SALVAGE SEA STORIES

SALVAGE

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

Episodes

  1. May 31

    Donald Crowhurst | The Man Who Faked a Voyage Around the World | SALVAGE SEA STORIES

    In July 1969, a cargo ship discovered a small sailing vessel drifting in the North Atlantic. There was no sign of the man who should have been on board. Donald Crowhurst had left Teignmouth eight months earlier to compete in the Golden Globe Race — a non-stop, solo sail around the entire world. He had never sailed further than the English Channel. What happened next is one of the most extraordinary and heartbreaking stories in maritime history. A man alone on an ocean. A lie that grew too big to survive. And a final log entry that raises questions nobody has ever been able to answer. This is not really a sailing story. It's a story about ambition, shame, and the decisions we make. Episode Sources & Further Reading If this episode has left you wanting to know more about Donald Crowhurst and the Golden Globe Race, here is where to go next. The definitive book The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall. Written by the journalists who first broke the full story with access to the actual logbooks. This is the place to start. Documentary Deep Water (2006) — a feature documentary covering the full Golden Globe Race with remarkable archive footage. Highly recommended. Film The Mercy (2018) — starring Colin Firth as Donald Crowhurst and Rachel Weisz as Clare. A sympathetic and largely accurate dramatisation of the story. For wider context A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols covers all nine competitors in the Golden Globe Race and puts Crowhurst's story in the broader context of one of sailing's most extraordinary events. A World of My Own by Robin Knox-Johnston — the account of the race from the only man who finished it. Online The Wikipedia page on the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race is thorough and well sourced for anyone wanting a solid overview. 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 | paulyudin-documentary-documentary-music via Pixabay | Sound effects: "Nature Beach Waves" — freesound_community via Pixabay

    23 min

  2. May 17

    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

    32 min

  3. May 1

    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

    28 min

  4. Apr 19

    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

    20 min

  5. Apr 4

    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

    26 min

  6. Apr 2

    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

    35 min
  • 6 Episodes

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    SALVAGE
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 SALVAGE SEA STORIES