A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped, as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves.
RMS Tayleur was a full-rigged iron clipper ship chartered by the White Star Line. She was large, fast and technically advanced. She ran aground off Lambay Island and sank, on her maiden voyage, in 1854. Of more than 650 aboard, only 280 survived. She has been described as "the first Titanic".
SS Athenia was a steam turbine transatlantic passenger liner built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1923 for the Anchor-Donaldson Line, which later became the Donaldson Atlantic Line. She worked between the United Kingdom and the east coast of Canada until 3 September 1939, when a torpedo from the German submarine U-30 sank her in the Western Approaches.
P Henderson & Company, also known as Paddy Henderson, was a ship owning and management company based in Glasgow, Scotland and operating to Burma. Patrick Henderson started business in Glasgow as a merchant at the age of 25 in 1834. He had three brothers. Two were merchants working for an agent in the Italian port of Leghorn; the third, George, was a sea captain with his own ship.
SS Elbe was a transatlantic ocean liner built in the Govan Shipyard of John Elder & Company Ltd., Glasgow, in 1881 for the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen. She foundered on the night of 30 January 1895 following a collision in the North Sea with the steamship Crathie, resulting in the loss of 334 lives.
SS Ismailia was a British cargo and passenger ship of the Anchor Line that disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean in 1873.
The SS Mohegan was a steamer which sank off the coast of the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, on her second voyage. She hit The Manacles on 14 October 1898 with the loss of 106 out of 197 on board.
The SSCity of Boston was a British iron-hulled single-screw passenger steamship of the Inman Line which disappeared in the North Atlantic Ocean en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool in January 1870.
RMS Titanic was a British ocean liner that sank on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on the ship's maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, approximately 1,500 died, making the incident the deadliest sinking of a single ship at the time. Titanic, operated by the White Star Line, carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere in Europe who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired a lasting legacy in popular culture.
SS Volturno was an ocean liner that caught fire and was eventually scuttled in the North Atlantic in October 1913. She was a Royal Line ship under charter to the Uranium Line at the time of the fire. After the ship issued SOS signals, eleven ships came to her aid and, in heavy seas and gale winds, rescued 521 passengers and crewmen. In total 135 people died in the incident, most of them women and children in lifeboats launched unsuccessfully prior to the arrival of the rescue ships.
Below is the timeline of maritime events during the Emergency,. This period was referred to as The Long Watch by Irish Mariners. This list is of events which affected the Irish Mercantile Marine, other ships carrying Irish exports or imports, and events near the Irish coast.
SS Arctic, an American paddle steamer owned by the Collins Line, sank on September 27, 1854, 50 miles (80 km) off the coast of Newfoundland after a collision with SS Vesta, a much smaller French vessel. Passenger and crew lists indicate that there were probably more than 400 on board; of these, only 88 survived, most of whom were members of the crew. All the women and children on board perished.
SS Athenia was the first Donaldson Line ship of that name to be torpedoed and sunk off Inishtrahull, by a German submarine (SM U-53) in 1917; the later SS Athenia, was similarly attacked in 1939.
SS Sagaing was a twin-hatched passenger and cargo steamship that regularly plied a route connecting Liverpool, Glasgow and Rangoon in the first half of the 20th century. It was attacked and partially destroyed at Trincomalee Harbour by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy in 1942, as part of the Easter Sunday Raid on Ceylon. The hulk was sunk a year later to act as a pier but was raised in 2018 after a 5-month operation by the Sri Lanka Navy, moved out of the harbour area, and resunk.
SS Cork was an Irish passenger ship that was torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-103 in the Irish Sea nine nautical miles north east of Point Lynas, Anglesey on 26 January 1918 while on route from Dublin, Ireland to Liverpool, United Kingdom while carrying a general cargo of sheep, horses, and cattle.
United Kingdom