Yeah, Clive Cussler put most of the money from his books into finding "unfindable" shipwrecks and collecting classic cars -- he found and raised CSS Hunley, the first submarine to sink another ship (Simon should do a video on that boat, it's hilarious, in a tragic way) and every classic car he mentioned in his novels is one he owned -- the hardcover editions had a photo of him with the featured car on the back cover of the dustjacket. Spoiler alert for Hunley: It was really good at doing half of what a submarine is supposed to do.
Hi! I’m a naval architect. In my opinion, the most likely explanation is that Waratah sank in a storm. It happens to even well built modern ships with a surprising regularity. Something designed in the early 1900s without the aid of computers would be even more likely to founder.
99.9% of mysterious disappearances of ships outside World Wars are either "it was kind of a crap ship" or "the weather in that place is just that bad" or some combination of the two. During the wars, it was "a u-boat sunk it but nobody saw the torpedoes/the u-boat made its last dive and the Allies didn't get confirmation of the kill."
I actually did enjoy this one. Lack of a mystery or not, I really like how the writer went through each and every angle, witness, etc. Like. I hear stories like this all the time and think "So it sank in a storm" but most channels or podcasts won't bother with this level of detail and investigation and THAT is what makes this episode very interesting and entertaining. I get to hear a lot of things and perspectives that I wouldn't have even thought of before. Lovely work, as always.
Ilse is my favorite writer for this channel because of that. The way she navigates these stories is so captivating and interesting. And she always sets it up so that Simon can ramble but he doesn't lose track of where he is as much as with other writers lol
I met Clive Cussler about a decade ago at a marine archaeology conference. He's absolutely the real deal when it comes to putting up money (and occasionally his own person) for the type of shipwreck hunting that he's written about.
Mariner here, from the sounds of the listing this ship was experiencing an angle of loll; this is when a boat starts to capsize but instead of turtling she stays listed severely to one side. Needless to say this is a very volatile state to be in and any change made to this would cause the ship to capsize. I agree that the vessel was unstable and that the distance between the meta centre and the centre of gravity was very low.
I spent many happy summers as a child at the family cottage on Lake Huron. On the way into town to get groceries there's a beach called Boiler Beach. There's an actual boiler on this beach: it's from the Erie Belle. She was dispatched during a storm to aid another vessel in distress and exploded during the attempt. The wreck was salvaged, but the boiler remains with the storms and ice pushing it minutely closer to shore every year. Even in spring and summer the lake must be respected. I've been pulled in and under by undertow before and it wasn't even stormy, just a little windy and choppy. The Great Lakes, of which Huron is one, are nicknamed "Inland Seas", and rightfully so. There's sufficient wreck diving to be had here for anyone's tastes. Up in Lake Superior you can easily kayak to wrecks observable from the surface with minimal kayaking experience as they're a handful of metres from shore. I still live on the Great Lakes system and I have family who captains a Great Lakes fishing vessel. I'm glad to be living on a river linking Huron to Erie because I rather prefer the quiet but I still have the beauty and benefits of the water. The storms aren't nearly as bad! All this to say: yeah. Storms. *Very* dangerous! Well built and competently crewed vessels still founder here and we've got lots of support from both sides of the Border! Based on my experiences with the Inland Seas, my best guess is the S.S. Waratah foundered in a storm.
Simon worried about people picking up on his lack of skeptical thinking regarding precognitive dream, but not a word about the mispronunciation of July as Juay-lay! Love it.
@@Bethgael Australia is sensible enough not to saturate the population with firearms of their own. Then to train the police force that the Citizenry is out there to get them....
i think the sawyer guy may not have even consciously noted that the ship didn't look right. it mightve been so subtle that he just _unconsciously_ registered it as "this is wrong, this isn't safe" and then had a nightmare about it and decided... yeah, nope. a LOT of the time people just 'having a feeling' is legitimately picking up on tiny clues that we don't consciously understand. EDIT: There's no h in ta-ta??? i guess they spelled it differently back then
This is definitely true. Some people are really good at absorbing seen information without knowing what they've seen that's wrong. They just know it is wrong.
It's crazy - I was going to take a flight, but I had a recurring nightmare about a bald, bearded, bespectacled man with a script in one hand and a ton of cynicism pouring from his mouth. Yeah, I stayed home. Plane was fine.
This is my favorite channel of Simon's. His writers, editors, and Simon himself are so relaxed and fun with each of their contributions that it makes these videos more special
Waratahs are quite nice flowers. They’re the state flower for NSW. Side note I really enjoy Australian Decoding or Casual Criminalist episodes. 🙂 So little is ever set in Australia it’s nice from time to time hearing a story I know the places and cultural context etc.
Always makes me smile when things are described as "Uneventful", as in the ship had an "uneventful" journey. Sounds like a bad thing, but it's exactly what you want! "Hey, would you like to come on this grand adventure?" "No! I want to spend the next few weeks bored, and safe and just kicking my heels until we get there. No pirates, storms, reefs, etc. Lets just get there safe, and then we can deal with spiders the size of your face."
It's the same with working in security. People ask me how work was and usually the answer is "Boring." They usually say something like "Oh that sucks." And my reply is always "No, boring is good. Exciting means paperwork."
When you mentioned the life preserver that washed up years later, you sounded thoroughly confused and not thinking things through. Stuff falls off boats all the time, particularly something like a life ring that they have dozens of. There's no reason to conclude that when the ship goes down near the southern tip of Africa, that a life preserver would drift all the way east, around the entirety of Australia, and finally come ashore in New Zealand. The Waratah started its trip in Adelaide on the southern coast of Australia, a life preserver could easily have fallen off or been thrown off at any time when the ship was over there.
Loved this. Always up for a good lost ship mystery (even if it's pretty obvious she sank in a storm or a rogue wave, etc.). Also Clive Cussler was an absolute chad. Do a Biographics video on him, certified legend.
Not quite accurate. She was billed by NEWSPAPERS as "practically unsinkable" before she was even finished, but the builders/architects/owners etc didn't refer to her as unsinkable. Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer, may have called her "practically unsinkable" but not publicly, as far as we know.
I don't know Simon; even though it wasn't or isn't a huge mystery, I really enjoyed this episode of decoding the unknown. I would love to hear about other missing ships.
One thing about the guy who had the bad dream and decided to get off the ship, while the individual case may look like he had some kind of premonition, you need to take into account all the 1000's and 1000's of times people alter their plans because of a dream and nothing happens. It's just a coincidence that in this one case it happened to coincide with a sinking.
I don't think it was a coincidence. The dude was an engineer so I think his subconsciousness made him dream like that, he was clearly nervous about the ship and his brain helped him make the decision in his sleep. There is no need for anything supernatural here, the saying "I have to sleep on it" isn't an empty phrase, the brain can sometimes process information while you sleep. In short: The guy knew the ship wasn't safe, which gave him nightmares about the ship going under, which made him scared enough to leave it in the nearest harbor. Sometimes things like this are indeed just a coincidence, Someone skipping a flight that has an accident is one thing (unless they are a mechanic who worked on said plane), but here the guy had technical knowledge and had spent time on the ship already, he already had the information that leaving the ship might be a good idea.
Regarding the British people taking first class to Australia - for one this is 1909, the penal system was shut down about 41 years prior and by this point Australia is already a federation comprised of all *six* colonies, I think as a semi-independent dominion though I'm not certain of that last. Even early on, though, there were 2 colonies - the normal colony and the penal colony. People going to the normal colony were as much volunteers as people going to any colony were (ie: driven by economic forces rather than court sentencing).
It should be mentioned that the roll of 45° isn’t as quite dramatic as Simon thinks. Keep in mind that it begins at one side and crosses the center of gravity and then go to the other side. It would have reached approximately 22.5° on each side. Still alarming, but not “standing on the walls” bad.
One failing with this analysis is a fuller discussion of rogue waves. While the massive waves are a menace, a much greater danger are the corresponding depressions which are equal in magnitude to the waves. A ship sailing into one of these will sink almost instantly. The bow ends up pointing more or less straight down and the ship ploughs through the bottom of the depression. This doesn't require any mechanical failure or dislodged freight - fully sound vessels sink in this circumstance just as quickly as damaged ones.
Even of they do exit the trough without plowing, they then find themselves with their bow pointing skyward. The potential for catastrophe becomes astronomical, at that point.
Simon, Simon, Simon...they said RIGHT at the beginning the ship was unsinkable. This means it MUST be a supernatural cause behind its disappearance. It's only logical.
I'm excited to see Decoding the Unknown cover the SS Warantah. My favorite subjects are the "real mysteries" like this. It sort of hurts my heart how dismissive Simon is....yeah it sank, probably, but WHERE and WHY?
So here is what I think happened here - the why The reason Waratah could sit at ~45 deg was because it was designed to not tumble over & weather storms. However, Waratah was probably tested within its limits in calm seas before simulations were a thing (this point is important later). Every system likes to go back to equilibrium naturally, A ship sitting at 45deg waiting to be straightened by external force seems by design (unknowingly/unintended consequence). the ship being "top-heavy"/ "having a metacentre above the Center of gravity" is disastrous. Metacenter is akin to the fixed point on which a pendulum would oscillate & The centre of gravity is the approximate location of the weight if the object was point sized. A pendulum system wants a fixed point (meta centre) above the centre of gravity. Waratah seems to have it in reverse, which is not good. It was designed to be safe at 45 degrees or To be roll resistant when it is thrown around by storms. "masts parallel to the sea" Owing to 45 deg ability/ tendency it would be easy to be pushed over by a big wave when already at 45 degrees. - Water is deceptively heavy - moving stormy sea waves probably pack a punch.
Interesting fact: upon the news of a ship being reported overdue at port the Lutine Bell is traditionally rung in the the underwriting room of Lloyds insurance company. The famous bell was one of the few objects recovered from the wreckage of a famous treasure ship lost at sea (Lloyds had insured her), the Lutine which sunk in 1799 with the loss of all but one of the 240 souls aboard. To this day people still hunt for the Lutine’s treasure which was rumoured to include the Dutch Crown Jewels.
I recently read an article on ships which 'disappear' and it's amazing how many big ships are lost each year. On average, over 20 ships never reach their destination, mostly through bad weather or piracy. (I'd never take a cruise around South East Asia.) Only one ship every ten years disappears with no explanation. Looks like flying is still the way to go. 😄
Simon, you're not alone! A woman on the Titanic stayed up the night of the sinking. She was worried about something bad happening, which she had done since buying her ticket and boarding.
That just sounds like paranoia, though. It'd be slightly more believable, though still difficult to quantify and confirm as anything, if someone has a sudden bad feeling right before anything happened. Especially before any kind of signs or anything were happening. It wouldn't be viable if they were like feeling bumpy waves, etc. Generally though, it's difficult to really believe that kind of thing as any kind of premonition. That's coming from someone who's had some weird scenarios having to do with premonitions or some kind of intuition.
Australian Waratahs are a very showy bright red flower, popular as a garden plant, in expensive cut bouquets, and used in decorative designs like accent tiles and such.
I just looked them up, they're beautiful! Very striking, I can see why they're used as statements in bouquets etc. Australia has the best nature, damn. It's not fair you get gorgeous lil creatures like echidnas *and* such beautiful flowers 🥺
@@HadenBlake We do not have birds that will kill you and in 60+ years I have never had a kangaroo do anything but eat out of my hand. Seriously, people are so stupid about Australia.
Though the wreck was found, an DTU episode on the Edmund Fitzgerald would be fun to explore as to why one of, if not the most advanced Great Lakes freighters at the time went down in that storm in November. Being someone who grew up on Lake Superior, i just love the story of The Pride of the American Side and how amazing that freighter was at its time.
Does Simon like X-Files? There's an episode where Mulder goes looking for the S.S Queen Ann. It had disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. Mulder ends up going back in time to 1938 or something. Pre WWII anyway but there are nazis on the ship. Anyway, I forget what Simon said that made me think of this ( something about a ship disappearing) but it's one of my favorite X-Files episodes.
He does. He references the show on the casual criminalist sometimes. The latest one i remember is him screeching that they're supposed to be the Scully and Mulder of the real world xD (I think the fbi were dropping the ball on this case)
@staytuned2L337 That's actually shocking to me that he likes that show. He consistently talks about how he doesn't like anything but documentaries lol
So out of curiosity I looked up how many ships are lost a year. So between 2011 and 2021 around 892 ships were lost. That’s at least 90 (89.2) a year. These statistics include cargo, fishing, passenger, bulk carriers, tugs, tankers…etc I honestly had no idea that many were lost on average year.
Thing is, alot of these old inquiries weren't so much about finding solutions, or survivors as they were about pinning blame on someone, and saving face for the company. So its not surprising that no records were kept of the evidence, and potential evidence was disregarded. They probably had a narrative, and were looking for a way to push it. Thats simple.
Hi Simon, great vlog I learned a lot. Just so you know there is a direct QANTAS 787 flight to Perth, Australia from London Heathrow taking less than 17 hours. Still a long flight though. Keep up the good work.
@@brucebaxter6923 For me it is a stop-off in the UAE, Singapore or, Malaysia or Brunei for a changeover if not direct. The flight originates in Melbourne from memory. Australia is a continent, not like my home where a 2-hour flight, you could cover it. So a direct flight to Heathrow is a bonus, as you can fly anywhere from there.
P&O (Peninsular and Oriental) doesn't exist as such, any longer. The freight operations are now part of Maersk and and passenger/cruise division belongs to Princess Cruises. The logistics part of things is now a division of DP World (Dubai Ports).
I have recurring nightmares about being back in college (sometimes high school) and having forgotten about a class or two. I’m panicking because I’m gonna fail the class and if it’s too late to drop the class. I finished grad school back in 2016 and finished high school in 2005. It’s been so many years of these stupid dreams.
Yes! I have completed Uncoding the Deknown (for now)! The past week has seen some very serious binge watching. Kevin, Katy, Ilza, et al. - well done! Simon, you Fact Boi extraordinaire, blaze on! And Jen, you are the Memestress GOAT! I look forward to new episodes, but now I must dash to see which of Simon's other gazillion channels I want to binge watch next. Ta!
Hi Simon! I love all your channels. Don't forget the suggestion that I made at the episode of "Spring-Heeled Jack." Please do an episode on "The Golem of Prague" an iconic legend from the city where you live! Don't forget! Do you even realize how many tourists come to Prague because of the "Golem"? ❤💗💓💞💝💗
17.6 meter equals 57.83 feet. That is a really big wave and if the ship was having other problems at the time I would say that it could have caused the sinking. The sad thing is the loss of life and the families that didn’t have any answers to what happened to their loved ones
There is a current in the sea that runs parallel to the South African coast. If the ship’s engineering had failed and they’d lost propulsion, they could have been caught by that current, which turns southward and would have taken them towards Antarctica.
I love your channel. About Australia, I worked there for six months, I'm Italian btw, I flew Milan to Doha (Qatar) and then Melbourne. Didn't sleep a single minute. Milan-Doha was six hours, then I had six hours at Doha airport and to be honest Doha-Melbourne was so long at some point it was like an acid trip flashback, you know with the time dilation feeling. I think it was around 13 or 14 hours. Love you bro, take care. By the way I didn't like it there, had some issues with aggressive locals, had friends (Indian and other Asian) attacked and myself I was called a "wog" quite a lot.
Come to Australia!! We'd love to have you. Don't just go to the east coast, go to Darwin, the Kimberly's, Tasmania and the Barossa Valley...just...just look out for drop bears...and the Min Min lights
Also, I meet kids in my job who have dreamed of things before they (or something very similar)happen. Usually, these kids are like sponges for sucking up details and stimuli that most people miss. They get very uneasy about certain things and it´s not a wonder that , for example, they dream of a neighbor´s dog biting a person and it comes true. The kid has picked up on something being wrong with the dog, or that it has a lot of aggro against a certain person, and dreams of the dog doing what those signals indicate. No psychic powers, just an inability to screen out extra information that other people overlook. Often the kid doesn´thave the sofistication to realize this is what happens.
This!!! I have family members who believe they have some sort of psychic sense, but they are really just good at reading peoples emotions and mannerisms.
As an Aussie I can confirm that our police do, in fact, have guns. And a veritable mountain of paperwork to fill out explaining why it was removed from the holster, and probably a second mountain if it’s actually fired
Simon, I have had dreams before where I have gotten up and then managed to go back into the same dream multiple times one night (really good dream 😉). A dream that spooks you and you go back to sleep, I’d say it’s not only possible but probable for some people
There were three known sightings of the SS Waratah,The said Clan MacIntyre from the seaward,an shoreline Observer who saw a ship of the Waratah's description in difficulties when he looked again the ship had disappeared from view in the Stormy Sea's and from the air when a lone plane pilot flying over the Coastline in 1969 saw the Sea part and for a moment the upturned hull of a ship appeared,then almost immediatly covered over again.The Pilot reported what he saw but nothing was found, this last sighting prompted S African Author Geoffrey Jenkins to begin a search in the 70's using divers but nothing was found again,
I can totally understand the dreams with everything the man who got off said afterwards. His subconscious must have been screaming at him that there were problems with the ship.
Qantas did have a direct flight from London Heathrow to Perth, but I don't know if it survived Covid or not. I could Google it, but I can't be bothered.
Fun fact no one involved in the designing or engineering the Titanic ever claimed it was unsinkable; that was totally a PR move like Simon said. The story is someone in management said "with these features it would make the ship virtually unsinkable under regulations" and the PR people working for JP Morgan hear this and it sparked the Unsinkable tagline, which a lot of White Star Line Management did not like considering they had just taken out a high personal liability insurance policy on the Titanic that would leave White Star responsible for any deaths as a result of sinking. Also the reason the Titanic's flares where mistaken for fireworks and not a signal for help was because they were white which meant "we're looking for something and needed light" they weren't issued the red "we're sinking please help us" flares
I have a theory that at least one passenger has a nightmare about disaster before every flight/ocean voyage. If the ship goes down, OMG you're psychic. But when the ship doesn't go down, which is nearly all the time, you are too embarrassed to tell anyone you cancelled your vacation because of a dream.
There is actually a direct flight from London to Australia. Qantas Flight 9 from London-Heathrow to Melbourne via Perth. The Sidney flight goes via Singapore.
Haha I love Simon just immediately states “It sank in the storm. There better be more evidence of something different.” Then as it became clear if the lack of other evidence he just doesn’t bring it up again
Simon! Two important points: The waratah is the world's most perfect flower. More importantly... please don't discourage people from coming here. The dingos, crocodiles, sharks and drop bears are really hungry!!
If the ship returned back to a even keel after listing 45 degrees... that means the ship was stable! A unstable ship would have capsized after such a list. Also the ships speed, lifeboats, water tight doors and stability were tested on trial runs and the ship passed with flying colors.
So fun fact my dad lived in Australia ages 3-6, and when I was a teenager he arranged a month-long vacation to visit his old home and several tourist attractions around Australia and New Zealand. We're American, so we flew out from O'Hare (the big midwest airport in Chicago) to Italy for a layover before flying the rest of the way to Australia. It was a super long trip, it's definitely not a last-minute vacation destination, but it is a beautiful country and has a fascinating history (especially before the white people showed up).
We now know how some boats get wrecked in bad storms. Small boats fall off the wave crests like falling off a cliff and shatter against the water in the trough; large ships can end up suspended each end on a crest with the middle unsupported, and break in half
That's highly unlikely where Waratah was though. That generally happens in confined seas and straits. The distance between waves would be far greater where Waratah had been.
The description of the ship listing immediately made me think of loose or unsecured cargo. This would be similar to the National Airlines flight 102 in which a cargo 747 crashed minutes after takeoff because the cargo got loose and quickly accumulated in the rear of the plane, unbalancing it and bringing it down. I can imagine the same concept capsizing a ship in a storm.
The police in Australia both state, territory & federal as well as appropriately licensed security guards/ private investigators are pretty much the only people you will find being able to open/ conceal carry weapons here. It is a 3 year minimum prison sentence if you are to be found with firearms unregistered/ unlicensed and the courts enforce firearm offences like no mans business. The police carry 10mm Glocks and also have access to Bushmaster AR-15s & Mossberg Shotguns, security are allowed revolers & semi automatic pistols up to .40 cal as well as shotguns. Handcuffs & Batons whether telescopic or the more traditional PR-24 style also classed as weapons. The concept that we are not allowed firearms in Australia is rather the opposite, so long as you do not have a criminal record or apprehended violence orders against you you are allowed to own as many weapons as you want so long as they comply with the laws regarding them not being semi-automatic or pump action and are stored in a approved safe at home. Professional hunters i.e pig/ roo shooters ( wild animal pest control ) can apply for exemptions to the semi-automatic rule and are often granted so long as they play by the rules.
Rogue waves are speculated to be the cause of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Why it sank is still debated even with the wreck being found. The legend lives on...
Hello! Big fan of this channel and the casual criminalist. I’d be interested in seeing your team tackle the subject of whether Tarar, the French showman who could eat anything, was a real person or not. Love the different perspectives you guys bring to stuff.
Yeah, Clive Cussler put most of the money from his books into finding "unfindable" shipwrecks and collecting classic cars -- he found and raised CSS Hunley, the first submarine to sink another ship (Simon should do a video on that boat, it's hilarious, in a tragic way) and every classic car he mentioned in his novels is one he owned -- the hardcover editions had a photo of him with the featured car on the back cover of the dustjacket.
Spoiler alert for Hunley:
It was really good at doing half of what a submarine is supposed to do.
100% mortality for every crew was probably the other half. 😀
Good and diving, not so good at surfacing afterward?
Im almost certain he actually did do one on the hunley on today i found out but it was a few years back
Clive Cussler was an absolute legend, it was so cool that he used the money to actually create NUMA. He is missed, but he left one hell of a legacy.
Clive Cussler is a bit of a Legend
Hi! I’m a naval architect. In my opinion, the most likely explanation is that Waratah sank in a storm. It happens to even well built modern ships with a surprising regularity. Something designed in the early 1900s without the aid of computers would be even more likely to founder.
99.9% of mysterious disappearances of ships outside World Wars are either "it was kind of a crap ship" or "the weather in that place is just that bad" or some combination of the two. During the wars, it was "a u-boat sunk it but nobody saw the torpedoes/the u-boat made its last dive and the Allies didn't get confirmation of the kill."
I actually did enjoy this one. Lack of a mystery or not, I really like how the writer went through each and every angle, witness, etc. Like. I hear stories like this all the time and think "So it sank in a storm" but most channels or podcasts won't bother with this level of detail and investigation and THAT is what makes this episode very interesting and entertaining. I get to hear a lot of things and perspectives that I wouldn't have even thought of before. Lovely work, as always.
Ilse writes great pieces for this show.
Ilse is my favorite writer for this channel because of that. The way she navigates these stories is so captivating and interesting. And she always sets it up so that Simon can ramble but he doesn't lose track of where he is as much as with other writers lol
I met Clive Cussler about a decade ago at a marine archaeology conference. He's absolutely the real deal when it comes to putting up money (and occasionally his own person) for the type of shipwreck hunting that he's written about.
Clive Cussler was one of my favorite authors, and he was the real deal when it came to finding sunken vessels. He died February 4, 2020, RIP.
Same here.
Mariner here, from the sounds of the listing this ship was experiencing an angle of loll; this is when a boat starts to capsize but instead of turtling she stays listed severely to one side. Needless to say this is a very volatile state to be in and any change made to this would cause the ship to capsize. I agree that the vessel was unstable and that the distance between the meta centre and the centre of gravity was very low.
Sounds like reaching the point of unstable equilibrium to me - a thoroughly bad place to be.
I spent many happy summers as a child at the family cottage on Lake Huron. On the way into town to get groceries there's a beach called Boiler Beach. There's an actual boiler on this beach: it's from the Erie Belle. She was dispatched during a storm to aid another vessel in distress and exploded during the attempt. The wreck was salvaged, but the boiler remains with the storms and ice pushing it minutely closer to shore every year. Even in spring and summer the lake must be respected. I've been pulled in and under by undertow before and it wasn't even stormy, just a little windy and choppy.
The Great Lakes, of which Huron is one, are nicknamed "Inland Seas", and rightfully so. There's sufficient wreck diving to be had here for anyone's tastes. Up in Lake Superior you can easily kayak to wrecks observable from the surface with minimal kayaking experience as they're a handful of metres from shore.
I still live on the Great Lakes system and I have family who captains a Great Lakes fishing vessel. I'm glad to be living on a river linking Huron to Erie because I rather prefer the quiet but I still have the beauty and benefits of the water. The storms aren't nearly as bad!
All this to say: yeah. Storms. *Very* dangerous! Well built and competently crewed vessels still founder here and we've got lots of support from both sides of the Border!
Based on my experiences with the Inland Seas, my best guess is the S.S. Waratah foundered in a storm.
Simon worried about people picking up on his lack of skeptical thinking regarding precognitive dream, but not a word about the mispronunciation of July as Juay-lay! Love it.
As an Australian, I can confirm our police do in fact carry guns. In fact, police officers are one of the few people who can legally carry a handgun
How can you confirm Australia actually exists? Those people would fall off if they were upside down, it doesn't make sense!
They also rarely need to pull them.
@@ryanroberts1104 We have special boots.
@@Bethgael
Australia is sensible enough not to saturate the population with firearms of their own.
Then to train the police force that the Citizenry is out there to get them....
@@Bethgael Yet they do anyway.
i think the sawyer guy may not have even consciously noted that the ship didn't look right. it mightve been so subtle that he just _unconsciously_ registered it as "this is wrong, this isn't safe" and then had a nightmare about it and decided... yeah, nope. a LOT of the time people just 'having a feeling' is legitimately picking up on tiny clues that we don't consciously understand.
EDIT: There's no h in ta-ta??? i guess they spelled it differently back then
This is definitely true. Some people are really good at absorbing seen information without knowing what they've seen that's wrong. They just know it is wrong.
Me: Sees Simon boarding my plane.
Also Me: Turns around and goes home.
😆I'd be right behind you.
Simon is much too quick to scoff at true warnings.
It's crazy - I was going to take a flight, but I had a recurring nightmare about a bald, bearded, bespectacled man with a script in one hand and a ton of cynicism pouring from his mouth.
Yeah, I stayed home.
Plane was fine.
@@AndrewGivens This time.....
This is my favorite channel of Simon's. His writers, editors, and Simon himself are so relaxed and fun with each of their contributions that it makes these videos more special
Waratahs are quite nice flowers. They’re the state flower for NSW.
Side note I really enjoy Australian Decoding or Casual Criminalist episodes. 🙂 So little is ever set in Australia it’s nice from time to time hearing a story I know the places and cultural context etc.
And welcome Nadine as new editor. 🙂
Well, Australia does have the Barrel Murders to cover at some point on Casual Criminalist.
Always makes me smile when things are described as "Uneventful", as in the ship had an "uneventful" journey. Sounds like a bad thing, but it's exactly what you want!
"Hey, would you like to come on this grand adventure?"
"No! I want to spend the next few weeks bored, and safe and just kicking my heels until we get there. No pirates, storms, reefs, etc. Lets just get there safe, and then we can deal with spiders the size of your face."
My dad always tells me to "have a boring trip home" for that very reason.
It's the same with working in security. People ask me how work was and usually the answer is "Boring."
They usually say something like "Oh that sucks." And my reply is always "No, boring is good. Exciting means paperwork."
When you mentioned the life preserver that washed up years later, you sounded thoroughly confused and not thinking things through. Stuff falls off boats all the time, particularly something like a life ring that they have dozens of. There's no reason to conclude that when the ship goes down near the southern tip of Africa, that a life preserver would drift all the way east, around the entirety of Australia, and finally come ashore in New Zealand. The Waratah started its trip in Adelaide on the southern coast of Australia, a life preserver could easily have fallen off or been thrown off at any time when the ship was over there.
Thank You!
God, it needed to be said.
Loved this. Always up for a good lost ship mystery (even if it's pretty obvious she sank in a storm or a rogue wave, etc.). Also Clive Cussler was an absolute chad. Do a Biographics video on him, certified legend.
That would be great!
Common myth, the Titanic was never billed as “unsinkable” until it sank. (It was called the safest ship etc, but never unsinkable)
Lol, that's kind of weird for them to do.
@Wes Beuning as I recall, it was along the lines of "how did Titanic sink? It was 'practically unsinkable'."
Not quite accurate. She was billed by NEWSPAPERS as "practically unsinkable" before she was even finished, but the builders/architects/owners etc didn't refer to her as unsinkable. Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer, may have called her "practically unsinkable" but not publicly, as far as we know.
Media at the time described her as "practically unsinkable"
Thanks everyone for backing me up, as I stated and everyone else has stated, the Titanic was never billed as “unsinkable”, it’s confirmed.
I don't know Simon; even though it wasn't or isn't a huge mystery, I really enjoyed this episode of decoding the unknown. I would love to hear about other missing ships.
Kobenhavn, Melanie Schulte, SS City of Boston, etc.
The Unebi would be an interesting one, but equally one which would piss Simon off - because there *would* be aliens involved at some point.
American who lived in Australia for 2+ years, here. I described it as “living in the US, had the US lost the Revolutionary War.”
I'm Australian, I don't have slaves or have sex with my cousin, so this statement is false, but if I lived in Tasmania, it would be half right
Australian who lives in the US now. I wish the US lost because I live in the healthcare system run by the people that won, and it's bad.
@@iantaylor3359 you’ll get absolutely no argument from me!
@@flucky_1 HEY. We don't talk about the south
@The_Wrenn Only the nobles engaged in incest in the effort to keep wealth and power within one family. Regular jackoffs knew better.
Ship mysteries never fail to intrigue
imo most plane/car/boat mysteries are intriguing, bc disappearing is a very ominous circumstance, & especially if you're traveling
One thing about the guy who had the bad dream and decided to get off the ship, while the individual case may look like he had some kind of premonition, you need to take into account all the 1000's and 1000's of times people alter their plans because of a dream and nothing happens. It's just a coincidence that in this one case it happened to coincide with a sinking.
I don't think it was a coincidence. The dude was an engineer so I think his subconsciousness made him dream like that, he was clearly nervous about the ship and his brain helped him make the decision in his sleep. There is no need for anything supernatural here, the saying "I have to sleep on it" isn't an empty phrase, the brain can sometimes process information while you sleep.
In short: The guy knew the ship wasn't safe, which gave him nightmares about the ship going under, which made him scared enough to leave it in the nearest harbor.
Sometimes things like this are indeed just a coincidence, Someone skipping a flight that has an accident is one thing (unless they are a mechanic who worked on said plane), but here the guy had technical knowledge and had spent time on the ship already, he already had the information that leaving the ship might be a good idea.
It's peculiar that every episode I watch teaches me more about Simon's mental state than the subject of the video.
Regarding the British people taking first class to Australia - for one this is 1909, the penal system was shut down about 41 years prior and by this point Australia is already a federation comprised of all *six* colonies, I think as a semi-independent dominion though I'm not certain of that last.
Even early on, though, there were 2 colonies - the normal colony and the penal colony. People going to the normal colony were as much volunteers as people going to any colony were (ie: driven by economic forces rather than court sentencing).
The editing on this one was *chef's kiss*
Thank you Ilze and team for putting this together.
Welcome Nadine.
It should be mentioned that the roll of 45° isn’t as quite dramatic as Simon thinks. Keep in mind that it begins at one side and crosses the center of gravity and then go to the other side. It would have reached approximately 22.5° on each side. Still alarming, but not “standing on the walls” bad.
Thank you - I literally just posted the same thing before scrolling down to this comment. Good work!
One failing with this analysis is a fuller discussion of rogue waves.
While the massive waves are a menace, a much greater danger are the corresponding depressions which are equal in magnitude to the waves. A ship sailing into one of these will sink almost instantly. The bow ends up pointing more or less straight down and the ship ploughs through the bottom of the depression.
This doesn't require any mechanical failure or dislodged freight - fully sound vessels sink in this circumstance just as quickly as damaged ones.
Even of they do exit the trough without plowing, they then find themselves with their bow pointing skyward. The potential for catastrophe becomes astronomical, at that point.
Since watching this, it's living in my mind rent free...this happend supposedly not to far from where I sit right now...Love from S.Africa
211 people died in what must have been horrific circumstances and YT advertised a cruise around the African coast and a holiday in Australia. Hm…
Simon, Simon, Simon...they said RIGHT at the beginning the ship was unsinkable. This means it MUST be a supernatural cause behind its disappearance. It's only logical.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Where are the Winchester boys when you need them? Dig, salt and burn ... although, maybe not on a ship at sea ...
so how much did the ship manufacturers pay you for this pr?
Really enjoyed the episode, and greatly appreciate the level of detail provided.
I'm excited to see Decoding the Unknown cover the SS Warantah. My favorite subjects are the "real mysteries" like this. It sort of hurts my heart how dismissive Simon is....yeah it sank, probably, but WHERE and WHY?
So here is what I think happened here - the why
The reason Waratah could sit at ~45 deg was because it was designed to not tumble over & weather storms. However, Waratah was probably tested within its limits in calm seas before simulations were a thing (this point is important later).
Every system likes to go back to equilibrium naturally, A ship sitting at 45deg waiting to be straightened by external force seems by design (unknowingly/unintended consequence).
the ship being "top-heavy"/ "having a metacentre above the Center of gravity" is disastrous. Metacenter is akin to the fixed point on which a pendulum would oscillate & The centre of gravity is the approximate location of the weight if the object was point sized.
A pendulum system wants a fixed point (meta centre) above the centre of gravity. Waratah seems to have it in reverse, which is not good.
It was designed to be safe at 45 degrees or To be roll resistant when it is thrown around by storms. "masts parallel to the sea"
Owing to 45 deg ability/ tendency it would be easy to be pushed over by a big wave when already at 45 degrees. - Water is deceptively heavy - moving stormy sea waves probably pack a punch.
The why was pretty obvious. Huge storm. It's "where" that's the big question.
Where and why? In the ocean, bc big storm.
Very mysterious
Interesting fact: upon the news of a ship being reported overdue at port the Lutine Bell is traditionally rung in the the underwriting room of Lloyds insurance company. The famous bell was one of the few objects recovered from the wreckage of a famous treasure ship lost at sea (Lloyds had insured her), the Lutine which sunk in 1799 with the loss of all but one of the 240 souls aboard. To this day people still hunt for the Lutine’s treasure which was rumoured to include the Dutch Crown Jewels.
I recently read an article on ships which 'disappear' and it's amazing how many big ships are lost each year. On average, over 20 ships never reach their destination, mostly through bad weather or piracy. (I'd never take a cruise around South East Asia.) Only one ship every ten years disappears with no explanation. Looks like flying is still the way to go. 😄
This is my favorite channel of yours and I've seen every episode so now I'm always waiting for the new ones
@Tony Hill Same to you sunshine.
Simon, you're not alone! A woman on the Titanic stayed up the night of the sinking. She was worried about something bad happening, which she had done since buying her ticket and boarding.
That just sounds like paranoia, though.
It'd be slightly more believable, though still difficult to quantify and confirm as anything, if someone has a sudden bad feeling right before anything happened. Especially before any kind of signs or anything were happening. It wouldn't be viable if they were like feeling bumpy waves, etc.
Generally though, it's difficult to really believe that kind of thing as any kind of premonition. That's coming from someone who's had some weird scenarios having to do with premonitions or some kind of intuition.
Australian Waratahs are a very showy bright red flower, popular as a garden plant, in expensive cut bouquets, and used in decorative designs like accent tiles and such.
I just looked them up, they're beautiful! Very striking, I can see why they're used as statements in bouquets etc. Australia has the best nature, damn. It's not fair you get gorgeous lil creatures like echidnas *and* such beautiful flowers 🥺
@@HadenBlake We do not have birds that will kill you and in 60+ years I have never had a kangaroo do anything but eat out of my hand. Seriously, people are so stupid about Australia.
Though the wreck was found, an DTU episode on the Edmund Fitzgerald would be fun to explore as to why one of, if not the most advanced Great Lakes freighters at the time went down in that storm in November. Being someone who grew up on Lake Superior, i just love the story of The Pride of the American Side and how amazing that freighter was at its time.
Also, request, could you include some maps in these types of videos? Thanks!
THIS !
Cussler also lead the team that found and raised the CSS Hunley, the first submarine to sink a warship.
Was that in a carpark in Texas.
I’ve been on a modern replica tall ship and one night during particular rough seas, the floor and the wall would often alternate
The Waratah is the state flower for NSW. Also, maybe a casual criminalist episode on Victorian Police, particularly in the mid-late 90s.
The Waratah flower is the Official Flower of New South Wales, Australia.
And wattle birds like them.
As someone who grew up in South Africa, the most entertaining part was hearing the mispronounced names
Lol agreed.
Does Simon like X-Files? There's an episode where Mulder goes looking for the S.S Queen Ann. It had disappeared in the Bermuda triangle. Mulder ends up going back in time to 1938 or something. Pre WWII anyway but there are nazis on the ship. Anyway, I forget what Simon said that made me think of this ( something about a ship disappearing) but it's one of my favorite X-Files episodes.
Great episode
He does. He references the show on the casual criminalist sometimes. The latest one i remember is him screeching that they're supposed to be the Scully and Mulder of the real world xD (I think the fbi were dropping the ball on this case)
@staytuned2L337 That's actually shocking to me that he likes that show. He consistently talks about how he doesn't like anything but documentaries lol
The only time Simon believes in psychics is when the psychic is him 🤣
No he's going to get killed by a horde of ghosts
@@ilajoie3 He'll be so frustrated by that, his soul won't be able to rest and he'll become one of them 😅
So out of curiosity I looked up how many ships are lost a year. So between 2011 and 2021 around 892 ships were lost. That’s at least 90 (89.2) a year. These statistics include cargo, fishing, passenger, bulk carriers, tugs, tankers…etc
I honestly had no idea that many were lost on average year.
Thing is, alot of these old inquiries weren't so much about finding solutions, or survivors as they were about pinning blame on someone, and saving face for the company. So its not surprising that no records were kept of the evidence, and potential evidence was disregarded. They probably had a narrative, and were looking for a way to push it. Thats simple.
Hi Simon, great vlog I learned a lot.
Just so you know there is a direct QANTAS 787 flight to Perth, Australia from London Heathrow taking less than 17 hours. Still a long flight though.
Keep up the good work.
He is not in England
He lives in the Czech republic.
@@brucebaxter6923 Ok I understand that now, but regardless it is still a yardstick.
@@lostinaustralia-dave7802
Yep. Ad two transfers and you are well into a full day.
It’s not fun. I’ve done it
@@brucebaxter6923 For me it is a stop-off in the UAE, Singapore or, Malaysia or Brunei for a changeover if not direct. The flight originates in Melbourne from memory.
Australia is a continent, not like my home where a 2-hour flight, you could cover it. So a direct flight to Heathrow is a bonus, as you can fly anywhere from there.
P&O (Peninsular and Oriental) doesn't exist as such, any longer. The freight operations are now part of Maersk and and passenger/cruise division belongs to Princess Cruises. The logistics part of things is now a division of DP World (Dubai Ports).
Any time a ship is described as unsinkable the universe is like "hold my beer" 😆
Nah its more like the universe saying “no we cant have that…”
Rogue waves are scary. Their theoretical opposite rogue holes are positively terrifying.
I don’t care if it’s obvious. I love Ilse’s scripts. I want to know why it’s obvious, and to debunk all the stupid rumors and legends.
I have recurring nightmares about being back in college (sometimes high school) and having forgotten about a class or two. I’m panicking because I’m gonna fail the class and if it’s too late to drop the class. I finished grad school back in 2016 and finished high school in 2005. It’s been so many years of these stupid dreams.
I finished grad school in 2017, and I still have dreams about an undergrad final for a math class I had forgotten to drop
50 years, same.😂
"Sail ship person" also know as "A Sailor"
Yes! I have completed Uncoding the Deknown (for now)! The past week has seen some very serious binge watching. Kevin, Katy, Ilza, et al. - well done! Simon, you Fact Boi extraordinaire, blaze on! And Jen, you are the Memestress GOAT! I look forward to new episodes, but now I must dash to see which of Simon's other gazillion channels I want to binge watch next. Ta!
Hi Simon! I love all your channels. Don't forget the suggestion that I made at the episode of "Spring-Heeled Jack." Please do an episode on "The Golem of Prague" an iconic legend from the city where you live! Don't forget! Do you even realize how many tourists come to Prague because of the "Golem"? ❤💗💓💞💝💗
How about an episode on Pérák? I would love to see Simon try to debunk the existence of Pérák.
Oooh yea!!
I love that initially you went to convicts when the ship is name “SS Waratah” … you don’t know the “SS” prefix is for Steam Ship?
I can't wait for some answers. Thank you and your team for making such fantastic videos!
@@tonyhill8300 Who pissed in your cheerios?
Hi. Simon. Yes, there are nonstop fights but from London to Perth.
17.6 meter equals 57.83 feet. That is a really big wave and if the ship was having other problems at the time I would say that it could have caused the sinking. The sad thing is the loss of life and the families that didn’t have any answers to what happened to their loved ones
Clive Cussler has a couple of non fiction-ish books based on actual sea exploration. My other half bought me a signed one years ago.
There is a current in the sea that runs parallel to the South African coast. If the ship’s engineering had failed and they’d lost propulsion, they could have been caught by that current, which turns southward and would have taken them towards Antarctica.
Ilsa nicely done, the letter was genius! Edit: for some reason I thought Simon said Katie during his high speed cold intro…I was wrong!
This was a great mystery story.
I love your channel. About Australia, I worked there for six months, I'm Italian btw, I flew Milan to Doha (Qatar) and then Melbourne. Didn't sleep a single minute. Milan-Doha was six hours, then I had six hours at Doha airport and to be honest Doha-Melbourne was so long at some point it was like an acid trip flashback, you know with the time dilation feeling. I think it was around 13 or 14 hours. Love you bro, take care. By the way I didn't like it there, had some issues with aggressive locals, had friends (Indian and other Asian) attacked and myself I was called a "wog" quite a lot.
*Not* a topic I expected to see covered, at least not so relatively early in the channel's history, but a pleasant surprise nonetheless!
Clive Cussler is well known for finding sunken vessels. SS Hunley for example. He would be good for bio graphics.
Oooh a double date with fact boy! ❤
Huh
Has cas crime come out yet?
He usually posts on Fridays.
Gives me something to do while getting chemo.
@@tonyhill8300 truly you are a master of cunning wit.
Come to Australia!! We'd love to have you. Don't just go to the east coast, go to Darwin, the Kimberly's, Tasmania and the Barossa Valley...just...just look out for drop bears...and the Min Min lights
Also, I meet kids in my job who have dreamed of things before they (or something very similar)happen. Usually, these kids are like sponges for sucking up details and stimuli that most people miss. They get very uneasy about certain things and it´s not a wonder that , for example, they dream of a neighbor´s dog biting a person and it comes true. The kid has picked up on something being wrong with the dog, or that it has a lot of aggro against a certain person, and dreams of the dog doing what those signals indicate. No psychic powers, just an inability to screen out extra information that other people overlook. Often the kid doesn´thave the sofistication to realize this is what happens.
This!!! I have family members who believe they have some sort of psychic sense, but they are really just good at reading peoples emotions and mannerisms.
As an Aussie I can confirm that our police do, in fact, have guns. And a veritable mountain of paperwork to fill out explaining why it was removed from the holster, and probably a second mountain if it’s actually fired
Think the Australian police benefited from having British Bobbies in their DNA, rather than Tin Star Sheriffs.
@Richard Cowling pulling guns on people for standing on their own porches? Definitely a British trait. You guys love being fascist pigs.
Simon, I have had dreams before where I have gotten up and then managed to go back into the same dream multiple times one night (really good dream 😉).
A dream that spooks you and you go back to sleep, I’d say it’s not only possible but probable for some people
"Could it have been Flares?" *** Shows Mick Cage from the climax of The Rock*** ICONIC!
It steamed into the Lizard Overlords lair. Allegedly.
There were three known sightings of the SS Waratah,The said Clan MacIntyre from the seaward,an shoreline Observer who saw a ship of the Waratah's description in difficulties when he looked again the ship had disappeared from view in the Stormy Sea's and from the air when a lone plane pilot flying over the Coastline in 1969 saw the Sea part and for a moment the upturned hull of a ship appeared,then almost immediatly covered over again.The Pilot reported what he saw but nothing was found, this last sighting prompted S African Author Geoffrey Jenkins to begin a search in the 70's using divers but nothing was found again,
First love your content
@Tony Hill
1. If you hate this channel so much, why are you here?
2. You do realize commenting boosts this channel no matter what you say, right?
I don't know if it's deliberate, but when a commercial cuts Simon off mid-tangent I find it rather delightful 😆
I can totally understand the dreams with everything the man who got off said afterwards. His subconscious must have been screaming at him that there were problems with the ship.
Qantas did have a direct flight from London Heathrow to Perth, but I don't know if it survived Covid or not. I could Google it, but I can't be bothered.
No matter which ship the bodies in the water are from, just remember “you do not recognize the bodies in the water”
Fun fact no one involved in the designing or engineering the Titanic ever claimed it was unsinkable; that was totally a PR move like Simon said. The story is someone in management said "with these features it would make the ship virtually unsinkable under regulations" and the PR people working for JP Morgan hear this and it sparked the Unsinkable tagline, which a lot of White Star Line Management did not like considering they had just taken out a high personal liability insurance policy on the Titanic that would leave White Star responsible for any deaths as a result of sinking. Also the reason the Titanic's flares where mistaken for fireworks and not a signal for help was because they were white which meant "we're looking for something and needed light" they weren't issued the red "we're sinking please help us" flares
Well late 😔
I really read “SS Waltuh” and assumed this was Breaking Bad themed.
I have a theory that at least one passenger has a nightmare about disaster before every flight/ocean voyage. If the ship goes down, OMG you're psychic. But when the ship doesn't go down, which is nearly all the time, you are too embarrassed to tell anyone you cancelled your vacation because of a dream.
There is actually a direct flight from London to Australia. Qantas Flight 9 from London-Heathrow to Melbourne via Perth. The Sidney flight goes via Singapore.
Haha I love Simon just immediately states “It sank in the storm. There better be more evidence of something different.” Then as it became clear if the lack of other evidence he just doesn’t bring it up again
i hope the Ship Hits Pod, podcast covers this at some point! Simon makes things like this so interesting to listen to... i wind up learning so much.
As an Australian all I can say is it is worth it for the cities, the scenery and the animals.
that's the best 9min episode so far.
I haven't even heard of Clive Custler since the 90s lol
Sadly he died in 2020 but his family has kept his cause of death private.
Simon!
Two important points:
The waratah is the world's most perfect flower.
More importantly... please don't discourage people from coming here.
The dingos, crocodiles, sharks and drop bears are really hungry!!
If the ship returned back to a even keel after listing 45 degrees... that means the ship was stable! A unstable ship would have capsized after such a list.
Also the ships speed, lifeboats, water tight doors and stability were tested on trial runs and the ship passed with flying colors.
People do tend to confuse 'stable' with 'steady' and they are not the same thing by a mile.
So fun fact my dad lived in Australia ages 3-6, and when I was a teenager he arranged a month-long vacation to visit his old home and several tourist attractions around Australia and New Zealand. We're American, so we flew out from O'Hare (the big midwest airport in Chicago) to Italy for a layover before flying the rest of the way to Australia. It was a super long trip, it's definitely not a last-minute vacation destination, but it is a beautiful country and has a fascinating history (especially before the white people showed up).
We now know how some boats get wrecked in bad storms. Small boats fall off the wave crests like falling off a cliff and shatter against the water in the trough; large ships can end up suspended each end on a crest with the middle unsupported, and break in half
That's highly unlikely where Waratah was though. That generally happens in confined seas and straits. The distance between waves would be far greater where Waratah had been.
The description of the ship listing immediately made me think of loose or unsecured cargo. This would be similar to the National Airlines flight 102 in which a cargo 747 crashed minutes after takeoff because the cargo got loose and quickly accumulated in the rear of the plane, unbalancing it and bringing it down. I can imagine the same concept capsizing a ship in a storm.
5:24 Is that a new way to say July? Or am I missing some running joke 🤣
The police in Australia both state, territory & federal as well as appropriately licensed security guards/ private investigators are pretty much the only people you will find being able to open/ conceal carry weapons here. It is a 3 year minimum prison sentence if you are to be found with firearms unregistered/ unlicensed and the courts enforce firearm offences like no mans business. The police carry 10mm Glocks and also have access to Bushmaster AR-15s & Mossberg Shotguns, security are allowed revolers & semi automatic pistols up to .40 cal as well as shotguns. Handcuffs & Batons whether telescopic or the more traditional PR-24 style also classed as weapons.
The concept that we are not allowed firearms in Australia is rather the opposite, so long as you do not have a criminal record or apprehended violence orders against you you are allowed to own as many weapons as you want so long as they comply with the laws regarding them not being semi-automatic or pump action and are stored in a approved safe at home. Professional hunters i.e pig/ roo shooters ( wild animal pest control ) can apply for exemptions to the semi-automatic rule and are often granted so long as they play by the rules.
Rogue waves are speculated to be the cause of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Why it sank is still debated even with the wreck being found. The legend lives on...
Hello! Big fan of this channel and the casual criminalist. I’d be interested in seeing your team tackle the subject of whether Tarar, the French showman who could eat anything, was a real person or not. Love the different perspectives you guys bring to stuff.