SALVAGE SEA STORIES Mon, 18 May 2026 20:02:30 +0100 en-gb © 2026 SALVAGE SEA STORIES yes 982af754-b368-58e1-a5e7-9b94a0b180f4 SALVAGE episodic false SALVAGE is a maritime storytelling podcast about real people and fatal decisions on the world's most dangerous waters.


Every episode tells the true story of a maritime disaster — shipwrecks, survival, and the moments that changed everything. 


From the freezing waters of the Antarctic and the North Atlantic to the vast and unforgiving Pacific, these are ocean stories that history almost forgot.


Real ships. Real crews. Real decisions made under impossible pressure. 


SALVAGE covers maritime history, sea survival, nautical disasters, and the human stories behind some of the most dramatic events ever to unfold at sea — from 19th century whaling voyages to mysterious disappearances on the open ocean.


This is not just maritime history, there are flavours of philosophy too. Asking some of the biggest questions about the toughest decisions imaginable.


Email: hello@salvageseastories.com

]]> Buzzsprout (https://www.buzzsprout.com) SALVAGE https://storage.buzzsprout.com/h1vxyyzfxi127ivzndyqjd4dynwd?.jpg SALVAGE SEA STORIES Four Ships That Disappeared | Great Lakes Mysteries | SALVAGE SEA STORIES Four Ships That Disappeared | Great Lakes Mysteries | SALVAGE SEA STORIES EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com

In this episode — three mysteries. Three stories of ships that sailed out onto the Great Lakes and never came back. 

Le Griffon — 1679. The first full sized European sailing ship ever built on the upper Great Lakes.  She sailed away on a September morning with six men on board and was never seen again. Three hundred and forty five years later people are still searching.

SS Bannockburn — 1902. A steel freighter crossing Lake Superior on a grey November day. A captain on a nearby ship raised his binoculars. Watched her for a moment, and then she was gone.

Inkerman and Cerisoles — November 1918. Two French minesweepers built in Canada during the First World War. They sailed out onto Lake Superior and were never seen again. The largest single loss of life in Lake Superior history. More lives lost than the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com

SOURCES

Le Griffon

Book: The Wreck of the Griffon: The Greatest Mystery of the Great Lakes by Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg

Atlas Obscura — Le Griffon https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/great-lakes-shipwreck-griffon

Washington Island — Le Griffon https://washingtonisland.com/le-griffon-the-griffin

Discovery UK — What Happened to Le Griffon? https://www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries/what-happened-to-the-lost-ship-le-griffon-and-was-it-ever-found

Go Niagara Tours https://goniagaratours.com/blog/the-ghost-ship-of-the-great-lakes-the-tale-of-le-griffon

Wikipedia — Le Griffon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Griffon

SS Bannockburn

Book: Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: Tragedies and Legacies from the Inland Seas by Anna Lardinois

Wikipedia — SS Bannockburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Bannockburn

Curious Archive — The Flying Dutchman of Lake Superior https://www.curiousarchive.com/the-ss-bannockburn-or-the-flying-dutchman-of-lake-superior

The Scuba News — SS Bannockburn https://www.thescubanews.com/2021/08/31/a-look-back-ss-bannockburn-aka-the-flying-dutchman

Old Shipping Lines https://oldshippinglines.com/the-disappearance-of-the-ss-bannockburn

Inkerman and Cerisoles

Book: Gone: The Greatest Shipwreck Mystery on the Great Lakes by Frederick Stonehouse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_minesweepers_Inkerman_and_Cerisoles

https://www.lakesuperior.com/the-lake/maritime/405-ils-sont-disparu/

Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via PixabaySound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay Music by Anastasia Chubarova from Pixabay

]]> EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com

In this episode — three mysteries. Three stories of ships that sailed out onto the Great Lakes and never came back. 

Le Griffon — 1679. The first full sized European sailing ship ever built on the upper Great Lakes.  She sailed away on a September morning with six men on board and was never seen again. Three hundred and forty five years later people are still searching.

SS Bannockburn — 1902. A steel freighter crossing Lake Superior on a grey November day. A captain on a nearby ship raised his binoculars. Watched her for a moment, and then she was gone.

Inkerman and Cerisoles — November 1918. Two French minesweepers built in Canada during the First World War. They sailed out onto Lake Superior and were never seen again. The largest single loss of life in Lake Superior history. More lives lost than the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com

SOURCES

Le Griffon

Book: The Wreck of the Griffon: The Greatest Mystery of the Great Lakes by Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg

Atlas Obscura — Le Griffon https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/great-lakes-shipwreck-griffon

Washington Island — Le Griffon https://washingtonisland.com/le-griffon-the-griffin

Discovery UK — What Happened to Le Griffon? https://www.discoveryuk.com/mysteries/what-happened-to-the-lost-ship-le-griffon-and-was-it-ever-found

Go Niagara Tours https://goniagaratours.com/blog/the-ghost-ship-of-the-great-lakes-the-tale-of-le-griffon

Wikipedia — Le Griffon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Griffon

SS Bannockburn

Book: Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes: Tragedies and Legacies from the Inland Seas by Anna Lardinois

Wikipedia — SS Bannockburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Bannockburn

Curious Archive — The Flying Dutchman of Lake Superior https://www.curiousarchive.com/the-ss-bannockburn-or-the-flying-dutchman-of-lake-superior

The Scuba News — SS Bannockburn https://www.thescubanews.com/2021/08/31/a-look-back-ss-bannockburn-aka-the-flying-dutchman

Old Shipping Lines https://oldshippinglines.com/the-disappearance-of-the-ss-bannockburn

Inkerman and Cerisoles

Book: Gone: The Greatest Shipwreck Mystery on the Great Lakes by Frederick Stonehouse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_minesweepers_Inkerman_and_Cerisoles

https://www.lakesuperior.com/the-lake/maritime/405-ils-sont-disparu/

Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via PixabaySound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay Music by Anastasia Chubarova from Pixabay

]]> SALVAGE Buzzsprout-19191843 Sun, 17 May 2026 21:00:00 +0100 1892 5 full false The last transmission | SS Edmund Fitzgerald | SALVAGE Podcast The last transmission | SS Edmund Fitzgerald | SALVAGE Podcast On the afternoon of November 9th 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald left port in Superior, Wisconsin. She was the largest ship ever to sail the Great Lakes. Her Captain was sixty three years old and counting down his last few days before retirement. Twenty nine men on board. All of them thinking about the same thing.

Home.

The lake was calm when they set out.

By the following evening, Captain Bernie Cooper on the ship ten miles behind her picked up his radio and asked how they were making out. Four words came back across the water.

We are holding our own.

Then nothing. Just a radar screen with a dot that was there one moment and gone the next. No distress call. No Mayday. No survivors. No bodies. Twenty nine men went into Lake Superior on the evening of November 10th 1975 and the lake held onto every single one of them.

This is not a story about what sank the Edmund Fitzgerald. It is a story about who was on board, what they were heading home to, and what the lake took from the families left behind. It is about the last radio transmissions of a Captain who never said he was sinking. The courage of the men who went back into the storm to search. And the bell that rings twenty nine times every November 10th at Whitefish Point.

Because the lake has kept the dead. But it cannot keep their names.

SALVAGE tells the stories history records but doesn't linger on — the weight of what was lost, the decisions that couldn't be undone, and what remains when the sea takes everything else.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com


Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via PixabaySound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay Music by Anastasia Chubarova from Pixabay

]]> On the afternoon of November 9th 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald left port in Superior, Wisconsin. She was the largest ship ever to sail the Great Lakes. Her Captain was sixty three years old and counting down his last few days before retirement. Twenty nine men on board. All of them thinking about the same thing.

Home.

The lake was calm when they set out.

By the following evening, Captain Bernie Cooper on the ship ten miles behind her picked up his radio and asked how they were making out. Four words came back across the water.

We are holding our own.

Then nothing. Just a radar screen with a dot that was there one moment and gone the next. No distress call. No Mayday. No survivors. No bodies. Twenty nine men went into Lake Superior on the evening of November 10th 1975 and the lake held onto every single one of them.

This is not a story about what sank the Edmund Fitzgerald. It is a story about who was on board, what they were heading home to, and what the lake took from the families left behind. It is about the last radio transmissions of a Captain who never said he was sinking. The courage of the men who went back into the storm to search. And the bell that rings twenty nine times every November 10th at Whitefish Point.

Because the lake has kept the dead. But it cannot keep their names.

SALVAGE tells the stories history records but doesn't linger on — the weight of what was lost, the decisions that couldn't be undone, and what remains when the sea takes everything else.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com


Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via PixabaySound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay Music by Anastasia Chubarova from Pixabay

]]> SALVAGE Buzzsprout-19110690 Fri, 01 May 2026 21:00:00 +0100 1662 4 full false The ship that vanished | SS Waratah | SALVAGE Podcast The ship that vanished | SS Waratah | SALVAGE Podcast In July 1909, a passenger named Claude Sawyer stepped off a ship in Durban, South Africa. He had no proof anything was wrong. He had no nautical training. He couldn't explain it in any way that would have satisfied a reasonable person. He just knew.

The ship he left behind was the SS Waratah. Brand new. Certified safe. Carrying 211 passengers and crew on a routine voyage to Cape Town, 800 miles down the coast.

She never arrived.

No distress signal. No wreckage. No bodies. Not a single piece of debris ever recovered. One of the largest ships in the world simply ceased to exist — and more than a century later, nobody knows where she is or what happened to her.

This is the story of a man who trusted a feeling that he couldn't prove, couldn't explain, and couldn't win an argument with. And a ship that vanished so completely it's as if she never existed at all.

SALVAGE tells the stories history records but doesn't linger on — the weight of what was lost, the decisions that couldn't be undone, and what remains when the sea takes everything else.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com


Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via Pixabay

Sound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay

]]> In July 1909, a passenger named Claude Sawyer stepped off a ship in Durban, South Africa. He had no proof anything was wrong. He had no nautical training. He couldn't explain it in any way that would have satisfied a reasonable person. He just knew.

The ship he left behind was the SS Waratah. Brand new. Certified safe. Carrying 211 passengers and crew on a routine voyage to Cape Town, 800 miles down the coast.

She never arrived.

No distress signal. No wreckage. No bodies. Not a single piece of debris ever recovered. One of the largest ships in the world simply ceased to exist — and more than a century later, nobody knows where she is or what happened to her.

This is the story of a man who trusted a feeling that he couldn't prove, couldn't explain, and couldn't win an argument with. And a ship that vanished so completely it's as if she never existed at all.

SALVAGE tells the stories history records but doesn't linger on — the weight of what was lost, the decisions that couldn't be undone, and what remains when the sea takes everything else.

Ocean Stories. Real People. Fatal Decisions.

EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com


Music: "Dramatic Piano and Violin" and “Calm flute for documentaries” — Universfield via Pixabay | "Peaceful Piano Lullaby" — Breakz Studios via Pixabay | "Cinematic Adventure Music" — INPLUSMUSIC via Pixabay

Sound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay

]]> SALVAGE Buzzsprout-19040242 Sun, 19 Apr 2026 19:00:00 +0100 1225 3 full false Tom Crean | Ireland's Forgotten Antarctic Hero | SALVAGE Podcast Tom Crean | Ireland's Forgotten Antarctic Hero | SALVAGE Podcast Tom Crean walked away from the Antarctic three times. Most people have never heard of him.

An Irishman from Kerry, Crean became one of the most remarkable figures of the Heroic Age of Exploration — loyal, unbreakable, and consistently overlooked.

He went to Antartica more times than either Captain Scott or Sir Ernest Shackleton

This is the story of the man who kept others alive when everything was falling apart — and what it cost him.

Email: hello@salvageseastories.com 

Additional reading: An Unsung Hero by Michael Smith

Music Credits: Breakz Studios, Universfield

]]> Tom Crean walked away from the Antarctic three times. Most people have never heard of him.

An Irishman from Kerry, Crean became one of the most remarkable figures of the Heroic Age of Exploration — loyal, unbreakable, and consistently overlooked.

He went to Antartica more times than either Captain Scott or Sir Ernest Shackleton

This is the story of the man who kept others alive when everything was falling apart — and what it cost him.

Email: hello@salvageseastories.com 

Additional reading: An Unsung Hero by Michael Smith

Music Credits: Breakz Studios, Universfield

]]> SALVAGE Buzzsprout-18961629 Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0100 1552 2 full false The Whaleship Essex | The True Story That Inspired Moby Dick | SALVAGE Podcast The Whaleship Essex | The True Story That Inspired Moby Dick | SALVAGE Podcast In 1820 a sperm whale did something no one had ever seen before. It turned around and attacked — striking their ship not once, but twice.

What followed was 90 days adrift in the Pacific. No food. No rescue. And decisions so desperate they were kept secret for years.

This is the true story of the Whaleship Essex — the event that inspired Moby Dick.

Email: hello@salvageseastories.com

Additional reading: The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase

Music Credits: Breakz Studios, Universfield


]]> In 1820 a sperm whale did something no one had ever seen before. It turned around and attacked — striking their ship not once, but twice.

What followed was 90 days adrift in the Pacific. No food. No rescue. And decisions so desperate they were kept secret for years.

This is the true story of the Whaleship Essex — the event that inspired Moby Dick.

Email: hello@salvageseastories.com

Additional reading: The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase

Music Credits: Breakz Studios, Universfield


]]> SALVAGE Buzzsprout-18954817 Thu, 02 Apr 2026 22:00:00 +0100 2100 1 full false