The SS Waratah was a British passenger liner that sailed from Durban, South Africa on July 26, 1909, on her way to Cape Town with 211 people on board. The 600 mile cruise should have taken 3 days.
Waratah never reached her destination.
She was sighted at about 6 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. on July 27 by the Clan MacIntyre. She also reported in to the lighthouse at Cape Hermes for the weather the same day. She ran into head seas between the lighthouse contact and 5:30 p.m.
The same day, a small ship, Harlow, reported seeing masthead lights and the smoke of a steamer on the horizon at about 5:30 p.m, so much smoke that her captain believed the other ship was on fire. Two hours later, the captain of the Harlow also reported two flashes in the air near the site of the lights.
The Guelph, another liner, reported contact with a large passenger ship at about 9:30 p.m. on July 27, 8 miles out abreast of Hood Point near East London. The Guelph was unable to make out the other ships name, though they hailed each other in Morse code. The last 3 letters were reported as "T-A-H," however.
On July 28, the weather was described as one of the fiercest storms in recent memory. On July 29, the Waratah was due at Cape Town, and failed to arrive.
Crewmembers on the steamship Tottenham reported seeing drowned bodies in the water between the mouth of the Banshee river and East London. The captain retraced the route once, and satisfied that the crewmen had seen sunfish or skate, moved on. Crewmembers of the steamship Insizwa also reported bodies in the sea at roughly the same place on the same day. A government tug was dispatched, but found nothing but whale blubber and offal from the whaling trade in the area.
Mr. Claude G. Sawyer left the ship in Durban. In addtion to having concerns about the sea-worthiness of the Waratah, he had had an unsettling dream, which he felt was a premonition, or at least later he claimed he did.
John Harris reports the dream this way. Mr. Sawyer was at the rail of the ship. Suddenly, a knight, in blood-streaked armor and carrying a blood-stained cloth as well as a sword, rose from the sea. The hideous figure mouthed some words, which Mr. Sawyer felt were the words "The Waratah," before sliding back into the sea.
However, Michael Goss and George Behe report the dream differently, and perhaps, more accurately (they list substantial source references to their research, rather than secondary references such as Mr. Harris lists). They report that reports closer to the source show that Mr. Sawyer saw a figure, in a garb that he had never seen before, holding a sword in his left hand and a bloody cloth in his right. There is no mention of armor, or mouthed words. The figure is never claimed to rise from the waves. Mr. Sawyer did, however, claim to have the dream on three separate occasions, awakening each time to sit upright on his bunk.
At the subsequent inquiry, a crewmember stated that when he was signing the ship's articles, the Chief Officer had told him, "If you can get anything else, take it, because this ship will be a coffin for somebody."
There are several theories. The Waratah had a reputation among the passengers and some of the crew, which Goss and Behe make clear is disputable, for excessive rolling, and many think she simply capsized.
Others believe that currents, winds, and ocean bed in the area where Waratah disappeared combine to create "holes" in the ocean, abnormally large waves following an equally large trough. They believe that Waratah slipped into one of these troughs and was buried by the waves that followed. Another theory is that higher than normal waves simply filled the ship's forward holds, causing her to quickly sink. In all these theories, the lack of debris is explained by the speed of the sinking.
The theories are good, but they are just theories. What do we know? That the SS Waratah disappeared without a trace. No bodies, no wreckage were ever recovered. And the mystery may never be conclusively solved.
Information in this article taken from the following books:
Without a Trace, by John Harris.
Lost at Sea, by Michael Goss and George Behe
See the reference list for complete bibliographic information.
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This page revised on August 15, 1996.