SS Naronic facts for kids
The SS Bovic, sister ship to Naronic; 1892
|
|
Quick facts for kids History |
|
|---|---|
 United Kingdom |
|
| Name | Naronic |
| Owner | White Star Line |
| Builder | Harland and Wolff, Belfast, Ireland |
| Yard number | 251 |
| Launched | 26 May 1892 |
| Completed | 11 July 1892 |
| Maiden voyage | 15 July 1892 |
| Fate | Disappeared after 11 February 1893 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Cargo liner |
| Tonnage | 6594 GRT |
| Length | 470 ft (143.3 m) |
| Beam | 53 ft (16.2 m) |
| Decks | 3 |
| Installed power | Four steel boilers |
| Propulsion | Twin reciprocating engines, twin propellers |
| Speed | 13 knots (24.1 km/h) |
| Crew | 50 |
The SS Naronic was a large British cargo steamship built in 1892. It was made by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland, for the famous White Star Line company. The Naronic was a sister ship to the SS Bovic. At the time it was built, the White Star Line wanted to carry more live cattle across the North Atlantic Ocean.
The Naronic and other ships like it carried goods from Liverpool, England, to New York City, USA. On the way back, they brought American cattle. The ship also had a few cabins for passengers. When it first started sailing, the Naronic was the biggest cargo ship in the world.
Less than a year after its first trip, on February 11, 1893, the Naronic disappeared at sea. It was sailing from east to west across the Atlantic Ocean. Back then, ships couldn't send messages about problems while at sea. The ship's wreck was never found. However, two of its lifeboats were seen by other ships soon after it went missing.
An official investigation tried to find out why the Naronic sank, but they couldn't find a clear answer. Tests on its sister ship, the Bovic, showed it was very stable. Also, no ice was reported on the Naronic's route. People have suggested different ideas, like a big storm or an explosion of chemicals on board. The sinking of the Naronic caused 74 people to lose their lives.
After the ship disappeared, some bottles with messages inside were found. These messages claimed to be written during the sinking, but they were likely hoaxes (fake messages). The Naronic was an expensive ship, but it was not insured. The White Star Line replaced it in 1895 with a new, larger ship called the Georgic.
Contents
The Ship's Story
Building the Naronic
In the mid-1880s, the White Star Line stopped using sailing ships and focused only on steamships. The company then looked for new ways to make money. They quickly decided to transport cattle from the United States. This business grew a lot after 1874, when the first cargo ship brought 370 cattle to England. By 1889, 450,000 animals were crossing the North Atlantic each year.
The White Star Line started in this new business in 1888 with the SS Cufic (1888) (Cufic). The next year, they added the SS Imo (Runic). The company's goal was to carry goods to the US and bring cattle back safely. It was common for animals to die on other ships because of bad travel conditions. The White Star Line wanted to avoid this, so they told their captains to make sure the animals stayed healthy.
These first two ships were very successful. In 1891, the company added two new, larger cargo ships: the SS Nomadic (1891) (Nomadic) and the SS Tauric (Tauric). The next year, two even bigger ships were built: the Naronic and the SS Bovic (Bovic).
The Naronic was launched on May 26, 1892, and finished on July 11, 1892. At 143 meters long and 6,594 GRT (a measure of its size), it was the largest steam cargo ship in the world at that time. It could carry over a thousand animals and thousands of tons of goods. It also had space for about fifteen passengers, usually people who were traveling with the animals.
On July 15, 1892, the Naronic began its first journey from Liverpool to New York. Captain Thompson was in command. The Bovic started sailing a few weeks later, on August 26.
The Last Voyage
In November 1892, Captain William Roberts took over command of the Naronic. He had previously been the captain of the SS Adriatic (1871) (Adriatic). The ship continued its regular trips between Liverpool and New York. There was only one small problem during this time: on November 27, 1892, the Naronic arrived in Liverpool having lost 34 animals, even though conditions were good.
On February 11, 1893, the Naronic left Liverpool. It had sixty crew members, including officers and mechanics who had been with the ship since it started. There were also fourteen passengers on board, who were returning to the US after accompanying cattle. The ship carried 2,876 tons of goods. It did not carry cattle on this trip, but it had two horses and some live pigeons and chickens.
The ship had enough coal for a round trip. After leaving Liverpool, it made a quick stop at Point Lynas, Anglesey, North Wales, to drop off its pilot. Then, it headed west into rough seas and was never seen again.
The Naronic did not have a wireless telegraph to send a distress call. This technology was still new; the system the Titanic used for distress signals would not be available for another five years. This meant that if the ship had a problem, its crew was on their own. They could only hope another ship would pass by.
The trip was supposed to take ten days, so no one worried right away. Delays were common, and ships sometimes lost a propeller or had engine problems. Also, strong storms in February 1893 slowed down many ships. It took several weeks for people in the US to start worrying. The White Star Line at first said there was no reason to be concerned, pointing out the ship's high quality.
On March 1, the company said there was no cause for worry. A week later, a journalist reported that the company believed the ship was still afloat and hoped it was safe. They stressed that the ship was new, had watertight sections, and was well-equipped and commanded by the best officers. It wasn't until March 13 that the company finally said, "There is now great concern about the ship."
People started looking for the Naronic. On March 14, the Tauric arrived in New York. Its lookouts, who had been watching for the missing ship, saw nothing. The next day, the captain of the Teutonic arrived in Queenstown, Ireland. He said he had changed his route to the south to look for the Naronic, but found nothing. The White Star Line also confirmed the ship was not in the Azores.
On March 15, the company sadly announced, "We still hope that it can be safe, but it is unlikely that it will be found, because the Atlantic is crisscrossed by steamers and sailboats, and it would certainly have been spotted if it had still been afloat." Rumors spread that the ship carried hundreds of immigrants, but the company quickly said this was false. Some people hoped that if the ship was just drifting, the passengers would have enough food from the cargo to last for months.
On March 19, new information came out: the British steamer SS Coventry reported seeing two of the Naronic's empty lifeboats. They were found 500 miles east of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first lifeboat, found at 2:00 AM on March 4, was capsized (upside down). The second, found at 2:00 PM, was full of water.
In the months after the ship disappeared, many hoaxes and rumors started. Several messages in bottles were found on both sides of the Atlantic. They claimed to be from crew members of the Naronic, but they were too suspicious to be believed. The American newspapers suggested the Naronic might have been sabotaged with explosives on board. This rumor didn't last long, as the explosives found on another ship, the Tauric, turned out to be just fireworks.
After the Disappearance
The Investigation and Theories
The disappearance of the Naronic meant 74 lives were lost. It also caused a big financial loss for the White Star Line because the ship was not insured. The ship was worth £121,685. However, by 1894, another cattle ship, the SS Cevic (1893) (Cevic), replaced it. This ship was much larger. Another ship, the SS Georgic (1895) (Georgic), was ordered to make up for the loss and started sailing in 1895. Insurance companies had to reimburse the value of the cargo, which was £61,855. The families of the sixty British sailors and fourteen American passengers also suffered greatly.
In June 1893, when there was no longer any hope of finding the ship, an official investigation was held. It took place at St George's Hall, Liverpool. A main goal of the investigation was to prove a rumor in the news was false. A man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who claimed to be the brother of a ship's mechanic, said he received a letter. The letter supposedly said the ship's boilers were in very bad condition and made the Naronic unsafe. After looking into this, the investigation concluded: "The machines and boilers were described by the inspector... as being the best, and as having been installed at best... The machines are not only the best in their category, but were also maintained on each trip."
Other rumors suggested the Naronic flipped over after being caught in a storm. Tests were done on its sister ship, the Bovic, and they showed that the ship was very stable, even when fully loaded. Captain Thompson, who had commanded the Naronic during its first three trips, confirmed that even in a storm, the ship never seemed unstable to him.
Two of the letters found in bottles mentioned a crash with an iceberg. Some ships had indeed seen ice in the North Atlantic in February 1893. This led the investigation to consider the idea that the ship hit an iceberg. However, the ship's planned route, estimated with Captain Thompson's help, passed well south of Newfoundland. The investigation concluded that the Naronic was at least 100 miles from the nearest ice. This conclusion was questioned by the New York press, who reported that several ships saw ice in that area. This was also where the Titanic sank nineteen years later. After checking the ship's safety, the investigation admitted they couldn't find a clear answer. They stated: "Unless new elements are provided, the probable cause of the loss of the vessel remains a matter of speculation and adds to the mysteries of the sea."
The Naronic's cargo list, published in the New York Herald in March 1893, included several chemicals. These included acids, potassium chlorate, sodium sulphide, and calcium hypochlorite. If a storm had moved these products or broken their containers, they could have caused an explosion that sank the Naronic. Historians John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas suggested this idea a century later, as the original investigation had not considered it. In October 1893, a newspaper reported that the captain of the Norwegian ship Emblem saw a Naronic lifeboat in July. It was floating upside down and covered with barnacles. This seemed to suggest the boat was prepared quickly, supporting the idea of a sudden sinking.
Mysterious Messages in Bottles
Four bottles with messages inside were found later. They claimed to be written while the Naronic was sinking. Two bottles were found in the US: one on March 3 in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, and another in Ocean View, Virginia, on March 30. A third bottle was found in June 1893 in the Irish Channel. The fourth was found on September 18 in the River Mersey near Liverpool, where the ship had started its journey.
All four messages specifically mentioned the Naronic sinking. The second bottle found had the most detailed message:
3:10 AM Feb.19. SS Naronic at sea. To who picks this up: report when you find this to our agents if not heard of before, that our ship is sinking fast beneath the waves. It's such a storm that we can never live in the small boats. One boat has already gone with her human cargo below. God let all of us live through this. We were struck by an iceberg in a blinding snowstorm and floated two hours. Now it 3:20 AM by my watch and the great ship is dead level with the sea. Report to the agents at Broadway, New New York, M. Kersey & Company. Goodby all.
This message was signed "John Olsen, Cattleman." However, no one with that name was on the ship's official list. The closest names were John O'Hara and John Watson. The first bottle found had a similar problem, as the signature "L. Winsel" was also not on the list. The messages in the other two bottles were not signed. Because of these issues, people doubted if the bottles were real messages from the sinking ship. The official investigation did not accept the bottled notes as true. If the messages were real, the ship sank sometime after 3:20 AM on February 19, 1893.
Ship Design
The Naronic and its sister ship, the Bovic, were the biggest cargo ships when they first started sailing. Later, two other White Star Line cattle carriers, the Cevic and the Georgic, became even larger. The Naronic was a little bigger than the Bovic. Both ships were 143.3 meters long and 16.2 meters wide.
Their design was mostly practical. They had four masts with cranes for loading cargo. These masts could not carry sails. There was a single, yellow-brown funnel with a black top, which were the White Star Line's colors. The hull (the main body of the ship) was made of steel, like all White Star Line ships since the 1880s, and was painted black. The Naronic was powered by two propellers, which were driven by special engines. It could travel at an average speed of 13 knots (about 24 kilometers per hour). To do this, it used about 50 tons of coal each day and could carry 1,193 tons of coal in its bunkers (storage areas).
The ship was mainly designed to transport cattle in good conditions. The Marine Engineer magazine described it when it started sailing: "Her spacious facilities designed to accommodate 1,050 animals, which she will transport on her main deck and her upper deck, will include all the improvements that the greatest consideration and the best experience can suggest. The barns, fresh water supply, and ventilation will be unmatched." Cattle were transported from New York to Liverpool. These cattle facilities were not used on the return trip to New York. However, the ship sometimes carried other animals, like racehorses and circus animals.
A few cabins were also available for passengers, usually people who were traveling with the cattle. It was very rare for regular paying passengers to be on board. While the ship could hold fifteen people, it was officially certified to carry twelve passengers.
Images for kids
-
St. George's Hall, Liverpool, where the official inquiry into the disappearance took place
