Tragedy of the MS Lorelei

by LocalEccentric

Ghost Ship never went into to much detail on the Lorelei, the ship that Jack Ferriman was on, so i decided to write my own story about the Lorelei from a reporter's frame of mind. (Note, this just tells the history, and how it sank, and goes a bit into the story of the Antonia Graza and the Arctic Warrior)

Built in 1956 and commencing her maiden voyage on January 20th 1957, the MS Lorelei was the flagship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd (New German Lloyd) Line, a German passenger and shipping line. With a gross tonnage of 32, 336, she matched her contemporary, the MS Bremen. She was 697 feet long, had nine decks and a passenger complement of 751 passengers: 1,122, 287, or 275 in 1st class; 126 in 2nd class; 338 in 3rd class. The interior included a grand-sized ballroom with crystal chandeliers, an Olympic- sized swimming pool, a gymnasium, a library, several fine lounges in the new Minimalist style, and a large cargo hold. She had two boilers and four steam turbines with a maximum output of 60,000 HP rendering a maximum speed of 26 knots. Economical output of 53,500 HP gave a useful speed of 23 knots. Three 1,375 KVA Generators had an output of 6,600 kilowatt. One very noticeable feature was her drop-shaped funnel. To enhance comfort, two 5.0 m Stabilizers were fitted. In June 1959 she underwent new sea trials.

Also in June of 1959, she was placed on the Bremerhaven/Southampton/Cherbourg/New York route. In 1960, the Lorelei was capable of carrying 30,000 passengers per year from Europe, across the North Atlantic to New York, occasionally crossing paths with the Italian Line's (Italia di Navigazione) the T/n Antonia Graza. The following year she was also placed in cruise service to the Caribbean and South America.

On the 19th of May, 1962 the Lorelei floundered after an explosion in the boiler room on the starboard side. Approximately one-third of her length from the bow were blown to bits. The blast destroyed three passenger cabins, numbers 53, 54 and 55, to a depth of nearly 40 feet (12 m), and the keel. The explosion also destroyed many occupied passenger cabins and, at the lower levels, ripped open several of Lorelei's watertight compartments. The blast ruptured five fuel tanks on Lorelei's starboard side and filled them with 500 tons of seawater. Air was trapped in the empty tanks on the port side, contributing to a severe list. The ship's large fuel tanks were mostly empty at the time of the collision, since the ship was nearing the end of her voyage, but all the empty fuel tanks did was further increase the list, and she tipped to her starboard side and sank into the ocean.

She issued a distress call off the coast of Labrador, which was answered by the Antonia Graza, who reported only one survivor; a Mr. Jack Ferriman of New York, whom they rescued along with several crates of gold salvaged from the cargo hold.

Efforts to find the Lorelei after she sank were immediately launched, based on the coordinates wired to the nearest port by the Graza, but no trace of the wreckage of the Lorelei, her 723 passengers, 300 crew were ever found, neither was the ship that reported the accident, the Antonia Graza, which disappeared on May 21st, 1962, carrying 625 passengers, 500 crew members, Mr. Jack Ferriman, and the recovered gold.

The Antonia Graza had a gross tonnage of 29,1000 tons and was 697 feet long. It had three decks and a passenger complement of 218 first class, 320 cabin class and 703 tourist class. The ship was powered by a Parson Geared turbine engine and could reach 23 knots. The interior included a grand-sized ballroom with crystal chandeliers, swimming pool, grand dining room and wall-sized murals by Gio Patito. The Antonia Graza was built in 1957 and provided elegant traveling for five years until it was reported missing on May 25, 1962 off Labrador. At the time of its disappearance, it was only carrying about 625 passengers. No message from the ship was ever recorded.

The Graza was found 40 years later in November of 2002 floating, derelict, in the middle of the Bering Strait. A salvage boat, the Arctic Warrior, discovered the boat when a pilot from Anchorage, Alaska spotted her on one of his routine flights. The crew of the Warrior found her, according to sole survivor of the salvage trip, Maureen Epps. Ms. Epps also reported finding no trace of any bodies, save for the skeletal remains of a young girl hanging in her closet, believed by Epps to be a young Ms. Katherine Harwood, who vanished along with the Graza. The crew also found the gold salvaged from the Lorelei, along with signs that Epps believed meant that the crew murdered the passengers (bullet holes in the swimming pool and several gallons of rat poison strewn about the kitchen, and the forward boom cable was tampered with, having snapped and possible sliced across the deck of the ship) Ms. Epps' crew was lost when the Warrior exploded due to a faulty gas tank, and the rest in the haste to try to repair the quickly sinking ship so they could sail her back to Alaska. The ship exploded accidentally when they were attempting to rid the Graza's boiler room of water. Captain Sean Murphy, Eldon Greer, Eugene Dodge, Hector Munder and Alejandro Santos were lost when she went down.

Ms. Epps floated for days in the Strait when she was picked up by a Russian passenger ship, the St. Peter and brought to safety on the mainland.

The St. Peter was reported missing, along with the recovered gold from the Graza, on November 3rd, 2002.

Records show no sign of a Mr. Jack Ferriman living in New York in 1962, nor aboard the Lorelei.

Sources: Slightly altered facts from the description of the sinking of the Andrea Doria, the ship MS Bremen, Collinsport Ghost Society's story on the Graza ( tv2/collinwood/antonio_ ) and the 2002 film Ghost Ship