously in this area there was no distress call from the ship before it went missing or was there any wreckage debris or any other evidence of a shipwreck ever found nearly 550 feet long the cyclops carried nearly 11 000 tons of manganese oar aside from its 306 passengers when it disappeared the last known message from the cyclops simply read whether fair all well something went wrong during the long journey home to baltimore however and no one from the ship was ever seen or heard from again the uss cyclops a key naval asset used for transporting coal to fuel other ships around the world simply dropped off the map without so much as an sos the mysterious circumstances surrounding the loss of the cyclops has given rise to a flurry of sensational theories about what might have actually happened to it it is one of the most famous among the 100 odd planes and ships to have mysteriously vanished in the so-called bermuda triangle a region in the western part of the north atlantic surrounded by puerto rico san juan miami and bermuda some suggest that the ship fell victim to an attack by a german submarine while others point to the fact that a few months before the ship's disappearance some members of the crew had staged a minor mutiny alleging that commander wurley was an alcoholic and incapable of steering the cyclops most naval experts however are of the opinion that the ship sank due to structural failure as proteus class collier ships were designed to carry coal and not manganese ore which is denser and heavier than coal and may therefore have caused the structural beams of the ship to weaken over time the disappearance of the hl hunley a confederate submarine that played a minor role in the american civil war is one of the greatest mysteries in the maritime world when it plunged a live torpedo into the hull of the uss husatonic on february 17 1864 the hunley became the first submarine in history to successfully sink an enemy warship however before the submarine could return to base after this successful attack it was lost at sea along with its a-man crew for over a century following its disappearance divers and shipwreck hunters searched for the remains of the hunley in the waters of charleston it was finally found in 1995 and raised from the ocean floor in 2000 but this recovery ultimately raised more questions than it answered an archaeological examination of the wreck revealed that all eight crew members remained at their stations even as the submarines sank there was no sign of panic or any last-minute desperate attempts to flee the sinking vessel moreover the remains of the crew members bore no signs of major physical injury suggesting that whatever happened to the hunley wasn't violent enough to break the bones of those inside since the recovery of the submarine researchers have found a hidden fail-safe mechanism in the vessel's keel which should have allowed the crew to escape the hunley when it began sinking however the mechanism was never activated which seems to suggest that the crew did not perceive any danger in the minutes preceding the sinking of the submarine all the emergency levers were also locked in position which seems to provide further evidence that there was no panic on board as the sub went down delivers if engaged would have released a thousand pounds of keel blocks and raised the submarine to the surface of the water thus allowing the crew members to swim away to safety since time immemorial humans have been fascinated by the idea of shipwrecks and it's not hard to understand why first there's the lure of sunken treasure an idea attractive to any culture that appreciates shiny things so well all of them then there's the inherent mystique and tragedy of seeing a once mighty vessel languishing at the bottom of the ocean covered in algae and home to fish and crabs when a ship sinks or disappears with no survivors to tell the tale speculation runs rampant with facts morphing into stories and then legends in no time one day plausible explanations for these maritime mysteries may be found but until then we'll have to rely on stories legends and guesswork to try and understand what happened after these vessels set sail for the last time so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 327,153

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Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects

Id: nlVmMOO6Sz4

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2021