Disasters at Sea

A massive cargo ship

vanishes in a raging typhoon.

It is a fantastic mystery

how a ship nearly a thousand feet long

could just disappear.

Authorities blame Captain and crew,

but not everyone is convinced.

I trusted the crew.

They wouldn't put their lives in danger.

We'll prove it.

Their evidence lies

at the bottom of the world's deepest ocean.

Look at that!

What's uncovered, no one expected.

The ship did something

which is to implode and then explode.

For sure, 44 of them were all alive

as she went into typhoon orchid.

For sure, they're all dead.

How did that happen?

Abandon ship!

Go!

September 8, 1980.

The MV Derbyshireis passing through the western pacific

en route to Japan.

Captain Geoffrey Underhill is in command of the massive ship.

The 47-year-old father of two is in charge of every detail

of the Derbyshire's operation

and its crew of 42.

Morning, Curly.

Morning, Captain.

Have the met reports come in?

Yeah, I have them right here.

Geoff Underhill, GVU,

as he was nicknamed by everybody because that was his initials,

was a very competent seafaring master.

As far as his personality went,

he liked to control by consensus.

Nigel Malpass served aboard the Derbyshire

as chief officer.

He knows the ship and her crew very well.

Derbyshire was a wonderful ship to sail on.

She was almost like brand new.

There was hardly any wear and tear on her,

and things worked.

Unless you've actually sailed on one,

it's hard to visualize how big they were,

but they were really massive.

At 965 feet, the Derbyshireis longer

and twice the weight of the Titanic.

Her nine cargo holds have a capacity of 160,000 tons,

and the bridge deck is ten stories high.

A ship of this size can take over two miles to stop

and almost a mile to turn.

The Derbyshireis a bulk carrier.

Her huge holds can be filled with anything

from grain to crude oil.

But on this trip she's carrying 157,000 tons of iron ore.

After leaving Canada

and passing around the Southern tip of Africa,

she's now just a few days from her final destination:

Kawasaki, Japan.

Because of her size, she's had to take the long way around.

She was called a cape-size ship

because she was 145 feet wide and drew 60 feet of water

and was just simply too deep

to go through either the Panama canal or the Suez canal,

so she had to go beneath the capes...

Cape horn, cape of good hope...

Into some of the roughest waters of the world.

By now ship and crew have been at sea

for more than two months.

Most are experienced seamen,

including 19-year-old deckhand Peter Lambert.

This is his second year at sea, and he loves it.

He couldn't stop talking about it. Loved it.

You know, I always, I always feel a seafarer's born,

you can't make one.

You form very close bonds

with the seafarers that you're with.

Your life at times depended on it.

A ship's crew is like a family

because they're on the vessel

for extended periods of time together.

Ah, yes, you can just set it there.

An unusual but well-appreciated company perk

allows wives to travel with their husbands.

Thank you, that's perfect.

24-year-old Ann-Marie Hutchinson

is one of the two wives on board.

So far the voyage has been uneventful.

Captain?

Anything exciting?

A little too exciting.

Chief officer Curly Bayliss

delivers weather forecasts predicting a fast-moving storm.

Typhoon orchid is heading their way.

The western north pacific

has this nickname of typhoon alley.

And that's because the typhoons that form there

can be upwards of 300 to 400 miles across,

tremendous winds of upwards of 100 miles an hour

generating tremendous waves... Very destructive force.

To avoid danger, Underhill needs to keep his ship

at least 200 miles from the storm.

But there's a problem.

He received three weather reports...

One from Guam, one from Tokyo, and one from Hong Kong...

And each one had given typhoon orchid

a different location.

Brilliant. Three forecasts, all different.

With conflicting weather reports,

Captain Underhill has to make his best guess

how to dodge the storm.

You still had to rely on your expertise,

your knowledge base, in being able to identify where you were

in relation to the storm.

Both the typhoon and the ship are moving.

Figuring out how to avoid the storm is an enormous challenge.

Being the sensible seafarer that he was,

he would have said, "right, that's three typhoons."

He wouldn't have tried to second guess which was the right one.

He altered course to the north and the east to avoid all three.

If we maintain a good speed,

we should be able to sneak through here.

You want to make a plan that,

if I can keep this course and this speed

over the next 24 hours, it may pass behind me.

I might catch some of the weather,

but I won't bear the brunt of it.

Let's make sure the ship is secure, yeah?

Yes, sir.

This is the Captain speaking.

Looks like the weather's getting worse,

so please take care till the storm abates

and make sure the ship and your cabin are secure.

It was procedure within the company

that as you approached bad weather

you would go through the procedures

of battening down ventilators, putting canvas covers on them,

and basically checking that everything was snug

and ready to take any kind of sea.

Sailing in heavy weather is part of life at sea;

It's just part of the job.

That's not to say that you take it lightly.

One of the most important tasks

is to batten down the hatches, large and small.

Peter Lambert is still learning the ropes.

Make sure you do it nice and tight.

Everybody adored him.

Everybody loved him.

He'll help you.

No matter what you need doing, he would help you.

Captain, we're down to eight knots.

Within hours,

it's clear the captain's plan isn't working.

Despite their change of course, they're hitting heavy weather.

The swelling seas are already making it hard

to keep up their speed.

Autopilot off.

Let's see if we can make some better headway.

Conditions continue to worsen.

An unexpected shift in the storm's direction

has put them directly in its path.

Through the night, wind speeds increase to 50 miles per hour,

and wave heights soar to more than 25 feet.

Gentlemen...

Looks like we'll have to tough this one out.

Heave to, please.

Heaving to.

Keep the wind light on the starboard bow.

Turning to port.

Keeping the wind light on the starboard bow.

What the Captain wanted to do at the time

was to adjust his heading and his course

such that he was taking the waves right on his starboard bow

because that will cause the ship to just rise and fall,

but along her length, but not roll and not pitch.

As the center of the typhoon closes in,

winds have increased to 64 miles per hour

and wave heights to more than 35 feet.

These are conditions that few people have experienced at sea.

The wind is very loud; It's roaring, basically.

The ship is pitching.

Very little visibility

and generally an unpleasant situation to be in.

There's little else to do

but endure the violent motion of the ship.

It has a long-term effect over days of that on the crew.

It's exhausting.

Fatigue sets in, because nobody really sleeps,

particularly if you're really battered in some heavy seas.

Captain Underhill probably didn't leave

when the weather really picked up,

because he has to be there and he has to see what's going on.

It's just continued vigilance all the time, a wary vigilance.

Radio our position to Liverpool.

As they enter their second night of the storm,

the Derbyshire radios her position to shore

and checks in with a nearby ship.