Yarmouth Castle Burning

The total loss of SS Yarmouth Castle in 1965 is the deadliest passenger ship disaster off the American coast since the burning of SS Morro Castle in 1934. Eighty-four passengers and two crew died in the early-morning hours of November 13, 1965, when the cruise liner SS Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank near Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. Four others would die later from their injuries. The ship had 552 people aboard on her weekend round trip between Miami and Nassau. Her total loss marks the deadliest passenger ship disaster off the coast of the United States since the burning of the liner SS Morro Castle off New Jersey in 1934. The survival of over 450 people from the inferno was nothing short of a miracle. The subsequent accident investigation and voluminous press coverage exposed the cavalier operational practices of cruise lines at the time and eventually changed US and international standards for the construction and operations of passenger ships. One of the great ironies of the disaster is that the COO of the Yarmouth Steamship Company avoided any significant monetary and legal repercussions from the disaster and went on to start the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines juggernaut. Based on the authors’ collection of firsthand narratives from survivors and their families, thousands of pages of testimony from the United States Coast Guard accident investigation, and contemporaneous press coverage, the book is primarily the story of the night the Castle burned and, secondarily, the legal and regulatory aftermath of the disaster. AUTHORS: Eric Takakjian is the master of the Chincoteague, a 504-foot, oceangoing articulated tug and barge engaged in the coastwise petroleum transportation trade. He has been sailing ships and oceangoing tugboats to various corners of the world since 1978. Takakjian and his wife, Lori, owned and operated the oceanographic research vessel Quest for 17 years, conducting oceanographic and shipwreck research in the northeastern United States. He has conducted extensive historical research on the naval history of the region. A diver since 1972 and an avid shipwreck diver since 1975, Takakjian has been a National Fellow of the Explorers Club since 1997. He has been a member of the Steamship Historical Society of America since 1989 and has served on their board of directors since 2016. He lives in Massachusetts. Randall Peffer is the author of 12 nonfiction books as well as over 350 travel-lifestyle features for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest, and Sail. His travel features have appeared in most US major metro dailies, including the New York Times and Washington Post. The son of a career naval officer, Peffer holds a 100-ton master’s license and has logged over 100,000 miles at sea. He has been the captain of the research schooner Sarah Abbot for 38 years and has been elected to the prestigious seafarers’ organization the Cruising Club of America. After more than three decades of teaching writing and literature at Phillips Academy, Andover, he has left teaching to write full time. He sails out of his homeports of Marion, Massachusetts; Great Guana Cay, Abaco Islands; and Long Beach, California. 56 colour and b/w photographs

Author Biography

Eric Takakjian is the master of the Chincoteague, a 504-foot, oceangoing articulated tug and barge engaged in the coastwise petroleum transportation trade. He has been sailing ships and oceangoing tugboats to various corners of the world since 1978. Takakjian and his wife, Lori, owned and operated the oceanographic research vessel Quest for 17 years, conducting oceanographic and shipwreck research in the northeastern United States. He has conducted extensive historical research on the naval history of the region. A diver since 1972 and an avid shipwreck diver since 1975, Takakjian has been a National Fellow of the Explorers Club since 1997. He has been a member of the Steamship Historical Society of America since 1989 and has served on their board of directors since 2016. He lives in Massachusetts. Randall Peffer is the author of 12 nonfiction books as well as over 350 travel-lifestyle features for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader’s Digest, and Sail. His travel features have appeared in most US major metro dailies, including the New York Times and Washington Post. The son of a career naval officer, Peffer holds a 100-ton master’s license and has logged over 100,000 miles at sea. He has been the captain of the research schooner Sarah Abbot for 38 years and has been elected to the prestigious seafarers’ organization the Cruising Club of America. After more than three decades of teaching writing and literature at Phillips Academy, Andover, he has left teaching to write full time. He sails out of his homeports of Marion, Massachusetts; Great Guana Cay, Abaco Islands; and Long Beach, California.