The Shipwreck That Finally Solved A Mysterious Disappearance

With the ocean covering about 70 percent of the Earth, there is a vast world that we still don’t know much about. For all of us land dwellers, we often don’t think about what lies in the depths of the waters that surround the continents we live on. More often than not, the ocean contains some pretty mysterious things, such as lost treasure, or in this case, a shipwreck which held the key to a 200-year-old mystery. The ship, the HMS Terror, was lost at sea, a very long time ago, and the reason that it sank has continued to boggle the minds of many naval historians.

The Terror

During the 1800s, the British navy embarked on a shipbuilding mission to increase their numbers on the water. The HMS Terror was one of the ships built in the early part of the century. It was a warship through and through.

The Terror was designed to have the ability to blow other vessels out of the water, and like the name of it suggests, strike terror in the hearts of any other ships who saw her sailing towards them.

The War Of 1812

As the HMS Terror was built in 1813, this meant that it was ready to head over to the shores of North America to take part in the War of 1812. Many battles were being waged both on and offshore, which meant that support was needed on all sides.

The Terror was deployed to the East Coast, and the first battle it would wage would be off the shores of the city of Stonington, in the state of Connecticut. Now with a victory under the crew’s belts, they were sent to other coastal cities to assist the onshore armies. The Terror was living up to its namesake.

Taking A Break

While the Terror had a fairly illustrious career for about a decade, the time came for her to be decommissioned. Then, there was noise of a war breaking out in the Mediterranean, and once more, the Terror found her purpose.

A crew was quickly put together, and the Terror sailed towards the Mediterranean and prepared for battle. Once the ship reached Portugal, it appeared to run afoul of something. The crew worked hard to repair the damage that had been done to her, but it was too late. The Terror would enter retirement again, but this time too broken to enter another battle.

A New Life

While the Terror was not fit for battle anymore, as some of the artillery was broken beyond repair, she was still capable of sailing the high seas. Research parties had begun to explore all the corners of the globe, and this meant that decommissioned naval ships were prime pieces of property.

Some researchers had heard about the Terror and decided to purchase her. She would now be readied to head to the Arctic and protect her crew as they sailed through the glacial waters of the North Pole. It seemed like she had everything they could need, and was battle-hardened to withstand the harsh elements.