Ships arent meant to sink, but sometimes you have to wonder what miraculous forces kept a vessel afloat.
TheSS Baychimowas such a ship.
SS Baychimowas launched in 1914, originally asAngermanelfven, after one of Swedens longest rivers, Angerman.
She was designed and built by the Swedish shipbuilders Lindholmens for a German company based in Hamburg.
The vessel had a steel hull 230 feet long, and was powered by a triple expansion steam engine.
She was also outfitted with schooner rigging.
Baychimo crew removing supplies from the ice-bound ship.
On 24 November a powerful blizzard struck, and when it cleared, the men found theBaychimogone.
Shortly thereafter, theBaychimowas spotted about 480 km to the east of where she was last spotted.
The following year, she was seen again floating near the shores of Alaska.
In the decades that followed, numerous people sighted theBaychimoall around the Arctic peacefully adrift in the frigid waters.
Many times she was boarded by explorers or crews of passing ships, but each time she eluded capture.
That was the last recorded sighting ofBaychimo.
Crew members clearing ice from the Baychimos rudder.
The search yielded nothing.
Ships rarely survive for so long unmanned, especially among the crushing ice packs.
