Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs

In October 2015, the cargo ship El Faro sank in Hurricane Joaquin with 33 people aboard. Hear Captain Michael Davidson's emergency calls and the bridge transcripts from the ship's Voyage Data Recorder.

This episode reconstructs the final hours of the voyage from primary sources.

You'll hear the recorded emergency phone calls from Captain Michael Davidson as the ship took on water and lost propulsion. We also go through transcripts from the Voyage Data Recorder, the "black box" recovered from the ocean floor during the NTSB investigation. The bridge conversations show how decisions were made and how quickly conditions deteriorated.

Content note: this episode includes real emergency audio and may be distressing to some listeners.

This is a replay of Episode 38, originally released in January of 2024.

El Faro, El Faro sinking, Captain Michael Davidson, Hurricane Joaquin, Voyage Data Recorder, NTSB investigation, shipwreck podcast, maritime disaster, true story

Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. All episodes can be found at ⁠⁠https://www.shipwrecksandseadogs.com⁠⁠.

Original theme music by ⁠⁠Sean Sigfried⁠⁠.

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This Week in Shipwrecks: September 18–24, 2026

From a sabotage plot hidden in a 160-year-old cargo of Guinness to the long-overdue removal of the masts on Britain's most dangerous wreck, and a modern maritime disaster still unfolding in Indonesia, this week's episode spans two thousand years of shipping history and picks up right where last week left off.

Stories in this episode:

The Mindoro, English Channel — New evidence points to a sabotage plot behind the 1864 wreck that gave up bottles of vintage Guinness this summer.

Iron Age Arms Cache, Austria — A hoard of prehistoric iron bars pulled from the Danube turns out to be one of Europe's largest.

F/V Mistress, Rhode Island — A fishing boat missing since 2019 is finally located near the Block Island Wind Farm.

Collision in the Singapore Strait — Viral footage captures a bulk carrier striking a Chinese fishing vessel in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

The Virgo Transport 8, Indonesia — An update on the ferry disaster, as the search enters its twelfth day with dozens still missing.

Fishing Boat off Sattahip, Thailand — A storm sinks a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Thailand, with crew still unaccounted for.

The SS Richard Montgomery, Thames Estuary — After 80 years, work begins removing the masts of Britain's WWII "bomb ship."

Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. All episodes, show notes and transcripts can be found at shipwrecksandseadogs.com

Original theme music is by Sean Sigfried, and you can find him at seansigfried.com.

🚫No AI was used during the production of this episode.

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In the dark hours before dawn on October 14, 1942, the passenger ferry SS Caribou was making her regular crossing between North Sydney, Nova Scotia and Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, when a torpedo from the German U-boat U-69 struck her starboard side. She sank in under five minutes.

Aboard were civilians, military personnel, and entire families, including the ship's own captain, Benjamin Tavernor, and his two sons serving as officers. Her naval escort, HMCS Grandmère, tried to hunt down the U-boat but couldn't stop what was already unfolding in the freezing water. Of the 237 people on board, 136 didn't survive.

This episode traces the final voyage of the Caribou from her construction in the Netherlands in 1925 through the tense wartime crossings of the Cabot Strait, where U-boats had already been sinking ships throughout the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The attack left passengers scrambling for lifeboats, most of which couldn't be launched. The loss of the SS Caribou was the most devastating loss of civilian life in Canadian waters from a single sinking during the Second World War.

Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. Original theme music is by Sean Sigfried, and you can find him at seansigfried.com.

🚫No AI was used during the production of this episode.

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This Week in Shipwrecks is the weekly maritime news series of Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs. This week's stories:

Rescuers race against time after the Virgo Transport 8 ferry capsizes in the Java Sea.

Cádiz port dredging turns up 27 cannons and a stash of silver.

New horrors surface from the 1629 wreck of the Batavia

Lake Michigan diver's body found

Archaelogists glean information from historic Bronze Age shipwreck

Sunken German U-Boat leaking TNT off the coast of Denmark

Mystic Seaport Museum announces it Maritime Trades and Foodways Day, scheduled for Saturday, September 26.

Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. All show notes, episodes, and transcripts can be found at shipwrecksandseadogs.com.

Original theme music by Sean Sigfried, and you can find him at seansigfried.com.

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On February 18, 1952, a violent nor'easter raged through New England and two steel tankers were torn in half within hours of each other off the coast of Cape Cod. The SS Pendleton and the SS Fort Mercer, both battered by hurricane-force winds and towering seas, cracked apart in what would become one of the most remarkable maritime rescue operations in U.S. Coast Guard history.

This episode traces the disaster from the first distress calls to the daring small-boat rescues that followed, including the U.S. Coast Guard's response from Chatham, Massachusetts, where a 36-foot motor lifeboat crew set out into near-impossible conditions to save the men trapped aboard the shattered stern sections. You will hear about the chaos of coordinating two simultaneous sinkings and the extraordinary courage of the small crews who braved 60-foot waves and freezing temperatures to bring survivors home.

Joining Rich as a guest is Professor and Associate Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University, Ralph E. Napolitano, Jr., to examine the structural failures that doomed both T2 tankers. Mr. Napolitano is the brother of the host of Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, Rich Napolitano.

Sources for this episode include but are not limited to the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation reports for the Pendleton and Fort Mercer, the oral accounts given by Bernard Webber, the United States Naval Institute, the Coast Guard Foundation, the Orleans Historical Society, and the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources.

Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. Original theme music is by Sean Sigfried, and you can find him at seansigfried.com.

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