SS Poet

1980

North Atlantic, grain cargo, no trace Location: North Atlantic, last known off Cape Henlopen, Delaware · Coordinates: 38.75°N 75.00°W · Casualties: 34 · Survivors: 0 · Depth: never found · Cause: unknown · vanished — Departed Philadelphia on 24 October 1980 with 13,500 tonnes of American corn bound for Port Said. Her last position report came from Cape Henlopen on the 25th. No further transmissions; no emergency beacon activated; no lifeboats, bodies, or debris were recovered. · Fate: vanished · never located · Type: bulk carrier · grain · Liberian flag · Tonnage: 11,424 tons · Crew: 34 · Flag: United States · Launched: 1944 American bulk carrier, Philadelphia to Port Said with 13,500 tonnes of corn for Egypt. Cleared the Delaware Capes on the morning of 24 October 1980 and was never seen again. Thirty-four crew vanished without any trace of ship or boats ever being recovered. The subsequent Coast Guard investigation concluded she had likely been caught by a rogue wave or a rapid shifting of her grain cargo in the storm that crossed the mid-Atlantic that week. The Vessel The SS Poet was an American-flagged general cargo ship of the Hawaiian Eugenia Corporation, built at the Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company yard at Chester, Pennsylvania in 1944 as the Liberty ship SS Montana Victory. She was 135 metres long, 11,040 gross tons, and powered by a triple-expansion steam engine producing approximately 2,500 horsepower. She was one of the approximately 2,700 Liberty ships built during the Second World War for emergency wartime transport. Her post-war service included multiple commercial operators and ownership changes. By 1980 she had been renamed Poet (after being the SS Portmar from 1946 to 1977) and was owned by the Hawaiian Eugenia Corporation, a subsidiary of the Pirana Corporation. The specific ownership structure was complicated: the ship was American-flagged but was operated substantially through international charter arrangements. Her specific operational role in 1980 was general cargo transport. She had been engaged in grain shipments from US Gulf Coast ports to European and Mediterranean destinations through 1979 and 1980; her specific voyage of October 1980 was a continuation of this grain-shipping pattern. Her master on her final voyage was Captain Leroy Warren, 62, a career American merchant mariner with approximately 35 years of experience. Her complement on 24 October 1980 was 34 officers and crew, predominantly American merchant mariners. The Disaster At approximately 09:00 on 25 October 1980, SS Poet transmitted what would subsequently prove to be her final communication: a position report to the American Bureau of Shipping at Philadelphia. The specific position was approximately 40 degrees north, 65 degrees west, approximately 450 kilometres southeast of New York. The specific weather conditions at that position were reported as force 7-8 winds and moderate swell. No further communications were received from SS Poet. The specific disappearance was initially unrecognised: the ship was not scheduled to transmit further position reports for approximately 48 hours; the specific absence of communication through 27 October 1980 was not considered substantially unusual for a grain-carrying cargo ship on a routine transatlantic voyage. On 29 October 1980, the Pirana Corporation reported the ship as overdue to the US Coast Guard. The specific search operation was initiated on 30 October 1980, approximately 5 days after the last radio communication. The specific search was one of the largest peacetime Atlantic search operations of the 1980s. Multiple US Coast Guard cutters, US Navy ships, Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft, and merchant marine vessels participated in the search over approximately 7 days (30 October through 5 November 1980). The specific search covered approximately 280,000 square kilometres of the North Atlantic. The specific physical evidence recovered from the search was extremely limited: no bodies, no wreckage,