Sea Tales

Pirate Sam Bellamy captured the British slave galley Whydah, turning it into a treasure ship laden with gold. As he sailed toward Cape Cod and the scandalized woman he left behind, the Whydah sank in a fierce gale off the beach at Wellfleet. For nearly three centuries, treasure hunters have searched the waters for the ship and its riches.

Some say it was the work of German spies. Others maintain that it was a tragic accident of unimaginable proportions. Whatever the cause, on a bitter morning in 1917 in the booming port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1,600 people were killed and 9,000 injured when a French munitions ship exploded after striking another vessel. THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION is a comprehensive examination of the tragedy. Eyewitness accounts capture the force and horror of the explosion the largest non-nuclear detonation in history! Rare photos and archival footage reveal the incredible destruction that led thousands of mariners from around the world to converge on the devastated port in a massive relief effort. World War I historians examine the theories that surround the disaster, while a detailed reconstruction shows how accident and error compounded to create tragedy. It's an intriguing look at one of the most incredible chapters in maritime history.

When Teddy Roosevelt sent the USS Maine into Havana's harbor in 1898, he hoped that the show of force would help protect the lives and property of American citizens in the restless Spanish territory. But when the Maine mysteriously exploded and sank at anchor, the nation was shocked and demanded revenge. Ultimately, its destruction led to the Spanish-American War. But was the great ship really mined by Spanish forces, as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst trumpeted in his tabloids? Journey back to the night of February 15, 1898 to unravel the enduring mystery. Examine the official navy report of the disaster which reached no conclusion and the tabloid accusations which made a frenzied but groundless case. Maritime experts and leading historians point to possible causes of the explosion which claimed 254 lives and examine its repercussions.

She was the pride of her line, a ship unparalleled in grace, opulence and elegance, and to postwar Italy she represented the very spirit of the nation. But on her 51st Atlantic crossing, in a pea-soup fog shrouding Nantucket Sound, she was rammed by the Stockholm. Eleven hours later, she slipped beneath the black waters, and the Andrea Doria became the worst maritime disaster since the Titanic.

In the age of the great sea-faring adventurers, one man stood above all the others as he fearlessly made his way around the world. Captain James Cook discovered Hawaii and New Caledonia and sailed to the Antarctic alone. He was driven by the search for knowledge, not the desire for conquest. But after meeting every challenge and earning international celebrity, he met his end in the most inglorious of ways.

In the spring of 1789, British sailor Fletcher Christian and his band of accomplices staged a hostile takeover of the ship Bounty and its captain William Bligh. The account of what followed has been shaped as much by Hollywood creative screenwriters as it was by fact. When Bligh and his men set sail for Tahiti the stage had already been set for a turbulent voyage, but it would have been hard to envisage just how badly it would conclude. Bligh started his career as a reluctant sailor and his leadership qualities were weak at best. Many months of life on the high seas saw an almost fatal breakdown of morale that left the crew ripe for a mutinous rebellion. With Bligh's appalling, almost in-human treatment of his crew, it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose. But what was the truth behind the fiction? Join us as we revisit the past and unravel the mysteries behind the most dramatic and famous uprising on the high seas.

Blackbeard terrorized ships along the Atlantic Coast of North America and the Caribbean from 1716 to 1718. He raped, pillaged and plundered. He was as savage with his crew as he was with his prisoners. One crew member once said, "If he did not now and then kill one of us, we would forget who he was. SEA TALES: BLACKBEARD'S REIGN OF TERROR tells how the barbaric pirate piled his murderous trade until a substantial price was put on his head. A British Naval force led by Lt. Robert Maynard went after him. Maynard and Blackbeard engaged in a hand-to-hand fight on the deck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's ship. The bloody outcome remains one of the most legendary sea battles ever recounted.

It was the most important submarine capture of WWII, yet it remained a secret known only to a handful of men and the black waters of the Atlantic until long after the war was over. In the early days of WWII, Admiral Doenitz's deadly U-Boat fleet and their stealthy "wolfpack" attacks devastated Allied shipping. The success of Doenitz's strategy relied on the complex codes generated by the legendary Enigma machine, which rendered German radio transmissions indecipherable. But when the crew of U-110 was unable to scuttle their vessel as ordered, the sub along with the vital Enigma machine and its codebooks was captured by the Allies, and the tide of the conflict turned. Here, the incredible tale of U-110 is told through rare archival footage and photos, captured documents, and interviews with German and British sailors.

The commander was Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a celebrated polar explorer known for his ego as well as his exploits. The ship was the Karluk, a nineteenth-century whaler. The mission was arctic exploration. And the end was tragic. For sixty years, the true story of the Karluk expedition was unknown, but the complete tale is told here. With over thirty crewmen, the Karluk departed for the arctic in July of 1913. In less than two months, the aged, ill-equipped boat was trapped in the ice. In a stunning act of cowardice, Stefansson abandoned the ship and crew, saying he was hunting and would return shortly. Instead, he traveled the arctic for the next five years, a journey that would win him accolades. The Karluk was crushed in the ice, however, and in their desperate search for safety, 11 crewmen died.

In May of 1939, the ship St. Louis departed Hamburg, Germany for Cuba. Onboard were 930 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. In one of the darkest chapters in World War II, they would eventually be returned to the continent they tried to leave, and many ultimately perished in the Holocaust. THE DOOMED VOYAGE OF THE ST. LOUIS is a chronicle of shame and desperation, bravery and quiet heroism. Footage shows the ship arriving in Havana, where officials refused to allow the passengers to disembark. As the St. Louis steamed in circles of Florida and its passengers pondered their uncertain fate, immigration officials from various nations were contacted, but none, including the U.S., allowed them in. Here, the shameful decision of the U.S. is examined in detail. Eventually, the St. Louis returned to Europe, where, despite the heroic efforts of the ship's captain, most of the passengers became victims of the Holocaust.

It all started with bad meat. When it was over, more than 5,000 had died and the pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet lay beneath the waters, scuttled by her crew. REVOLT ON THE POTEMKIN is a detailed account of one of the strangest incidents in maritime history. When his crew refused to eat soup made with tainted meat, Commander Giliarovsky treated their actions as mutiny, and ordered that a number of randomly selected crewmen be shot! When the shooters failed to carry out his order, Giliarovsky killed one himself, and a real mutiny ensued. Formerly classified documents, accounts from men who were there and interviews with maritime historians chronicle the chaos that followed. Giliarovsky and several other officers were killed, and when the ship docked in Odessa, rioting sparked by the display of the dead crewman's martyr-body claimed more than 5,000 lives. Eventually, the mutineers took the Potemkin back out to sea, where they scuttled the mighty ship.