cruise ship sinking 1960s

Part I- The disaster   |   Part II- The witnesses  |   Part III- More victims   |   List of Burials  |   Survivors stories

FORUM BRINGS TOGETHER SEA TRAGEDY

By Fiona Flores Watson

In the early 1960s, over a hundred cruise ship passengers died when their vessel caught fire in the Atlantic. On the andalucia.com forum, several people intimately connected with the tragedy, from those who recovered the bodies, to survivors and relatives of victims, have been brought together, to share painful memories of the disaster, and to help each other to finally come to terms with their terrible losses nearly 40 years later.

On 22 December 1963, a Dutch-built, Greek-owned cruise ship called the TSMS Lakonia was sailing off Madeira. She was on an 11-day Christmas cruise of the Canary Islands, sailing from Southampton, with a brief visit to the Azores first. Aboard were 646 passengers and 376 crew; nearly all the passengers were British or Irish, enjoying a special ocean-going Christmas, and the crew largely Greek or German. The ship's captain was Mathios Zarbis, a 53-year-old Greek.

That night, a fire broke out on the ship and less than two hours later, the ship was abandoned; some unfortunate passengers were trapped in their cabins by the flames, while others escaped in lifeboats, half of which were faulty, or jumped into the sea.

THE RESCUE OPERATION

The first ship to arrive at the scene, about 180 miles north-west of Madeira, was the Salta , an Argentine vessel, which rescued 478 people. Montcalm , a British tanker, reached the Lakonia half an hour later. Most survivors were rescued by these two vessels and taken to Madeira.

A total of 128 people died on the Lakonia , 95 passengers and 33 crew - but of these fewer than half perished in the fire itself; most drowned, succumbed to exposure or sustained injuries while jumping off the ship. Poor organisation, faulty lifeboats and electrical problems were all named as causes in the official investigation into the cause of the fire and subsequent chaos.

Two days later, crew from the British aircraft carrier HMS Centaur boarded the now charred, listing ship, retrieving numerous bodies. Four tugboats towed the Lakonia towards Gibraltar; on the way, she keeled over and sank, 400km west of the British territory.

Lakonia Disaster (1963)

The Greek cruise ship TSMS Lakonia left Southampton on 19 December 1963 for an 11-day Christmas cruise of the Canary Islands. She carried 646 passengers and 376 crew: a total of 1,022 people.

The ship’s first scheduled stop was to be the island of Madeira.

A fire broke out onboard at around 11.00 pm on 22 December when the ship was about 180 miles north of Madeira. Most of the passengers were in the ship’s ballroom and as the fire spread, alarms sounded too softly to be heard by most people aboard.

As smoke began to fill the ballroom at about 11.30 pm, the band stopped playing and the frightened passengers were ushered to the boat deck. The upper deck was ablaze within 10 minutes.

The direction to abandon ship was given shortly before 1.00 am but the evacuation was hampered by the overcrowding of lifeboats and the loss of several boats to fire.

Just over half of the lifeboats made it safely away from Lakonia , and some of them less than half full.

128 people were killed in the disaster. Some deaths were caused by the fire itself, others by accidents when abandoning ship, and others by exposure or drowning in the sea. Several people who dived overboard struck the side of the ship on the way down, killing them before they hit the water.

On 24 December ocean tugs took Lakonia in tow and tried to tow her to Gibraltar. But the ship had developed a list and on 29 December, she sank in the Atlantic, 230 nautical miles southwest of Lisbon, Portugal.

A board of inquiry traced the fire to faulty electrical wiring but strongly criticised the maintenance of equipment, thoroughness of lifeboat drills, and the standard of supervision. The board of inquiry ruled that the order to abandon ship was given too late, operations on deck were not supervised by responsible officers, and the crew – except for a few acts of self-sacrifice – failed to rescue sleeping passengers from their cabins below decks.

Eight of the ship’s officers were charged with negligence.

The Lakonia was originally launched in 1929 for Netherland Line as the ocean liner Johan van Oldenbarnevelt . She served in the Second World War as an Allied troopship. She was refitted several times and in 1962 she became the Greek Line cruise ship TSMS Lakonia , operating cruises out of Southampton.

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The Last Voyage (1960) – A Review

A review of the 1960 disaster film The Last Voyage about the sinking of a cruise ship starring Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Edmond O’Brien and Woody Strobe

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Cliff Henderson (Robert Stack), wife Laurie (Dorothy Malone) and daughter Jill (Tammy Marihugh) are enjoying a leisurely cruise onboard the SS Claridon headed to Japan. They expect to wile away the days by playing bingo, watching puppet shows and to get in some romantic dancing between Cliff and Laurie.

Trouble erupts when an explosion in the engine room cripples the Claridon and she begins to take on more water than the pumps can handle. Laurie gets pinned under debris and now Cliff is on a frantic mission to save her.

Panic begins to erupt all over the ship. The ships engineer (Edmond O’Brien) and his team fruitlessly attempt to buy more time and make repairs, but it dawns on him it’s a hopeless situation. As the water levels begin to rise the stubborn captain (George Sanders) is unconvinced of his ships fate and to make it a priority to get the passengers into lifeboats.

But it becomes increasingly clear to everyone onboard there isn’t much time to survive on the sinking Claridon.  

The Last Voyage is one of those earlier precursor’s of the 1970’s disaster craze. Watching it you can’t help but see similarities between it and   The Poseidon Adventure . It makes me wonder if Irwin Allen took inspiration from it before he set out to make his sinking disaster epic.

Stack is very good as he runs around trying to get help from anyone and trying to think of any way to free his wife. Frustration mounts as he’s turned away or ignored completely by the ships crew who are dealing with the flooding. Tension amps up waiting to see what he will do next.

O’Brien is such a reliable character actor whenever he shows up and once again he delivers a strong supporting performance. Barking orders and yelling at anyone within earshot. And Sanders is such a stubborn fool at some points you just want to slap him.

While watching it I was very impressed with the sets. The damaged engine room, the huge flooding dinner hall, the passengers scrambling on deck for lifeboats. I kept thinking, ‘wow this all looks really, really good. A lot of this doesn’t look like it was filmed on soundstages’.

It wasn’t until after watching it and looking up information about the movie I learned   The Last Voyage was filmed on a real ship that was scheduled to be scrapped. It was leased by the studio and director Andrew L. Stone partially flooded portions of it for his movie. Despite many trivia listings about the movie saying the ship was actually sunk for the filming – that’s not true. It was only partially sunk and after filming was completed it was taken away to the scrapyard.

There is a silly moment when one of the ships funnel collapses and it seems to come out of nowhere. It was like they figured it would be cool to do, but it doesn’t look very realistic that it would happen at that moment. But what the heck, that’s one quibble amongst a lot of effective flooding scenes. Some of its sequences put modern day over-the-top effect-laden disaster movies to shame.

I’m somewhat surprised the movie doesn’t get more talked about or given more attention. I found it a surprisingly good suspenseful film that has some splendid realistic effects. It’s well worth a watch for disaster movie fans.

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4 thoughts on “ the last voyage (1960) – a review ”.

This movie does sound cool, I shall definitely keep it in mind! Good review! 🙂

I remember a shot of survivors exiting the ship as part of it was sinking. I think the door got submerged just as they went through it.

And I thought "Wow, that's a great shot." Most impressive since this was well before CGI.

I'm reminded of that story where Selznic wanted Alfred Hitchcock's American debut to be a movie about the Titanic. Couldn't do it because they couldn't find a ship to sink. But this movie gives us a taste of what could have been.

Caught this on cable a while back. Was into it primarily because of Woody Strode. After reading his biography, I was interested in the films he acted in besides "Spartacus" and "Once Upon a Time in the West."

This was a well-made, enjoyable flick with great performances all-around. Thanks for reviewing this.

I do seem to remember the initial explosion, and what is an obvious dummy in a ball gown going flying up in the air in a most dummy-like way. That, and the aggravating little girl are what i remember about this movie.

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The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

By: Becky Little

Updated: August 10, 2023 | Original: June 23, 2021

Many famous naval disasters happen far out at sea, but on January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia wrecked just off the coast of an Italian island in relatively shallow water. The avoidable disaster killed 32 people and seriously injured many others, and left investigators wondering: Why was the luxury cruise ship sailing so close to the shore in the first place?

During the ensuing trial, prosecutors came up with a tabloid-ready explanation : The married ship captain had sailed it so close to the island to impress a much younger Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. (Schettino insisted the ship sailed close to shore to salute other mariners and give passengers a good view.) But whatever the reason for getting too close, the Italian courts found the captain, four crew members and one official from the ship’s company, Costa Crociere (part of Carnival Corporation), to be at fault for causing the disaster and preventing a safe evacuation. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.

“At any time when you have an incident similar to Concordia, there is never…a single causal factor,” says Brad Schoenwald, a senior marine inspector at the United States Coast Guard. “It is generally a sequence of events, things that line up in a bad way that ultimately create that incident.”

Wrecking Near the Shore

The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger.

Sailing close to shore to give passengers a nice view or salute other sailors is known as a “sail-by,” and it’s unclear how often cruise ships perform these maneuvers. Some consider them to be dangerous deviations from planned routes. In its investigative report on the 2012 disaster, Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports found that the Concordia “was sailing too close to the coastline, in a poorly lit shore area…at an unsafe distance at night time and at high speed (15.5 kts).”

In his trial, Captain Schettino blamed the shipwreck on Helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, who he claimed reacted incorrectly to his order; and argued that if the helmsman had reacted correctly and quickly, the ship wouldn’t have wrecked. However, an Italian naval admiral testified in court that even though the helmsman was late in executing the captain’s orders, “the crash would’ve happened anyway.” (The helmsman was one of the four crew members convicted in court for contributing to the disaster.)

A Questionable Evacuation

Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident.

“I have made a mess and practically the whole ship is flooding,” Schettino told Ferrarini while the ship was sinking. “What should I say to the media?… To the port authorities I have said that we had…a blackout.” (Ferrarini was later convicted for contributing to the disaster by delaying rescue operations.)

Schettino also didn’t immediately alert the Italian Search and Rescue Authority about the accident. The impact on the Scole Rocks occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time, and the first person to contact rescue officials about the ship was someone on the shore, according to the investigative report. Search and Rescue contacted the ship a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., but Schettino didn’t tell them what had happened for about 20 more minutes.

A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible. Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically.

Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it!” —a recorded sound bite that turned into a T-shirt slogan in Italy.

Schettino argued that he fell into a lifeboat because of how the ship was listing to one side, but this argument proved unconvincing. In 2015, a court found Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In addition to Schettino, Ferrarini and Rusli Bin, the other people who received convictions for their role in the disaster were Cabin Service Director Manrico Giampedroni, First Officer Ciro Ambrosio and Third Officer Silvia Coronica.

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The Last Voyage (1960)

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The 9 Worst Cruise Ship Disasters

The Titanic may be the most famous ship disaster, but surprisingly, it’s not even close to being the deadliest wreck that ever occurred on a luxury liner. If you’re trying to dissuade someone from taking a cruise, you should show them this list of maritime misadventures presented in no particular order. Disclaimer: The vast majority of cruises sail without incident and are safe and not filled with poop. (Oh yeah, we’ll get there.) Get your plate ready for a buffet of high-seas horror.

1. RMS Titanic

F.G.O. Stuart (1843-1923) {{PD-old}} /Wikimedia Commons

The many experts in 1912 who considered the Titanic “unsinkable” were to be proven wrong on the boat’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Thomas Andrews had designed the ship to withstand head-on collisions and rammings from other ships. However, the North Atlantic Ocean iceberg that took down the vessel scraped through five of its 16 watertight compartments. The boat would have reportedly remained afloat if it had only gone through four. Like other systems at the time, the Titanic's lifeboats were designed to shepherd passengers to nearby rescue ships, not take them to shore. Unfortunately, help was many hours away in the wee hours of April 15 when the boat was going under. The poor crew organization also caused many lifeboats to leave the ship at far less than full capacity. Plus, they only had enough boats for about a third of the onboard. As a result, more than 1,500 people died — either on the ship or in the icy waters, waiting for help. A recent theory suggests a fire that started in the hull before the ship set sail weakened the vessel’s steel walls, making it susceptible to an iceberg that normally wouldn’t have caused as much damage.

2. Eastern Star’s Dongfang zhi Xing

In 2015, Dongfang zhi Xing was traveling on the Yangtze River in China when a thunderstorm struck, and the boat capsized. Ships in the area were warned that bad storms were coming and told to take precautions, but it is unclear if the Dongfang zhi Xing ever received the warnings and continued to sail. The ship was met with winds of up to 72-85 mph, and ultimately, a downburst (a strong downward wind) caused the ship to capsize and sink. Out of the 454 people on board, only 12 survived, making the total number of dead 442.

3. Carnival Cruise Line’s Triumph

DVIDSHUB/Flickr

A generator fire on Carnival Cruise Lines’s Triumph (now called Carnival Sunrise) left the ship powerless, and a late-night comedy punchline was born: “The Poop Cruise.” Without working bathrooms, passengers were forced to drop their payloads into red “hazardous waste” bags and stuff them into garbage cans left in the hall. Passengers described carpets soaked with more than two inches of raw sewage. News reports described the scene as a “shanty town” and a “new circle of hell.” One passenger reportedly called her husband and told him that their 12-year-old daughter had Skittles for breakfast. It took four days for the Triumph to be towed from the Gulf of Mexico to Mobile, Alabama, where it was possible to smell the ship from the dock. Later, 31 passengers claimed long-lasting damage, including PTSD, and sued. After the verdict, 27 of them split $118,000, many earning less than $3,000 (minus legal fees) for their troubles.

4. Costa Concordia

European Commission DG ECHO/Flickr

One of the biggest passenger ships ever wrecked, the Costa Concordia had 17 decks, six restaurants, a three-story theater, and enough room for 4,200 vacationers. On January 13, 2012, Captain Francesco Schettino agreed to a request by the ship’s chief maître d’, Antonello Tievoli, and sailed closer to Isola del Giglio than normal. Why? Tievoli, a native of Giglio, wanted to impress and “salute” local residents. Unfortunately, Captain Schettino turned off the ship’s alarm for the computer navigation system and later admitted he thought he knew the waters well enough to navigate by sight. However, the ship’s first mate testified that the captain had left his glasses in his cabin and requested them. The Costa Concordia struck an underwater rock, capsized, and sank, killing 32 passengers. Schettino’s worst maritime sin? He abandoned the ship with 300 passengers still onboard. A Coast Guard officer in contact with the ship at the time of the sinking claimed he told Schettino to get back onboard. After being convicted of manslaughter and pursuing several appeals, Schettino only started his 16-year prison sentence in May of 2017. The salvage effort (the ship was completely dismantled) was the largest effort of its kind.

5. SS Eastland

Launched in 1903, the SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. Although the ship had noted listing (tilting) since its inception and some measures had been taken to rectify this, the SS Eastland was still suffering from being top-heavy when boarding for a cruise in 1915. The ship was meant to sail from Chicago to Michigan City, Indiana, carrying workers from Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works for a picnic. On July 24, 2,572 passengers boarded, with many congregating on the open upper decks. While still docked, the ship began to list to the port side, and reportedly, at some point, more passengers rushed to the port side, causing the ship to roll onto its side completely. Despite the river’s bottom being just 20 feet below and the shore being about the same distance, a total of 844 passengers and crew members died, including 22 entire families.

6. Royal Pacific

When the Royal Pacific was first launched as a passenger ferry in 1964, it could carry 250 passengers, 91 cars, and 16 trucks. Sold and converted into a cruise ship in the late 1980s, the boat’s maiden voyage was a two-night “cruise to nowhere” from Singapore and sailed by Phuket, Malacca, and Penang before returning home. At around 2 a.m., when most passengers were asleep, the crew heard a loud bang, and the plates on the buffet table crashed to the ground. A Taiwanese trawler, Terfu 51, had accidentally rammed the ship, leaving a six-foot gash in the side. As the trawler pulled away, there was a deafening sound of metal scraping against metal. The PA system wasn’t working properly on the boat, but the safety officer ran downstairs to survey the damage. When he returned, he told everyone to put on their life jackets. Reports vary about how many passengers were impacted — most tallies number 30 dead and 70 injured. Several passengers also complained that a mix of Greek-, English- and Mandarin-speaking crew members led to few people understanding what anyone was saying.

7. SS Morro Castle

The story of the SS Morro Castle is so dreadful it’s surprising no Hollywood producer has turned the tale into a horror movie. Director Fritz Lang collaborated on a script about the tragedy, and named it “Hell Afloat” (which is a pretty apt description), but it was never made. Between 1930 and 1934, the SS Morro Castle regularly shuttled 480-plus passengers between Havana and New York. While onboard, there was no Depression to worry about and no Prohibition, which meant plenty of booze-filled partying. However, the September 1934 return sail from Cuba to the Big Apple seemed cursed. On September 7, Captain Robert Wilmott complained of stomach trouble after eating dinner and retired to his cabin, where he later died of an apparent heart attack. Chief Officer William Warms took command, and a few hours later, around 3 a.m. on September 8, a fire started in one of the storage lockers. The crew’s attempts to fight the fire were haphazard and inadequate, and soon, the blaze couldn’t be contained. Many crew members abandoned the ship, leaving confused passengers to fend for themselves in the dark, smoky hallways. Some jumped from the deck to their death in the water. Rescuers lined up on the Jersey Shore to meet the lifeboats carrying passengers. The next morning, the burning, black hull of the SS Morro Castle ran aground at Asbury Park, New Jersey. Of the 549 people aboard the cruise, 86 guests and 49 crew members died.

8. Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas

A cruise can be an oasis of calm in rough waters, but it’s also a petri dish of disease where viruses ricochet from passenger to passenger. In 2014, the Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas cruise from New Jersey to the Caribbean earned the dubious honor of being the ship with more sick passengers than any other boat trip since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started keeping statistics more than 20 years ago. An estimated 700 passengers and crew members were sick at some point. Most cruise ship illnesses result from norovirus, that causes inflammation of the stomach and large intestines and regular trips to the “head.” If you’re wondering how to stay healthy on a cruise with sick passengers, plenty of handwashing (and avoiding ill people) is key. Bugs pass quickly through contact with ship railings, bathroom doors, and buffet food.

9. MTS Oceanos

Built by a French company and first launched in 1952, the MTS Oceanos was purchased by a Greek company in 1976. On August 3, 1991, Oceanos set sail for East London, South Africa, and headed north for Durban, led by Captain Yiannis Avranas. The ship reportedly headed into 40-knot winds and 30-foot swells, and thus, the typical sail-away outdoor deck party with British entertainers Moss and Tracy Hills was moved to an indoor lounge. The sea conditions worsened that night, leading to the ship rolling from side to side, and eventually, an explosion was heard due to a lack of repairs for the waste disposal system. This all led to the ship losing power and water filling its generator room, so the generators were shut down and the ship was led adrift. A distress call was sent and answered by numerous South African helicopters and a Dutch container ship. Shockingly, the captain and many crew members were among the first to be airlifted to shore, leaving the entertainment staff to coordinate the rescue efforts and help passengers to safety. All 571 passengers and crew members were saved by the time the ship sank nose-first into the sea.

Photo tour: Inside an icon of 1960s cruising

What was cruising like in the 1960s? See for yourself with a scroll through our latest Cruise Ship Tour, in the carousel above, which offers a deck-by-deck look at one of the icons of the era, Holland America's SS Rotterdam .

Now a floating hotel and museum in its namesake port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands, the 1,456-passenger vessel had a beloved following for its graceful lines. As can be seen in the tour, it features lovely tiered pool decks, elegant dining rooms and spacious suites.

Created by veteran travel writer and ship photographer Peter Knego, the SS Rotterdam photo tour is part of our ongoing series of ship galleries. For an in-depth look at dozens of other passenger vessels old and new, click on the links below:

Adventure Canada:  Ocean Endeavour   AmaWaterways:  AmaViola ;  AmaCerto   American Cruise Lines:  American Eagle American Queen Steamboat Company :  American Queen ;  American Empress Azamara Club Cruises:  Azamara Quest    Avalon Waterways:  Avalon Myanmar ;  Avalon Visionary ;  Avalon Passion Carnival Cruise Line:  Carnival Imagination ;  Carnival Miracle ;  early icons of the Carnival fleet ;  Carnival Vista   Celebrity Cruises: Celebrity Solstice   Costa Cruises:  Costa Diadema ;  Costa Atlantica ;  Costa Luminosa   CroisiEurope:  Elbe Princesse   Cruise & Maritime Voyages:  Discovery Crystal Cruises:  Crystal Symphony   Cunard Line:  Queen Mary 2   Disney Cruise Line:  Disney Wonder ;  Disney Fantasy ;  Disney Magic ;  Disney Dream, Fantasy compared   Emerald Waterways:  Emerald Sky Hapag-Lloyd:  Europa 2   Hebridean Island Cruises:  Hebridean Princess   Holland America Line:  Amsterdam ;  Koningsdam ;  Westerdam ;  Rotterdam ; Maasdam   Hurtigruten:  Midnatsol ;  Lofoten ;  Nordstjernen ;  Fram ; Trollfjord   MSC Cruises: MSC Meraviglia   Norwegian Cruise Line:  Norwegian Getaway ;  Norwegian Escape ;  Norwegian Sky ; Norwegian Joy  Oceania Cruises:  Nautica ;  Sirena ;  Marina ; Insignia   Paul Gauguin Cruises:  Paul Gauguin P&O Cruises:  Britannia Princess Cruises:  Regal Princess ;  Diamond Princess ;  early icons of the Princess fleet ;  Star Princess ;  Golden Princess   Regent Seven Seas Cruises:  Seven Seas Mariner ;  Seven Seas Explorer ;  Seven Seas Voyager   Royal Caribbean International:  Quantum of the Seas ;  Anthem of the Seas ;  Freedom of the Seas ;  Harmony of the Seas   Scenic Cruises:  Scenic Gem ;  Scenic Sapphire   Seabourn Cruise Line:  Seabourn Encore Silversea:  Silver Galapagos ;  Silver Cloud ;  Silver Muse   Tauck:  Inspire ;  Savor Un-Cruise Adventures:  Safari Endeavour   Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection:  S.S. Maria Theresa ;  River Countess Viking River Cruises:  Viking Skirnir ;  Viking Herja ;  Viking Hild   Viking Ocean Cruises:  Viking Star ;  Viking Sea ;  Viking Sky   Windstar Cruises:  Star Breeze ;  Wind Spirit  

Retired ocean liners, cruise ships and yachts:  SS Rotterdam ;  Royal Yacht Britannia   Theme galleries:  10 cruise ship suites that will blow your mind ;  the last of the great ocean liners ;  ship christenings with Queen Elizabeth II ;  Royal ship christenings through the years ;  9 most amazing megaships ;  25 most beautiful cruise vessels  

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