10. Edmund Fitzgerald Ore Carrier
We have a perception that all famous catastrophic shipwrecks have occurred in the sea. This is not true; there are a few, which faced death in the great lakes. One such shipwreck is the Edmund Fitzgerald ore carrier. This event took place on 10 November 1975 when the ship disappeared from the radar after a consecutive fight of half an hour with the 30 feet high great lake waves which were accompanied with high winds. This carrier not only carried a high number of ore but also it had twenty-nine members of the crew. People are unable to find the official reason how this happened. However, surveys were carried which showed that it was because of breakage of the craft which was eight hundred feet in length, which suggested was due to a fault or lake’s shallow water. The Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck until today is still off limits to people, serving as a memory of the largest non-war vessels demise.
9. The Andrea Doria
We have the Italian liner Andrea Doria at number nine. The incident occurred in the coast of Massachusetts on July 1956. It was said that this Italian liner collided with another liner from Sweden. The Italian Andrea and Swedish Stockholm would have never collided if there weren’t any fog. It did not take long for the ship to sink after the collision but a mere few hours did the job. However, it is not the number of deaths that made Andrea Doria one of the famous shipwrecks because only forty six people died out of the 1660 people on board. The shock was that with technology in radar and radio communications, it was hard to understand how such collusion could occur. In addition, this ship fell under the category of the most expensive ships ever to be built.
8. The Estonia
A recent incident is what I would categorize it even though it occurred on 28 September 1994. With its sad demise in the Baltic Sea, it is important for people to know that this was a German ship. This was one of those horrifying incidents that killed more than eight hundred people. However, when it comes to the Estonia Ship, there were many reasons, which were associated with its downfall, some of them being controversial. However, majorly it was said that the ship had to face bad weather conditions but then again there were people who associated stories of bomb plantings in the ship.
7. Steamship S.S. Republic
Steamship S.S Republic faced its sad demise on October 1865 in a dangerous whirlwind off Georgia coast. People have the perspective that the poor Republic went down deep into the ocean with just ordinary goods which most of such vessels would carry. The inner story of the ship that most people still have no idea about is that this vessel contained huge amounts of gold, silver and ingots. These were being transported towards the south from the area of west coast, so that rebuilding of the war affected south should start. However, the demise of the Republic in 1865 caused a huge financial blow, noting the fact that the country was already facing economic problems. These problems were due to the long lasted civil war which ended after four years. In 2003 the exact location of the ship was found, however, a surprising fact is that this became one of those rare shipwrecks in which no lives were lost as people jumped off the boat before it sank.
6. Union Ironclad U.S.S. Monitor
On new years eve, this tiny vessel was fighting and sinking under a strong deadly whirlwind near Cape Hatteras, Virginia. This 1862 shipwreck went away un-noticed by people during that time and went down with her 16 of its crew members. This ship, the monitor was an invention of a hardworking navy engineer, the mastermind, and was a revolutionary loss in the ship world. This ship was the first ever ship made up of all metal, small in size yet having warship capabilities. This later in the history worked as a prototype for the upcoming warships. This might sound funny, but it was known as a cheese box on a raft. Funny it is how this little thing actually changed the overall naval warfare when it went ahead in the battle with the south. Even though it did not affect much on the war, it craved a road towards steam powered warfare ships. It took over a century for the people to find the ruins of the shipwreck.