SALVAGE is a maritime storytelling podcast about real people and fatal decisions on the world's most dangerous waters.
Every episode tells the true story of a maritime disaster — shipwrecks, survival, and the moments that changed everything.
From the freezing waters of the Antarctic and the North Atlantic to the vast and unforgiving Pacific, these are ocean stories that history almost forgot.
Real ships. Real crews. Real decisions made under impossible pressure.
SALVAGE covers maritime history, sea survival, nautical disasters, and the human stories behind some of the most dramatic events ever to unfold at sea — from 19th century whaling voyages to mysterious disappearances on the open ocean.
This is not just maritime history, there are flavours of philosophy too. Asking some of the biggest questions about the toughest decisions imaginable.
Email: hello@salvageseastories.com
Donald Crowhurst | The Man Who Faked a Voyage Around the World | SALVAGE SEA STORIES
In July 1969, a cargo ship discovered a small sailing vessel drifting in the North Atlantic. There was no sign of the man who should have been on board. Donald Crowhurst had left Teignmouth eight months earlier to compete in the Golden Globe Race — a non-stop, solo sail around the entire world. He had never sailed further than the English Channel. What happened next is one of the most extraordinary and heartbreaking stories in maritime history. A man alone on an ocean. A lie that grew too big...
17 May 2026
Four Ships That Disappeared | Great Lakes Mysteries | SALVAGE SEA STORIES
EMAIL: hello@salvageseastories.com In this episode — three mysteries. Three stories of ships that sailed out onto the Great Lakes and never came back. Le Griffon — 1679. The first full sized European sailing ship ever built on the upper Great Lakes. She sailed away on a September morning with six men on board and was never seen again. Three hundred and forty five years later people are still searching. SS Bannockburn — 1902. A steel freighter crossing Lake Superior on a grey Novem...
1 May 2026
The last transmission | SS Edmund Fitzgerald | SALVAGE Podcast
On the afternoon of November 9th 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald left port in Superior, Wisconsin. She was the largest ship ever to sail the Great Lakes. Her Captain was sixty three years old and counting down his last few days before retirement. Twenty nine men on board. All of them thinking about the same thing. Home. The lake was calm when they set out. By the following evening, Captain Bernie Cooper on the ship ten miles behind her picked up his radio and asked how they were making out. Four ...
19 Apr 2026
The ship that vanished | SS Waratah | SALVAGE Podcast
In July 1909, a passenger named Claude Sawyer stepped off a ship in Durban, South Africa. He had no proof anything was wrong. He had no nautical training. He couldn't explain it in any way that would have satisfied a reasonable person. He just knew. The ship he left behind was the SS Waratah. Brand new. Certified safe. Carrying 211 passengers and crew on a routine voyage to Cape Town, 800 miles down the coast. She never arrived. No distress signal. No wreckage. No bodies. Not a single piece o...
4 Apr 2026
Tom Crean | Ireland's Forgotten Antarctic Hero | SALVAGE Podcast
Tom Crean walked away from the Antarctic three times. Most people have never heard of him. An Irishman from Kerry, Crean became one of the most remarkable figures of the Heroic Age of Exploration — loyal, unbreakable, and consistently overlooked. He went to Antartica more times than either Captain Scott or Sir Ernest Shackleton This is the story of the man who kept others alive when everything was falling apart — and what it cost him. Email: hello@salvageseastories.com Additional readin...
2 Apr 2026
The Whaleship Essex | The True Story That Inspired Moby Dick | SALVAGE Podcast
In 1820 a sperm whale did something no one had ever seen before. It turned around and attacked — striking their ship not once, but twice. What followed was 90 days adrift in the Pacific. No food. No rescue. And decisions so desperate they were kept secret for years. This is the true story of the Whaleship Essex — the event that inspired Moby Dick. Email: hello@salvageseastories.com Additional reading: The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase Music Credits: Breakz Studios, Universfield
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