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SS Waratah – The Other Titanic

Three years before the tragic sinking of the Titanic, another ship went down with all hands lost. This time, however, there was no iceberg, and no explanation for its disappearance. The 500-foot liner was the pride of Scotland, named after the flower of New South Wales, Australia. Designed to carry passengers and cargo, there were 100 first class cabins, 8 staterooms, and luxurious lounges. In addition to its first class passengers, the Waratah also carried emigrants from Europe to Australia in steerage dormitory-like quarters, capable of housing 700 or more of these lower paying passengers. Although the ship could transport refrigerated cargo and had a large desalination plant onboard, it had no radio or telegraph communications, typical of the times.

After an uneventful journey that began on April 27 from London to Australia, the Waratah left Melbourne on the return trip to London on July 1, 1909. The ship reached Durban, Australia and departed on July 26,1909 for Cape Town, South Africa. One passenger, Claude Sawyer, debarked at Durban after wiring his wife that the ship was top heavy and he was suffering from nightmares. On July 27, the ship exchanged signals with the Clan McIntyre, the last verifiable sighting of its location. One day later, two more sightings of the Waratah were recounted, but thirty-foot waves and 50-knot winds had made visibility poor. The Guelph, a passing ship, received light signals, commonly used instead of radio communications, but could only identify the last 3 letters t – a – h.

That same evening, the Harlow detected a ship, possibly the Waratah, following behind her from about 10 to 12 miles away. Two lights flashed in the darkness, but the captain and the first mate of the Harlow assumed these were simply brush fires onshore, a usual occurrence, and paid no particular attention. This sighting was not recorded in the ship’s log, and it is doubtful that the Waratah had somehow reversed her course back to Durban. The exact location of the sinking SS Waratah is unknown, although a policeman on horseback patrolling the east coast of South Africa, the Transkei area, may have been an actual eyewitness. In any event, for whatever reason, the ship did not arrive at Cape Town as expected on July 29.

Turbulent weather off the Cape hampered the search efforts of three ships from the Royal Navy. A possible sighting of the Waratah was announced in the Australian Parliament and people in Adelaide were elated, but this news was short lived; it was not the Waratah. It is now September and the ship’s owners have charted the Sabine to resume the search, which covered over 14,000 miles. Still nothing! Relatives of passengers on the Waratah also chartered their own ship, the Wakefield, but its 3-month search found no evidence of the ship or the 211 passengers and crew.

Since there were no survivors, the Board of Trade had to rely on testimony from passengers, builders, and crew from the ship’s maiden voyage in November 1908. All agreed that it was well built and in excellent condition, further verified by Lloyds of London who gave it an A1 rating. One witness stated that the ship did seem to have a problem with maintaining equilibrium in heavy seas, but former crew members and passengers disagreed with this theory. There was some speculation that inspections were not thorough enough, and seemed to concentrate more upon the design and detail of the cabins and public rooms, rather than its overall seaworthiness. The formal inquiry did conclude that the supposed sightings by the Guelph and the Harlow were questionable. Based upon its location on July 27, these could not have occurred at the same time.

Many more sightings were rumored including one by a pilot from the South African Air Force in 1925, one in 1929 by a soldier onshore, and again, by a Cessna pilot flying over the area in 1962 who reported seeing a passenger ship lying beneath the surface of the ocean. But, whether any of these reports were fantasies or realities is not known.

In 1977, Emlyn Brown and his diving team discovered a wreck off the Xora River. At first it was thought to be the Waratah, but later determined that it was too far north of its approximate location. In all probability, it was a ship destroyed by German U-boats in WWII. More recent attempts to find the Waratah were made in 1991, 1995, and 1997. A discovery in 1999 turned out to be another transport ship sunk during the war.

Other theories arose about the extreme weather conditions and a possible rogue wave, which frequently occur (as recent as August of this year) in deep water off the coast of Africa. Resulting from high winds and strong currents, these waves are unpredictable and might well have been the cause of the disappearance of the Waratah. A few people have suggested that the ship was swept as far south as Antarctica, having lost its rudder in the turbulence, but no evidence exists to prove or disprove this theory.

The suggestion of a whirlpool has little substance, as it is doubtful that any whirlpool would have been powerful enough to completely submerge a ship of this size. Neither is the possibility of an explosion of coal dust a valid one. Again, there would have been some wreckage, and some indication of lifeboats being launched. Then too, there are the believers in the paranormal including the passenger Sawyer who claimed to have had visions of a man with a sword covered in blood on three occasions, and decided to leave the ship in Durban. It has been mentioned too that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed mystery writer, held a séance in hopes of locating the Waratah.

The mysterious disappearance of the SS Waratah has attracted divers and expeditions for over 95 years. Perhaps, the most notable of these is millionaire Clive Cussler, well-known author of Raise The Titanic, and other adventure novels. As a marine archaeologist and founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), Cussler, Brown, and Dr Peter Ramsey, a geoscientist, have led at least nine diving expeditions to find the Waratah since 1983. Paid for once again by Cussler, a group of 16 led by Brown planned an expedition in 2004 to explore the Xora and Bashee rivers off the Transkei coast. (Note: This writer could find no further information on the results of this venture.)

Was the ship overloaded on its return trip with a diverse 6500 tons of cargo including food supplies and an additional 1,000 tons of lead concentrate? Did it capsize in stormy weather as a result of instability? Were the ballast requirements accurately determined to take into consideration this added weight? These are all credible answers to the mystery, but until evidence is found that the SS Waratah lies somewhere on the bottom of the ocean, then we are left to draw our own conclusions to the mystery of the other Titanic.

(Note: The ship’s owners, the Blue Anchor Line, was forced into liquidation in 1910 after ticket sales dropped, and the lack of adequate insurance did not compensate for the huge financial losses.)

Sharon Slayton

Posted by James Trotta at October 13, 2008 12:49 AM