Livestock carrier Naronic (yard number 251) was launched at Harland & Wolff (Belfast) on 26 May, 1892. Her maiden voyage (Liverpool - New York) took place between 15th and 24th July that same year (Commanded by Capt. Thompson). She carried cargo and had no passengers aboard.

On 11th February, 1893, Naronic left Liverpool on her 7th voyage to New York (under the command of Capt. William Roberts) with 74 people on board (including 14 cattlemen). She also carried 3,572 tons of general cargo and 1,017 tons of Welsh coal.

After putting off William Davis, her pilot, at Port Lynas, Wales, the ship was never seen again. The cause of her loss is still a mystery - though, ironically in the light of later events, when it became apparent that Naronic had vanished, collision with an iceberg was initially considered to be a likely explanation. 

The British steamer Coventry of the Sivewright - Bacon Line, enroute to England from Newport News, Virginia, spotted one of Naronic's lifeboats 500 hundred miles off the coast of Halifax  - at 40.0 N, 47.37 W - in the early hours of  March 4th, 1893. The boat was upside down, empty and drifting. During the next day, the same vessel saw another of Naronic's boats - at 44.34 N, 46.25 W -upright and half full of water, but in a fairly good condition. Naronic's name was painted on the bow - making a positive identification possible. It's mast and sail floated nearby, attached by a line to the lifeboat as if a makeshift sea anchor had been rigged. No other verified traces of Naronic were ever found.

During that month, 4 bottles with messages in them, purportedly written by Naronic passengers, were picked up - two on the shores of New York and Virginia and the others on the opposite side of the Atlantic - afloat in the Irish Channel and Mersey River. Two of the messages stated that the the ship had struck an iceberg. A court of inquiry - held by the Board Of Trade at St George's Hall, Liverpool - expressed doubts about the authenticity of the bottle mesages and deemed it unlikely that Naronic had hit an iceberg at that time of year. No ice had been reported by other vessels within a 90 mile radius of Naronic's intended route or the positions where the lifeboats had been sighted. Also, though apparently unaware of some of the bottle messages, the board declared that the signatures on the notes bore no resemblance to the names of known crew or passengers.

The loss of Naronic apparently led to her sister ship Nomadic (1) being subjected to severe stability tests in order to check her seaworthiness. Celtic (1) was sold in 1893 - WS had a policy of selling its older ships once they began to show their age, but neither Naronic or her cargo had been insured and the company had to offset the loss of £121,685 for the vessel and £61,855 for her cargo.

Points To Ponder

The fate of Naronic is still providing fuel for debate. Although the official enquiry was technically correct to consider icebergs uncommon at the time that the ship vanished, the Titanic tragedy demonstrated that they cannot be entirely ruled out as a cause. It has not escaped the attention of historians that  the Naronic lifeboats were seen only 90 miles or so from the point where White Star's new flagship struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage in 1912 .

Messages in bottles - hoax and real - appeared in the wake of several maritime mysteries before and after the disappearance of Naronic. Those who see the Naronic messages as entirely or partly genuine ask why any group or individuals should bother to perpetrate a fraud that brought neither fame or profit. However, any professional document analyst (one of our contributors is a noted forensic handwriting expert) could cite a long catalogue of pranksters who have  found amusement in precisely the same kind of apparently motiveless pretence.

Only two lifeboats were seen after Naronic's loss; no bodies were sighted and no wreckage turned up. These points could suggest a sudden foundering that gave no time to launch boats - perhaps at a time when the majority on board were below decks and asleep.