The Terrible Disaster of the SS ARCTIC (1854)

this is not a story for the faint of heart it is violent graphic and disturbing we've studied the titanic we've studied the atlantic the swallow the lexington the lusitania although this wreck might not have the same high numbers of casualties as the others the absolute hell that unfolded during this ordeal is one of the worst i've ever studied this is the arctic the third ship built for the collins line she was launched in january 1850 and sailed her first voyage in october that same year she was fast capturing the title clipper of the seas as she claimed the blue ribbon the collins line had well-built ships and great crew and often were the heroes of the sea in 1852 one of the ships the pacific saved 16 from the wreck of the jesse stephens as it sank in a storm but the company had a massive weight around their neck politicians in washington dc many of whom wanted to see the company fail gave them the impossible requirement of always steaming at full speed no matter what the weather conditions were which often put the ships into harm's way the arctic was successful at first but things took a sharp turn for her after she grounded in 1853 she then struck a rock in 1854 and then she had her engines overhauled but the new engine strained her hull pretty badly the arctic was a wooden paddle steamer she had a first class known as saloon class and a second class there was no steerage on board her accommodations in second class were comfortable but her first class was lavish with two grand saloons one for dining and one for lounging [Music] the arctic was 2856 tons 284 foot long with a 45 foot beam she had one funnel with a red top two masts and six lifeboats four hanging on davits and two stowed on the deck she was capable of flying canvas and navigating as a sailing ship as her sister famously did in 1851 after her engines were disabled [Music] the arctic left the liverpool landing stage in the morning of september 20th 1854. on board were a few people of note at least for the time most prominent were the families of several important figures in the collins line the owner of the collins line was a man named edward collins he was not on board but his wife mary and two of his children henry and mary were traveling in saloon class the family of james brown the president of the bank that financed the collins line was also on board though like edward collins he himself was not on board george allen the attorney for the novelty iron works which built arctic's engines was traveling on board with his family and infant these three families all knew each other and kept close together a few others of interest were on board the french duke of gramal traveling to washington dc as a diplomat and a sea captain traveling as a passenger aboard the arctic a man named captain pratt and his wife and child interestingly only a few months prior captain pratt and his family survived another shipwreck and considered themselves blessed to be here on this sturdy ship a children's book publisher named melon day and an english architect and painter named frederick catherwood at the command of the arctic is a seasoned sea captain captain james loose captain loose's son willie was 11 years old and had suffered from an unidentified illness his whole life for the first time ever captain luce and his wife agreed that it may do really good to let him travel to europe with his father and he was now making his return voyage with him captain luce's wife was staying home of the 20 or so people that i've specifically mentioned only three would survive the ordeal arctic was carrying 233 passengers and 175 crew for a total of 408 souls on board the voyage itself was mostly uneventful passengers socialized and fine food was eaten music was played and fresh autumn air was breathed on the deck but as the ship entered the mid-north atlantic temperatures dropped and few passengers were willing to go outdoors captain lucy's son willie spent much of the voyage in his cabin but spent a considerable amount of time with millie brown of the previously mentioned family of james brown arctic plowed through the waves at 13 knots or around 15 miles per hour as she approached the grand banks off of newfoundland meanwhile a tiny ship made of iron departed newfoundland bound for france this ship belonged to a french fishing company and was used by the company to transport their fishermen between work in newfoundland and their homes in france this ship with over 150 on board was named the vesta vesta was 250 tons and stretched half the length of the arctic at 152 feet in length in addition to being made of iron she was ahead of her time in having a propeller instead of paddle wheels and sails on her masts to aid her and she was divided into four water tight compartments on the second day of her voyage she was now sailing into the same area that the arctic was just off of the east coast of newfoundland september 27th was a foggy cold day arctic's captain did not wish to be traveling at full speed with such sporadic visibilities but he was required by the politicians giving the collins line their subsidies it was now a quarter past noon local time when out of the fog ahead came a dark ship under full sail and full steam closing in on them at at least 10 knots it was the french fishing steamer vesta a lookout aboard the arctic called the alert stop steamer ahead the officer on the bridge had only a moment to decide if he was going to turn the ship to the left or to the right now turning to the left was the quicker way out of danger but it broke the standard passing protocol for ships in that they should always pass each other on the right it also required the captain of the vesta to act accordingly and not attempt to pass on their own right which would simply put them right back into the path of the arctic the officer shouted hard to starboard which believe it or not means turn the ship to port it's the inverse of what you might expect it's called tiller commands arctic's engines were ordered to stop and at least her port side engine was stopped within a moment with the engineers rushing up on deck to find out what was up as soon as their orders had been executed arctic was slowly beginning to pull to her porch but the crew of the vesta perhaps in panic resorted to what was known procedure and did not react in the way that arctic's crew had hoped for the vesta turned to pass on the right pointing the vesta right at the turning arctic had they turned to port and complemented the maneuver of arctic's crew they might have avoided disaster a further order a full of stern was given but not carried out fast enough captain loose emerged on deck by the starboard paddle box just in time to see the vesta tear into the starboard bow of the arctic just above the water line the bow sprit of the vesta stabbed through the arctic's wooden hull into the crew quarters and impaled one of the sailors maestas foremast collapsed yanked by its stays as her bow was crushed in and shredded vesta was violently twisted and rented from the hole she had created in the arctic as the arctic continued to steam forward the vesta was trampled as arctic pushed forward with vesta dislocating arctic's hull plates all the while she was smashed into the forward part of arctic's paddle box breaking off the wooden bumper around it known as the garn and dislocated some of the paddle box frame arctic's forward momentum was virtually unchecked by the damage and she continued coasting forward aside from those in the immediately damaged area of the bow the collision felt like little more than a bump a shock scarcely more than a tremor or a quiver leaning over the railing to conduct a hasty inspection arctic's crew noted that most of the damage appeared to be above the water line captain loose ordered a handful of the crewmen to go below and see the extent of the damage and to determine if she was still watertight for the most part though the arctic appeared to be safe on board the vesta however it was a scene of absolute carnage passengers had been torn apart and the forward end of the vesta was now painted in blood the fishermen aboard screamed as the ship dipped forward although vesta's captain tried to control the situation a lifeboat was launched against his orders with 12 men on board and made all due haste for the arctic which appeared safer as the vestige drifted away in the fog behind the arctic captain lou saw the vesta dropping rapidly in the water he saw the exposed cargo hold and saw the sea pouring in he heard the men aboard the vesta crying out for help loose ordered arctic's engines re-engaged and for the ship to begin to round slowly to starboard and double back to assist those aboard the sinking vesta loose ordered the lifeboats cleared so that they may assist the frenchman as they abandoned the vesta and ordered chief officer gourley and second officer balam to lower away and take command of two of arctic's lifeboats making way towards the vesta gourley got his boat into the water first while second officer ballam had delays with getting his boat launched meanwhile the arctic came round as the vesta came back into view gourley rode over to them by this time the excitement had drawn nearly every passenger on deck who crowded the arctic starboard railing so many dozens of them crowded the side of the ship the arctic actually leaned a few degrees to starboard captain loose struggled to shout his orders over the murmur of the crowd but there was no sort of panic chief officer gourley's boat began putting some distance between her and the arctic as second officer ballam's boat finally began lowering from the davis arctic's paddles chopped through the water at a slower pace as the ship cautiously orbited the settling vesta but there was something off about the sound of the paddles the sound of the churning was ever so slightly deeper no one would have noticed this but her captain attuned with every sound of his ship the paddles were slowly becoming deeper and deeper in the water loose shouted for second officer balam to abort his lifeboats launch and come back aboard he did so and was immediately ordered to re-inspect the bow ballam grabbed one of the firemen on the deck who was on his lunch break and both climbed over the rail to ascertain the extents of the damage they were shocked actually to see the bow of the vesta still impaled in the arctic and hanging from the mangled hull there were three holes torn in the side two of which were below the water line and letting the sea in not only was vesta going down but the arctic was starting to as well captain loose gave three orders in quick succession first to activate the ship's pumps to start draining the water on board second to plug the holes from the inside with cargo and mattresses and third to lower a canvas sail over the hole from the outside the pumps came on almost in an instant spraying seawater all over the deck and down off of the sides the other two orders both failed miserably the damage was now too far below the water for her crew to plug from the inside and the canvas sail tore apart from the jagged wood as it was lowered over the hull at this point loose had no other means of saving his ship and arctic like nearly every other ship in history until 1912 did not have enough lifeboats for all on board newfoundland was four hours away and was arctic's only hope as arctic prepared to make a mad dash toward land luce ordered the crew to signal chief officer gourley's boat to return in all due haste but it had disappeared into the fog arctic's crew put up full steam turned due west and prayed they left gourley's boat behind but loose was convinced that gourley would pull through somehow but no gourley and his men were never seen again arctic had left vesta behind too but there was nothing arctic could do to help them unbeknownst to captain loose and the crew of the arctic however the vestas lifeboat had come up alongside the arctic as the ship sped forward it was pulled under the ship's starboard paddle wheel and was torn to pieces along with all but one of the occupants the bodies of those in the lifeboat became stuck in the paddle wheel for several rotations until they fell apart enough to fall out this was one of the first rude awakenings of the afternoon that arctic's passengers would witness sailors from the arctic hauled the lone surviving frenchmen aboard arctic left the site of the accident behind but efforts continued to mitigate the damage to the ship the carpenter fashioned a bit of scaffolding over the side and attempted to plug the hole manually and the captain ordered the shifting of weight away from the damaged starboard bow the crew dragged the anchors and dumped them over the port side letting them fall loose from the ship chain and all the passengers were ushered to the aft port quarter and indeed the weight on the flooding section of the ship was eased unfortunately however the arctic was not built with watertight bulkheads so the water that had already come in was simply flowing aft with the shifted weight the pumps continued to keep the influx at bay but the ship was still slowly sinking in addition to the main four steam bilge pumps arctic had hand pumps that had to be pumped manually passengers and crew alike worked these taking short shifts until they were worn out from exhaustion and the pumps were sticky with blood from their blistered hands in an attempt to curb disorder in advance the quartermasters were ordered to arm themselves and keep the passengers away from the lifeboats until the crew was ready to load them as arctic cut through the fog the ship's signal cannon was put to use as a makeshift distress call a young man an engineer named stuart holland was tasked with regularly firing the signal cannon a post that he would stand by until the very end water was nearing the boilers and the stokers attempted to abandon their posts and the lower decks but they were persuaded to stay there knowing that at that moment their best hope for survival was the steam for the engines the ship may have had a full head of steam but the lower she sank into the water the more drag she had and the less effect her paddles had in pushing her forward when the water reached the furnaces the ship shook violently as if a part of her had exploded arctic was losing power in her engines and now only limped forward loose ordered the lifeboats loaded starting with the aft starboard boat the same boat that second officer balam was launching it was loaded with women and children and then provisions and then put under the command of the ship's butcher it was ordered to be loaded down to the water line just above and stay there until every last lifeboat was ready to go loose wanted to launch all the lifeboats at the same time so that they could stay together after the ship goes down and make way for land as a group however here we see our first serious act of mutiny despite sound orders from the captain and the ship was still stable and not in any imminent danger of going under the butcher and his sailors cut the lifeboats falls and quietly rode off into the fog leaving those on the ship behind this lifeboat and its occupants were never seen again the majority of the crew of the arctic were becoming increasingly self-centered and focused solely on their own survival rather than the orders of the captain loose found himself relying less on his crew and more on the male passengers they moved across the deck to the aft port lifeboat and began loading it with women and children but rogue crewman began to rush it axes were used in defense against them but the rush of the men caused the forward tackle of a boat to fail and dump the women and children into the sea below killing every last one of them some of the crew who stormed the lifeboat would survive the incident and ironically later claimed that it was captain loose who was the true villain for preventing them from using the lifeboat the last of the arctic steam died off and the ship drifted to a halt worse yet the ship's steam pumps now gurgled to a stop aside from the small hand pumps the sea was now free to fill without resistance fortunately the ship was still sinking slowly though another lifeboat was prepared by second officer ballam as the aft port one was recovered and readied once more ballam's boat was lowered to the water and was briefly attached to the port paddle box before rowing away into the fog abandoning the captain balam had pretended to be so loyal up until this point with a lifeboat less than half full and almost entirely comprised of crewmen and with the ship still slowly sinking behind him ballam's boat began making way toward newfoundland despite captain loose yelling orders to them to stand by and wait to pick people up from the water the aft port lifeboat which was now recovered was loaded with women and children although not before an altercation broke out between the captain armed with a mallet and a sailor armed with a knife captain loose won that one shortly after that though the lifeboat was once again stormed by cowardly men many of them tripping over themselves and falling into the sea the boat fell free and some of the men climbed aboard it drifted off into the fog leaving behind the arctic and their honor the duke of gramalt from france who was mentioned earlier in traveling as a diplomat leapt over the side and made it into a lifeboat his survival would actually become a controversy that hung over his head for the rest of his life a special thanks by the way to frank gestremski for sending me this original photo card of the duke of grimal there were supposedly two lifeboats left and loose directed his attention to getting them ready they were smaller ones than the ones that had already gotten away but to lose his horror he found that one of the last lifeboats had already been hijacked by arctic's chief engineer who gathered his friends provisions boxes of cigars and the ship's pistols and quietly snuck away with the boat while attention was focused on the aft lifeboat as his boat crept away they even refused to pick swimmers up from the water who were near them and attempting to climb aboard even though their boat was only partially full this was a gut punch to captain loose five of the ship's lifeboats were already gone and not a single woman or child had been safely away yet the families of edward collins george allen and james brown were all still on board as was captain lucy's son willie and almost all of his officers engineers and sailors had abandoned him with one lifeboat left captain loose decided the best course of action now was to construct a raft from removable parts on the ship and use the last lifeboat as a platform in the water the spars were removed from the masts doors were taken off of their hinges and any of the debris that could be found was brought to the lowest point on the deck the aft port side of the ship to be assembled into a raft yes the damage had been done on the starboard bow but the weight of the passengers and crew shifted the free-flowing water to the stern and now she was going down in that direction the raft was the last hope for those on board but at this point those left on the arctic split into three distinct camps those who were loyal to captain loose who made every effort to save others and construct a means of escape the second group were mostly female passengers including the collins and brown family who accepted their fate and quietly prayed appealing to god for salvation and those in the third group who seemed to appeal to the devil the third group broke into the liquor cabinet and drank themselves stupid they looted what they could they violently began taking life jackets from others now the worst of this group saw this as an opportunity to do what they wanted with no consequences and attempted to rape the women there were almost certainly killings among these final minutes as the people brawled and as the few remaining gentlemen aggressively defended the women arctic which had been resisting its fate for over four hours now was beginning to lose its stability it was lurching rolling and heaving as it dropped deeper into the sea there were indeed heroes as the ship entered its final moments despite the terrible actions of some fourth officer francis dorian stood loyally by captain loose until the very end defending the lifeboat being used in the raft's construction and ensuring that it was not stolen away the engineer apprentice stuart holland was still firing the signal cannon in hopes that they'll be heard and he'd go down with the ship doing this his supposed last words were to the captain asking him to let the world know that at least one man stood by his post one of the ship's two stewardesses a woman named anna downer was still working one of the ship's hand pumps with blood dripping down her arms and down the stem of the pump and staining the deck captain loose told her that she actually could leave her post and that there was no use working those pumps anymore the ship was sinking too fast but she said that as long as her arms still worked she would stand by that pump she went down with the ship as the raft was nearly completed that group of vile passengers turned their attention from the vices still aboard the ship and rushed onto the raft trampling those still building it some of those rushing the raft were struck down by axes but the raft broke free from the ship with several on it fourth officer dorian's boat was also finally overtaken by the ruffians with every means of escape now exhausted captain loose did his final rounds he said goodbye to his passengers spending a moment specifically with the families of collins brown and allen handing out life belts to all along the way the children of these families clung to their mothers crying as they all began to pray finally captain loose went to his son's cabin he was laying in the bed ill and he walked him up to the bridge captain loose saw no chance for survival for either of them and expected that he and his son would quietly wait there for the end the arctic dropped by the stern tearing apart the deckhouse and sinking fast passengers still aboard were thrown in a heap against the funnel as stuart holland fired off his final cannon signal the ship groaned as her lower decks were blown through and her bow lifted up into the air captain loose held his son in his arms as he was pulled deep under the water struggling to surface he finally did but was pulled under once more he lost grip of his son when he resurfaced in the chaos above the wreck site he did manage to find his son at a distance and began swimming towards him during the collision the vesta had banged into the arctic starboard paddle box completely destroying her forward guard and damaging the rest of the housing now when the arctic struck the sea floor that paddle box broke away from the wreck and shot up to the surface striking and killing several struggling in the sea including captain loose's son captain loose was hit badly in the head by the box but regained himself and covered in blood climbed atop the wooden structure as a raft a few others climbed a top with him including george allen of the novelty iron works from the paddle box they watched in horror as those in the water slowly died around them there were some in the group of 12 on the box that watched their own family drown in front of them they tried to grab them but the sea was so rough that they drifted away they watched the allen and brown family climb aboard a raft and slowly die there the ship was gone but the horrors were not over a gale began to pick up and the blood in the water attracted sharks who dragged off some of the stragglers as the group began to spread apart night fell throughout the next day more people died off and the dozen who were standing aboard the paddle box were now down to three survivors captain loose george allen and the sailor who actually pulled the frenchman from vesta's lifeboat out of the sea on that day the canadian bark huron enroute to quebec found fourth officer dorian's boat and picked up 30-some people from it the huron also found the large improvised raft from just before the ship's final plunge drifting in pieces with only one survivor still aboard it whom they rescued as well something interesting happened next shortly after the huron came across another ship called the lebanon enroute to new york and it linked up with it and gave the survivors aboard the huron the opportunity to hop aboard and just sail directly into new york rather than stick with the huron and go into quebec and then make their way down to america from there the survivors of the arctic who acted nobly during the sinking chose to go with the lebanon just straight to new york and head home the ones who acted a little bit more cowardly stuck with the huron and went to canada perhaps anticipating a very negative reception given their actions during the sinking and they went with the huron back to canada and stayed there for the rest of their lives the paddle box drifted for days ships sailed through the area but did not notice them the sailor among them even attempted suicide twice being driven mad by the sea but was stopped by captain loose and george allen they were eventually picked up by the cunard steamer cambria who picked up a small handful of other survivors from the sea including the french fishermen pulled aboard the arctic from the vesta cambria was under the command of a captain russell now even though he worked for cunard the arch-nemesis of the collins line he felt a personal gratitude towards the collins line captain russell was a survivor of the wreck of the bark jesse stevens which sank in a storm and 16 of her crew were rescued by the collins liner pacific indeed it is a small world and captain russell saw this as a sentimental payback for the debt that he personally felt towards the collins line for saving his life a few years prior out on the open ocean two of the lifeboats continued to row west one of them was the one commanded by second officer balam and the other was the lifeboat hijacked by the ship's engineers two days after the wreck the boats finally made landfall at broad cove newfoundland today known as renews kappa hayden they rested here and caught their bearings and then journeyed 50 miles north to st john's when they reached the city they were met with a startling sight the vesta safely in port with her bow torn off despite the serious damage to her her watertight bulkheads held and her crew managed to astoundingly bring her into port safely up until this point vesta did not know that the arctic herself was sinking but merely thought that the collision was a hit and run and word of the selfish hit and run was already circulating with captain loose being portrayed around the world as a villain only when the survivor started trickling in was it known that the arctic fled for her own life now to speculate for a moment a lot of people might suggest that if only the arctic had stayed with the vesta she might have been able to evacuate her passengers and crew onto the vesta and then they all could have made it back safely to newfoundland i don't believe that was the case the vesta was hanging on by a thread in fact for several hours after the collision her crew believed they were going to sink it was truly a miracle and a testament to their seamanship that they were able to save the ship and bring her back into port but the added weight of 400 plus people from the arctic climbing aboard the vesta i believe would have been too much weight for the ship to sustain i mean on the arctic we see that they were able to shift the entire angle and direction that the ship was going down by just by all standing on the opposite side of the ship the weight of 400 people on the vesta would have been significant and i don't believe that the ship would have actually survived that much additional weight officer balaam chartered two ships once they arrived in saint john's one to bring the survivors back to america and one to head back out to the wreck site under his command and look for survivors but they found none numbers will vary from source to source but approximately 88 survived the sinking of the arctic to a loss of 320 including every last woman and child news of the disaster didn't reach the united states until two weeks later on october 10th when the rumors of the sinking were finally confirmed by survivors including captain loose as more survivors coming in from canada arrived in the country the grim details of the sinking began emerging and the cowardice of some was identified when officer balam was questioned as to why he took the lifeboat away from the ship he carefully spun the story to instead condemn captain loose many of the firemen who forced their way onto the raft and lifeboats also condemned captain loose claiming he was incapable of leading and had poor judgment of course this was mainly to defer judgment away from themselves loose did actually blame himself for some of the events of that afternoon first and foremost the abandonment of chief officer gourley who had taken the lifeboat from the arctic over to the vestas to see what help could be given and was left behind in the mad dash by the arctic to make it to land he felt guilt for leaving him behind for their lifeboat was never seen again and he speculated that officer gourley could have helped maintain better discipline during the evacuation he also felt certain that his friend was cursing his name in his final moments either way captain loose never returned to the sea no formal inquiry was held perhaps because the politicians in washington felt that it would make them look bad for being behind the excessive speed policy even though they continued to mandate it for the collins line even after the loss of the pacific a few years later edward collins the owner of the collins line had just lost half of his family in the sinking and would never be the same again same goes for james brown who lost six family members and for george allen of the novelty ironworks who witnessed firsthand his wife and baby die but still he himself survived all three of these men would suffer from severe depression for the rest of their lives how did cunard react to the news that their competitor had lost the arctic and the wave of grief that fell over new york city and the rest of the united states well they had a parade yes i'm not making that up they had a parade right down new york city only a couple of days later to celebrate and advertise the safety and security of their lifeboats the vesta sailed until 1875 when she sank off of spain there are no known plans or images of the vesta with the exception of this rudimentary sketch published immediately after the collision showing her broken in bow so the depiction that we created for this documentary was based mostly off of that sketch and written descriptions the wreckage of the arctic was never found she lies somewhere off the east coast of newfoundland likely with very little to mark the spot on the sea floor where she fell as her wooden body will mostly have disintegrated there may be a singular relic from the sinking somewhere that was picked up from the water but nothing much the bodies were not recovered and the name arctic was avoided by shipping lines in the years to come white starline considered naming one of the oceanic fleet the arctic but opted to name it the celtic after they were reminded of this story there are no proper memorials this is an era of ships that has mostly been forgotten and a company of ships buried in history and a compliment of passengers and crew whose story has little been told i want to thank david shaw for his outstanding book the sea shall embrace them without which this video wouldn't have been possible and also thank you to my buddy liam sharp who put together these animations with me and also his additional research contributing towards this project a huge thank you to all of my supporters on patreon for helping cover the cost of these rather large collins line documentaries especially kaiser wilhelm the second air wicker zack sterosu tom shavada rob m amos mayhew corey andrews dakota charbonne zolt wagner and nicholas masella if you enjoyed this video and want to support my ongoing research into maritime stories and lost history please consider becoming a patron yourself at the link below in the meantime be sure to like and subscribe thank you very much for taking this time to learn about this disaster

Channel: Part-Time Explorer

Views: 4,550,904

Keywords:

Id: UEGseRuJ4Xw

Length: 36min 17sec (2177 seconds)

Published: Sat May 21 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Chronos-X4]

Good Lord... the Arctic Disaster makes the Titanic look like a picnic.

[u/metalunamutant]

Her sister SS Pacific faired no better, though we don't know the details since she disappeared -- presumably after colliding with an iceberg.

[u/WLDB1988]

Great video.

[u/Quantillion]

I'm really curious to read the book Lynskey and Co. used as reference for this video. "The Sea Shall Embrace Them" by David Shaw. Has anyone here? Is it good?

[u/yungdaggertekashi]

I watched that today, its horrible all around

[u/CleavingStriker]

Great YouTube channel as well. Lots of interesting stuff

[u/EcstaticAvocadoes]

There was room for 150 people in the lifeboats. There were just over 80 women and children on board. To think that all of them could have been saved...

[u/Coyoteteethh]

Holy fuck

[u/mrmoviemanic1]

I have just watched this video, I'm saddened deeply by how cruel those men were. R.I.P to all the heroes and honorable passengers on board.