Talk:List of maritime disasters

MS Rigel
What about the MS Rigel that sank outside the coast of Norway 27. november 1944, resulting in the loss of 2,571 lives. Why is it not on the list?


 * Well, one reason is that you haven't added it to the list! Shinerunner (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ Don't know who or when, but the Rigel is on the list — Molly-in-md (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

What about the USS Blower (SS-325) that sank with all hands (81?). Why is it not on the list as well?


 * ✅ Just added this loss, but the entry is under TCG Dumlupınar, since the submarine had been sold to Turkey before her loss. — Molly-in-md (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

What about the Taiping (steamer)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.55.212.178 (talk) 22:43, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Entries that do not excede Titanic
I've included some entries that are below the loss level of the Titanic. My feeling is that this page could help others learn about some of these little known disasters as well.Shinerunner (talk) 03:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The Titanic does not have to be a "cutoff point". The article will probably get quite large. It is starting to look promising already. It should list with brief notes the famous/high casualty shipping disasters. If it gets too big, it can be split again. Wallie (talk) 08:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hood
Moved this down to the Warships section. There will be quite a few of these, I imagine. We should concentrate on the ones with large loss of life. Obviously, Graf Spee would not qualify here. Wallie (talk) 10:22, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Order
What sequence are the entries in? Should they be in date oder? ClemMcGann (talk) 10:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * In this case, I think they should be approx at least by number of casualties. I guess it depends on the context.... open for discussion. Wallie (talk) 12:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
 * They ought to be in chronological order. --24.21.148.212 (talk) 06:25, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Page history not working
I have tried to make some changes, but the history is not coming up. The edits are also being lost. Very very strange. Something is not working! Wallie (talk) 08:32, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Solved. As per Benea's suggestion, this was a problem with my browser. I could not see any recent history changes. I have no idea that people were even editing the article. You all must have thought I had gone quite mad. It is just that I was "in the dark". Wallie (talk) 19:27, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Rename to List of maritime disasters
That's really what this article is, so perhaps we should rename it? Comments? --Jaysweet (talk) 18:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I was about to suggest that myself! An excellent suggestion, it would follow the basic format for list articles and explain more fully it's scope (since the detailed discussion of these types of disaster are already covered in articles like shipwreck.) Benea (talk) 19:01, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds OK to me too. I created it as maritime disaster, as this text was in an existing article so I popped the [] around it and started this one from there. I just liked the idea of cataloguing these little stories about various disasters. I hope that it would evolve like other articles, starting small, getting too big, and then becoming just right. This is intended to be an article which is somwhere between the shipwreck article and the list articles which just list the names with no details. Wallie (talk) 19:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow
I have been away from this article for a bit, and how it has improved. Looking good! :) Wallie (talk) 15:24, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Provence II
I'm not sure where the rather high figure of 3,130 dead has come from. Halpern's A naval history of World War I lists it as 'close to a thousand', uboat.net has it as 990, and this dive site lists 830. Are there any sources for the higher number? Benea (talk) 00:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The German Submarine War 1914-1918 has 930, but I've possibly found the source of the 3000+ figure. Samuel Marshall's World War I. But his account is somewhat confused, listing her as 19,000 tons (other sources say closer to 13,000 tons), and that she was previously the Hamburg-America Line's Deutschland (the Hamburg-America's SS Deutschland (1900) spent the war as SS Viktoria Luise, and wasn't torpedoed, and was only 16,000 tons anyway). Since this account seems more than a little unreliable, perhaps it would be better to indicate the figure was 'close to a thousand', with the majority of sources suggesting somewhere in the region of 2,000 troops were being carried, rather than the 4,000 in Marshall's book. Benea (talk) 01:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Peacetime vs Wartime
Congratulations to everyone who has done such a lot of good work here!

However, I think if the headings are peacetime and wartime then the ships that are lost should be categorised according to whether the sinking occurred while the owners/operators were in a state of war. This means that SS Mendi should be listed under wartime disasters (she was carrying South Africans who were on their way to the front). Another alternative is to categorise it by cause of loss e.g. enemy action vs other causes, which would put Mendi, with peacetime losses (she sank as a result of collision), but would also put a lot of war losses, like magazines blowing up, and collisions in convoys in what would be, in my opinion, the incorrect category. Or it could be categorised according to military service or not, but then again a civilian ship sunk by torpedo during wartime, really ought to be categorised as a war loss. What do other editors think? Viv Hamilton (talk) 15:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The Sultana sank 27 April 1965, which was 18 days after the Civil War ended. Why list it as wartime? Wildeyedredhead (talk) 18:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * My own thought was to place the entries by the underlying cause of the disater. For example, the RMS Lady Hawkins, while a passenger ship and not a warship, was sunk by an enemy submarine. However the SS Mont Blanc, while the ship was carrying munitions during World War I, was not a combat related disaster but a ship collision in harbor. As to a disaster happening during a time of war, I feel that would be even more difficult to manage. Here is one possible difficulty using that critera. I live by the Great Lakes, would that make all disasters that happened on the Great Lakes between 1914-1918 or 1941-1945 a wartime disaster? I'd like to hear other opinions as well and shuffling the entries to whatever consensus reached is a minor matter.Shinerunner (talk) 23:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes would definately like to hear other people's views. But I think the time not just the cause has to be taken into account for several reasons.  If you take SS Mendi, for example, she was sunk in a collision with another ship, whose captain was criticised, but the reason the other ship was steaming fast in fog was fear of enemy vessels. Also people today compare the loss with Titanic and wonder why didn't it enter public consciousness in the same way, but if you take into account that 8 months before 6,000 British and 2,500 Germans died in one day in the Battle of Jutland (not to mention the thousands of army dead in the trenches) you can start to see the context.  Plus of course, during war, sometimes such events are severly downplayed, because of the impact on public morale.  As for the SS Mont Blanc, she was carrying munitions because of the war, and if she hadn't been, then the collision wouldn't have resulted in the catastrophic explosion.  Both of these are examples that illustrate that more risks are taken in time of war.  Viv Hamilton (talk) 11:37, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

However, if we look at the SS Mendi example the captain of the Darro was negligent in not following common safety practices (in wartime or peacetime) as as stated in the text below.

"The investigation into the accident found the captain of the Darro, Henry W Stump, to be at fault for "having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals." As a result, the captain of the Darro had his licence suspended for a year.

It was not only the fact he was traveling fast due to fear that caused the accident. He wasn't sounding his fog horn as required by statute. Shinerunner (talk) 12:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I am not trying to defend the captain of the Darro. I pointed out that it was his fault.  But you notice his licence was suspended for a year: it wasn't revoked completely.  And incidently, it is not just causing the collision in the first place, the Darro also didn't hang around to pick up survivors.  That is another thing that unfortunately happens in wartime - Captains make a decision that the danger to their ship is too great if they stop to pick up survivors.  I'm willing to bet that if the same incident had happened in peacetime he would have lost his licence completely.  The ships that blew up in the Battle of Jutland probably did so because their crews didn't follow standing orders in keeping blast doors shut.  The German ships took much heavier bombardment without blowing up.  People sometimes do the wrong things, but that doesn't make it a peacetime accident.    A disaster like the Mendi raises very strong feelings that the people who died are just as much the fallen of war as those who die on a ship that is blown up by a torpedo. To quote from the Mendi article in death they are afforded the same level of commemoration as all other Commonwealth war dead.  We've also got HMS Bulwark (1899) under peacetime disasters.  She blew up when she was on guard in the Medway and suffered a magazine explosion!  If a soldier in the trenches dies as a result of ammunition blowing up is that a peacetime accident? I feel that this categorisation is harming what otherwise would be a great list.  As it is I have to use the search in the page option to search individually for names of ships to see if they are listed, because the categorisation seems so arbitrary. We don't seem to have HMS Vanguard (1909) at all - despite it being the most catastrophic accidental explosion in the history of the UK.  Then again we'd only disagree about her, because you'd want her listed as another peacetime disaster (cordite fire resulting in explosion).  I think it would be better if the categorisation was consistent with other pages in WP - Mendi, Bulwark and Vanguard are listed as World War 1 Wartime ship disasters in List of battles and other violent events by death toll. Viv Hamilton (talk) 14:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I've flagged this discussion on WT:Maritime. Hopefully we will get other editors contributing.  Viv Hamilton (talk) 14:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to minimize the losses on the SS Mendi, HMS Bulwark, etc. or to say that their sacrifice was somehow less is completely wrong. I've been looking at the entries as an accident is an accident and a combat loss is a combat loss. Also, I'm not comfortable speculating beyond the reasons given for a disaster. As to the HMS Vanguard (1909) or any of the other entries missed since the page was created just over a month ago, hopefully someone will add them. Shinerunner (talk) 23:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I've been meaning to add a few entries myself. As to how to list them, I agree that categorising them by whether they happened in peace or wartime is perhaps not the clearest way to go. An accidental collision and sinking in wartime is a very different type of loss to a sinking in a naval battle, for example, but a very similar type of loss to a collision and sinking in peacetime. My suggestion would be to break the list by types of loss rather than time period, or the type of ship. How about if we broke the list primarily by cause (the difference between accidental and deliberate sinkings seem to me to be a very clear dividing line), and then if necessary, again by period? So we might have ships lost by collision, which would include the likes of the Dona Paz, the Mendi, Princess Alice, etc, and then divide that by time period. Similarly we could have ships sunk in battle, ships sunk by mine, ships sunk by torpedo, ships wrecked, ships burnt, etc. Rather than having section headings to divide by type of ship (I've always found 'Ships sunk in wartime that were current or former passenger ships' somewhat unwieldy), we can indicate in the entry what sort of ship it was. Benea (talk) 00:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)


 * (outdent) This is a head-scratcher, and it reminds me of another list I've worked on. Even though I've never been thrilled with List of sea captains, it did force me to do some thinking.  People will go to the page with very different goals.  One person might be looking for a name, the next will be looking for English captains, the next will be looking for a time period, the next will just be interested in naval captains, etc., etc., etc...  Because I couldn't come up with a reasonable all-purpose ordering, I made it a sortable table on these fields.  The obvious downside is that you lose a lot of flexibility in formatting the page to look pretty.
 * As regards this list, you could have a column labeled something like "Act of war" with entries labeled "Yes" or "No." Or, if you wanted to get fancier, you could have a column labeled something like "Type of loss" with entries like "Grounding", "Collision", "Mine hit", "Battle loss" and so forth.
 * I've noticed that a lot of WP:FLs will consist of a number of smaller sortable lists divided thematically, cf. List_of_areas_in_the_United_States_National_Park_System. Good luck!   H aus Talk 14:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible solution
Using the suggestions thus offered, I've worked (with help) on a template that might help organize the entries in a more agreeable and standardized format. If anyone would like to take a look it's at User:Shinerunner/Sandbox2. My thought was that the template could be used to sort the entries by decades which would make the page easier to split off if it becomes too long. A possible split, if needed, would be a new page for each century. Shinerunner (talk) 12:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * RL intervened so I've been away for a while. I think categorising by type of loss or year/decade, or in a sortable table etc would be fine e.g. see Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.  The Sandbox is nice. The downside of sortable is that it restricts the format, and it is much better to have a few sentences not just the categories.  I just don't think we should put wartime losses under a peacetime heading whatever the cause - this is confusing cause and time period.  In wartime things get messy e.g. see HMS H5 or HMS K4 or HMS Curacao or HMS Umpire (N82) - these are all collisions - but one is deliberate.  Also notice that the accidents occurred because they were doing things because it was wartime that you wouldn't do in peacetime, like zigzagging in convoy, or passing each other without lights.  Also it isn't always clear what happened e.g. HMS Swordfish (61S). I also think you are right that we should plan to split the tables up because they will get long.  Viv Hamilton (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I've left my comments here (User:Shinerunner/Sandbox2), but feel free to move them if you think it's more appropriate to discuss this anywhere else. It looks pretty good so far, I especially like how everything is standardised, you know instantly where to look for ship type, casualties, survivors, etc. It seems to be a great improvement over the current system. Template syntax isn't my bailiwick, but if there was some way to make the table sortable, that could be very useful too, and allow it to be ordered by date, number of casualties, country of ship, name of ship, etc. This could go a long way towards sorting out the current discussion on how to order and arrange the entries. Just a suggestion, but even if this is not possible, I definitely think we should convert the current list article into this table format, or one like it. Very good work thus far! Benea (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Disagree (sorry). The table would mean that the nice commentaries and pictures might then be removed. Some people like tables, and others not. There are already plenty of tables about this subject on Wikipedia. This article presents the material in another way. Wallie (talk) 08:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, the table contains a section for commentaries and I've found that it will compress to allow images to appear alongside it.(See User:Shinerunner/Sandbox2)


 * Very nice! If you look at the Featured Lists, you will find that they often have images alongside the tables.  Viv Hamilton (talk) 19:02, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Odd choice for splitting them up and very difficult to reconcile - I would think 'Military Losses' vs 'Civil Disasters' would make more sense since most in the military column would have been intentional while those in the civil column would have been accidental.
 * Thus a warship is clearly on the military side, as is a troopship or any ship being operated under direct military orders (either the captain himself is a commissioned naval officer or one is involved in the decisions regarding the operation of the vessel), being operated in a military capacity (armed and/or going after enemy warships) even if no military officers present, or lastly a vessel which was regarded as an auxiliary cruiser by its own navy.

Finally if a majority of the casualties were military or were there because of their direct involvement (ie not refugees) in a military conflict I would regard it as military (ie a large number of diplomats, spies, military attaches and purchasing commission members). A cargo vessel travelling in convoy but with a civil captain and not armed would be under the civil side even if it was torpedoed (Empress of Ireland for instance), while a liner chock full of an army in retreat (Karl Gustloff) being torpedoed would be in the military section.
 * I think this would involve less confusion in comparing disasters, and in finding a specific ship to see where it stands in the order of things.

On that note I like the idea of using a table - it is very hard to find a specific ship with it laid out as it currently is. By using a table numbers can be compared more readily, and specific ships would be easier to find. I don't think it is necessary to lose any information doing this either. With so many losses the number of casualties is unknown (and likely unknowable) so sorting by losses is a bit problematic when the numbers are similar or not well documented. NiD.29 (talk) 03:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Collision MV Doña Paz with MT Vector
Much information on the MV Doña Paz can be found, e.g. IMO number: 5415822, but I didn't succeed to find the identical technical information of the MT Vector. Looking for the IMO number. Does anyone know where I can find it? Sunk together with the MV Doña Paz. --stunteltje@hccnet.nl (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, after spending an hour and a half searching, it seem that there is very little information available for the MT Vector. If I stumble across anything I'll post it here and on your talk page. Shinerunner (talk) 12:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Melbourne collisions
Would it be appropriate to include the two collisions of HMAS Melbourne (R21) (Melbourne-Voyager collision and Melbourne-Evans collision) in this list? -- saberwyn 23:32, 23 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Always best to put it in. Someone else may disagree and remove it or change it. Then again, they may not. I always say "publish and be damned". Thanks. Wallie (talk) 08:56, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅ Don't know who or when, but both these collisions are on the list. — Molly-in-md (talk) 21:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Al-Salam-Boccaccio-98.jpg
The image File:Al-Salam-Boccaccio-98.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check


 * That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
 * That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:


 * File:SS Elbe 1881.jpg

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Media copyright questions. --08:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Chronological order!
I'm kind of stunned the list isn't in chronological order. Seems pretty haphazard. At least the peacetime disaster list ought to be in order.. come on. --24.21.148.212 (talk) 06:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, let me see, I think the list was concieved to be in decending order by loss of life rather than by chronological order. That would mean that it's being presented in the order that the page originator intended.Shinerunner (talk) 11:23, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions
Hi there.

This is not a topic which I really know anything about, but I was reading about the Titanic and have learnt a LOT. What I do appreciate is the other ships involved in the story of the Titanic. It led me to find this article.

I have two suggestions. The addition of two ships to the list, and (bigger job) a change in the page layout.

The two ships which I think should be added are:

RMS Carpathia SS Californian

Neither are hugely notable in the number of people who died when they sank, but they were both involved in the story of the Titanic. The RMS Carpathia saved over 700 survivors from the water. Meanwhile, the SS Californian was close to the Titanic but didn't respond. Ironically (and sadly), they were both sank just a few years later in WW1.

My suggestion for layout is that the data should be presented as a table to make it easier to read. My suggestion for table columns: Ship Name, Date, Location of Sinking, Number Died, Number Survived (if known), Comments.

Just a suggestion, if anyone has the time and thinks it's a good idea. 129.31.68.170 (talk) 09:43, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Needs reorganization?
It looks to me as though most of the wartime listings under notable disasters were caused by military action rather than storm or accident. Should these listings be moved two sections down to the "warships and troopships sunk" section? SirenDrake (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

USS Arizona
The part about the ship not being salvaged is inaccurate. Anybody that has seen the pictures knows this is fact.

During WWII, she was partly salvaged, this counts as salvaged. They recovered several hundred of her crew. Something like 980+ or 990+ of her crew are still "on station" thought. I'm sorry, I no longer remember where I learned this at, perhaps it was the Television Series "Unsolved History".

Please, can someone with accurate numbers please change this entry??

thank you for your time; bdraft

Bdraft (talk) 11:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Further notes on USS Arizona's salvage....
Found evidence after my post, can't figure out how to edit just my post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Arizona_%28BB-39%29#December_7.2C_1941

Scroll down to the second from last paragraph in the section, stating with "Placed "in ordinary" at" and read it.

Also look at these pictures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Arizona_from_port_bow.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DN-SD-06-09336.jpg

Those tell the story....

thank you for your time; bdraft

Bdraft (talk) 12:05, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

USS Cyclops belongs someplace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cyclops_%28AC-4%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.74.237.147 (talk) 10:00, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * ✅ Don't know who or when, but the Cyclops is on the list — Molly-in-md (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Doña Paz losses
This article cites two different losses for the Doña Paz (4,386 and 4,341). Which one is right? The ship's article says 4,375 as well.--NortyNort (Holla) 12:56, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Order of entries
Having worked on this article for the last four days (thanks, Word Pad), I have noticed three stand-out things about it: a) It still needs a lot of work.(Don't they all?) b) The order of entries seems rather strange and at times haphazard, (some new entries seem to have been added at the top). c)The sections will soon need dividing off.

At the moment, to find a particular event as it stands is extremely difficult. Unless you already know something about the incident, you won't get far. I know the order is meant to be based on the number of victims, but as a large proportion is made up of estimates or "don't knows", I think this is the wrong criteria to use. I would suggest that this is the wrong way to go about it. As the list covers sinkings from the 17th to the 21st centuries, the suggestion above (about it being written in chronological order), would not address the problem that the article is just too unwieldy (and too long).

IMHO the way to go is to re-arrange the sections into alphabetical order. I notice other lists are so written, so it would fall into line there. The only problem I can see is if there is more than one incident involving ships with the same name, (there aren't any at present); but if there is, putting the year in brackets, like some article names already do, would take care of it.

The division of sections seems to me fairly obvious: warships for one, and the rest for the other !

What do other editors think? RASAM (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

We put the German list in a historical choosable form. The List has a tab form, organinzed in centuries and decades. Look here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katastrophen_der_Seefahrt.--Sünnerklaas (talk) 10:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The only problem that I see is in the warship/non-warship division. A ship like the Wilhelm Gustloff, while built as a passenger ship, was being used as a military vessel at the time of her sinking. Shine runner   (talk)   11:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Wilhelm Gustloff were like the Lusitania totpedoed. You find both ships in the chapter 'war-related sinkings'. The other chapter has the title maritime accidents. --Sünnerklaas (talk) 12:06, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, how about something like "Warships and other vessels sunk by enemy action" and "Civilian ships" ? That, despite the former being rather long, would at least take care of the Gustloff problem, which would then only need to go under the first name. It would also pick-up the likes of the Lancastria, (which at the moment seems to have been added almost as an afterthought). RASAM (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How about "Maritime disasters caused by enemy action" and "Maritime Disasters caused by accidents"; this includes the Gustloff or Lancastria and Lusitania (enemy action) and also the 1967 USS Forrestal fire, a desastrous accident on a military ship --Sünnerklaas (talk) 18:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC).


 * Having looked at the talk page above in more detail, (something I probably should have done in the first place!) I see that it is by no means a new problem; it goes back to at least 2008. We seem to have forgotten two words as a prefix in the new titles; they are: "List of....", so all the suggestions would be that much longer. I would tend to agree with Sünnerklass (except for the incorrect "D" in "Maritime Disasters caused by accidents") but with "List of" in front of the new title(s). But a word of caution, the phrase "caused by accidents" could be a banana-skin. Would all the entries be cast-iron certainties on the 'who, why, how' and so on about the cause of the accidents, particularly the less well-known ones. And with two lists to consider, thats two more potential 'skins. The length of any new list would not be a problem when you take into account that as it stands at present the (single) list is over 78k long. Both would then need a pointer to the other. I woulld leave it to somebody else to implement, (I'm just a humble copy editor).RASAM (talk) 20:48, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

1947 Ramdas
Shouldn't this disaster be included in the list as well? 1947_Ramdas_Ship_Disaster Reportedly 625 people killed. MakeSense64 (talk) 08:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * ✅ Don't know who or when, but the Ramdas is on the list —— Molly-in-md (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria
The peacetime list, in particular, needs proper inclusion criteria. Some of the ones towards the end of the list look very minor and not at all worth mentioning. I don't wish to seem callous but, for example, #156 (the loss of a cargo ship in a storm off Ireland in 1836, with 14 deaths) and #158 (ditto, off New Jersey in 1914, with seven deaths) are entirely routine events in shipping at that time. To put these figures in perspective, over 14,000 British sailors died in disasters (i.e., events which affected a whole ship rather than, say, one man falling from the rigging) between 1875 and 1883 alone. That's an average of four a day, and that's just Britain (though Britain had by far the largest fleet in the world at that time). Dricherby (talk) 23:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree. Sadly, even today (according to Lloyds Marine Intelligence Unit ), around four ships a week are lost. Every loss is of course a major disaster for someone. The question is what would be the inclusion threshold? WhaleyTim (talk) 17:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I also agree, suggest a minimum of 30 casualties as a criteria for inclusion (may be revised upwards). Mjroots (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Peacetime Disasters - Country
When it says Country, does this mean the country it was registered in or the country it perished off? Just for example, the RMS Empress of Ireland says Canada beside it, but it says it was registered in Liverpool. Id agree with this structure as it makes more sense. Or maybe there could be two columns, one for country of registry and another for closest country to sinking site? ShaneMc2010 14:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC)


 * My own feeling is that the location of the sinking is more relevant, especially today, when many ships fly flags of convenience. Perhaps the column should be labelled "Location", though that might encourage excessive precision. Dricherby (talk) 09:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes I think the location would be more appropriate aswell, especially considering some vessels were chartered at the time of sinking etc. I suppose it would have to be agreed before anything is changed though! ShaneMc2010 13:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I would also like some clarity on this. It looked to me like the nationality of the ship, yet nowadays there are so many ships registered in Panama, Honduras, and Liberia simply for tax purposes. What's the right flag to post? Bruxism (talk) 00:53, 5 October 2013 (UTC)


 * There never really was a discussion after I questioned this so I'm still not sure I'm afraid. ShaneMc2010 16:08, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Al Salam Boccaccio 98
Given the specific numbers that are listed as passenger count, crew count and survivors, should the lives lost column be changed to the exact value (1020) to reflect this. This would change the order by bringing Al Salam Boccaccio 98 above the RMS Empress of Ireland. 76.113.35.33 (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2013 (UTC) MRY September 4, 2013

Including criteria, part 2, and "collective disasters"
As it has already been pointed out, it doesn't makes sense to put in a list of naval disasters the sinking of ships which had 20, or 10, or 5, or even 0 (look at the bottom of the peacetime list) victims. My suggestion: inclusion criteria could be not from 30, but from 100 victims upwards, both because of the size of a disaster, and of the actual possibility of making a complete list. Disaster with at least 100 people can be somehow found, while it is not possible to make a complete list of ships which sank with 30-40 victims - even nearly unknown cargo ships, for example, sometimes go down with the loss of 30 or more people. But it is not really possible to make a complete list of this. Maybe we could do complete lists (=tables like those already existing which separate peacetime, WWI, WWII etc. disasters) of disasters with 100 or more victims, and then one or more "partial lists" (tables) of disasters with, say, 30 to 99 casualties.

The second issue: I think it is quite questionable the choice to put in a 'single' disaster the simultaneous sinking of several ships, e.g. the Scilly naval disaster of 1707, the battle of Tsushima, the three armoured cruisers sank by the U 9 in one hour in 1914, and so on. In my opinion the ships sunk in such disasters should be separated and, if they singularly meet these hypothetical 'inclusion criteria' (most of them do - all of the Russian battleships sunk in the battle of Tsushima, of the British ships grounded and sunk in 1707 Scilly disaster, and the Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy were lost with heavy loss of life, always above 100 victims -), placed each one in the right order in the list, and otherwise deleted.

I hope we can discuss the matter and come to some conclusion.--Olonia (talk) 19:15, 19 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd say that 100 is too high a bar. My preference is 30, but a bottom limit of 50 is also acceptable. Agree re combined disasters, they should be split per individual vessels. Mjroots (talk) 21:29, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I've no problem with setting a lower limit on inclusion. On the subject of combined disasters the problem that I found is that finding exact numbers for each ship is very difficult since many sources group the loss numbers. Shine runner  (talk)   23:07, 3 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, for most battles/disaster such those I have cited (Aboukir/Hogue/Cressy, Tsushima etc.) the figures for the single ships can be found in the pages dedicated to the ships.--Olonia (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

SS Pacific
For some reason, this disaster in 1875 appears twice, with different death tolls. They can't both be correct. Skinsmoke (talk) 18:23, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I removed the duplicate entry with the higher casualty amount. All the sources I checked agreed with the lower total. Shine runner   (talk)   18:27, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Size split?
 Support split  - Article is over 300 kB, and should be split, starting with Peacetime maritime disasters, then subsections of Wartime disasters. Thoughts? --Jax 0677 (talk) 02:25, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support in principle - Suggest a first split into List of peacetime maritime disasters and List of wartime maritime disasters, with this page becoming a dab page. Mjroots (talk) 08:26, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Second thoughts, split off the wartime disasters only, leaving this page for peacetime disasters and non-combat disasters in wartime. Mjroots (talk) 19:33, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support - The wartime entries alone are still far from complete with few entries for submarine losses. When added these entries will greatly expand the page length if a split is not done. Shine runner  (talk)   15:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Support in principle. The problem partly my doing, as I'm one of the contributors who keeps making this article longer. Most of the articles that I add are WW1 or WW2 sinkings — and as Shinerunner says, there are lots more of those to be written. List of ships sunk by submarines by death toll has a threshhold of 300 deaths. That excludes some rather major losses, so I had thought of suggesting a threshhold in this case of, say, 100.
 * Splitting the list by conflict is logical, but what about losses in 1914–18 or 1939–45 that were not war losses? If a neutral ship hit a mine or was torpedoed that seems to be a war loss, but if an US ship was sunk by a typhoon when the USA happened to be at war was that a war loss?
 * Therefore would it be an idea to split by date, regardless of cause? Naturally 1914–18 and 1939–45 would be candidates to be two of those periods.
 * Best wishes, Motacilla (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If we are to split by date, the splitting by century would be logical. Periods such as WWI and WWII could be separate sublists of the C20th list. Should it prove necessary to split further, then by year. Mjroots (talk) 18:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems that there is consensus to split. Per Motacilla's suggestion, I suggest we split the following out -


 * List of maritime disasters in the 18th century (1701-1800)
 * List of maritime disasters in the 19th century (1801-1900)
 * List of maritime disasters in the 20th century (1901-2000)
 * List of maritime disasters in WWI (1914-18)
 * List of maritime disasters in WWII (1939-45)

Any objections? Mjroots (talk) 20:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Wrecks prior to 1700 may need a page as well. Shine runner   (talk)   21:56, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that pre-1700 and 21st century wrecks would stay here for now, but the 17th century can be split out if desired. Mjroots (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support split by century - article is way too large. I believe the correct thing to do would be to move all disasters to a century-based page, but also leave the top X here (or top X by century) as people will surely want to see the biggest without having to page through century. --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Shamia appears twice
The Shamia appears twice in the first list. I think that's an oversight and the two should be consolidated. Tempel (talk) 08:23, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Duplicate entry has been removed. Thanks for pointing that out. Shine runner   (talk)   21:34, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Koombana also appears more than once
130.88.16.117 (talk) 12:24, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Edmund Fitzgerald?
Am I just missing the EF on this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.136.135.78 (talk) 14:52, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Re-planning the site
In response your tag about excessive length, let me suggest this.

Divide into 2 separate websites: List of maritime disasters (Peacetime), List of maritime disasters (Wartime).

Within each site, main listings to be in descending order of deaths. For cases of 500+ deaths, retain the current length and format. Remainder to get just one line each, including links for further reference. Then provide a re-listing of all the incidents on that site, in chronological order, with all ships given one line each. Possibly, even provide a third re-listing -  also one line each  -  divided by nationalities.

Alternatively, split into 4 separate websites: List of maritime disasters (Peacetime, 500+ deaths), List of maritime disasters (Peacetime, up to 500 deaths), List of maritime disasters (Wartime, 500+ deaths), List of maritime disasters (Wartime, up to 500 deaths). Valetude (talk) 12:16, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Falklands War.....??
Atlantic conveyor?........Sir Galahad?.............HMS Coventry..??

≈≈≈≈ Ray

USS Sultana
How in the name of the LORD was this missed? Towards the end of the American Civil War a boiler exploded and in a nutshell about 1800 people died. It's obviously, or so it seems, not a "notable" maritime disaster - as the USS Sultana's tragedy was overshadowed by another major tragic event in American history that had just happened - but it WAS the biggest US maritime disaster of all. As far as American history goes, it didn't happen in "peacetime" nor did it occur because of friendly or enemy fire but it very well needs to be mentioned.shyjayb 10:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shyjayb (talk • contribs) Okay I see it but how was this not EMPHASIZED more? Very confusing and misleading front headlines on this whole article.shyjayb 21:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shyjayb (talk • contribs)
 * She was the SS Sultana, not the USS Sultana, and the Civil War had already ended when she exploded. 69.165.138.65 (talk) 08:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The caveat is noted; I've added an entry for this ship as it is a pretty major incident. And I've added a few more that seem to be missing. Xyl 54 (talk) 20:19, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

"Minimum" number of lives lost
Here I am again, as I would like to suggest a change in the minimum number of deaths for a disaster to be included in the list. While 30 can be a reasonable number for peacetime losses, it is not for wartime ones. Look at the WWII section: for example, most of the German, Soviet, British, Italian, Japanese, American etc. submarines lost were sunk with more than 30 victims; we're talking about hundreds of submarines, which will be difficult to include in the list. Same goes for merchant ships: we can literally lose count of all the merchants sunk during WWI and WWII with more than 30 dead each. So, I propose to raise the 'minimum' for wartime losses from 30 to 100 deaths, while leaving it at 30 for peacetime disasters.--Olonia (talk) 10:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Flags of Germany
This might be a silly question, but why is the World War II list using two different flags of Nazi Germany ( Nazi Germany and Nazi Germany)? What is the difference? -- Metrophil44 (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd think the template coding might give you a clue ;) The second flag is the ensign used for commissioned warships of the Kriegsmarine - the other is the national flag used for civilian vessels like the Wilhelm Gustloff. Parsecboy (talk) 10:24, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Article split
The article has been split by centuries into the following.


 * List of maritime disasters in the 18th century (1701-1800)
 * List of maritime disasters in the 19th century (1801-1900)
 * List of maritime disasters in the 20th century (1901-2000)
 * List of maritime disasters in World War I
 * List of maritime disasters in World War II
 * List of maritime disasters in the 21st century (2001-   )

The only thing that needs to be decided on is the pre-18th century entries that are still on the 20th century page. Shine runner  (talk)   13:46, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Changed the original page List of maritime disasters from a redirect to a link page and added the pre-1700 content. Shine runner  (talk)   16:05, 31 May 2015 (UTC)