It has been 26 years since the SS Poet, carrying a crew of 34 (including 24 SIU members) disappeared in the Atlantic Ocean. To this day, the mystery remains, for not a trace of the 11,241-ton ship or its crew was ever found. The 36-year-old bulk carrier, operated by Hawaiian Eugenia Corp., departed Philadelphia Oct. 24, 1980 bound for Port Said, Egypt with a cargo of corn. Six hours later, one of the deck officers called his wife through the marine operator. That was the last time the ship was heard from.
The 522-foot vessel was due to pass Gibraltar on Nov. 4 and was scheduled to arrive in Port Said Nov. 9. It missed its 48-hour check-in on Oct. 26 but was not reported missing by the company until Nov. 3. After the company did finally report the Poet missing, the Coast Guard then delayed another five days before beginning their investigation, which included an exhaustive air search from high altitude for the missing ship over a 100,000 square mile area ranging from the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf to 1,000 miles out to sea, and then combed the same area from a much lower altitude. Another Coast Guard plane out of the Azores tracked the scheduled course of the Poet all the way to Gibraltar. On Nov. 17, the Coast Guard “regretfully” ended the futile search, having found “not a coffee can nor oil slick nor life jacket” from the vessel.
Neither the pop-free life rafts nor the float-free Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), which was supposed to send a locator signal as soon as it hit salt water, were found, leading the Coast Guard to speculate the “the vessel was lost so rapidly that there was no time to send a …message…”
Because the Poet was never found, and there were no witnesses to its disappearance, the mystery of what occurred to the bulk carrier can never be fully answered.
Relatives of the 34 mariners lost at sea gathered in Washington, D.C. April 9, 1981 to attend congressional hearings before the full House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, chaired by Walter Jones (D-N.C.). The purpose of the hearings was to determine what happened to the SS Poet . Many theories were offered, but none could be proven—everything from a killer storm, the competency of the ship’s officers and crew, the structural integrity of the vessel, the adequacy of the safety inspection, among others.
A year-and-a-half after the ship disappeared, a Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation concluded that “the most likely of the possible explanations of the Poet’s disappearance are capsizing due to instability in following or quartering seas, capsizing or foundering due to flooding of No. 1 hold and loss due to hull structural failure.” The report stated that the Poet “was most likely lost during the period when it encountered the most severe weather conditions between the morning of 25 October and the evening of 26 October, 1980.”
Then-SIU President Frank Drozak called for a complete congressional investigation of the Coast Guard and its activities for the purpose of developing new regulations to protect mariners—too late for the Poet’s crew, but aimed at protecting the lives of seafarers in the future.
A number of memorial services for the 34 missing crew members were held across the country. On Jan. 22, 1981 at the Maritime Museum in San Pedro, Calif., a bell, salvaged from the battle cruiser USS Los Angeles, was tolled eight times, the knell and “end of watch” for those lost aboard the Poet. On the third anniversary of the loss of the merchant freighter, a memorial service was held at Philadelphia’s Old Swedes Church of Gloria Dei, where a bronze plaque was unveiled listing the names, ages and hometowns of the ship’s crew members.
The 24 SIU members who were lost aboard the Poet were Bosun Edward D. Adams; Deck/Engine Utility Frank E. Holland; ABs Roland H. Courter, Hans P. Zukier, Mosel Myers, Shawn T. Gooden, Carl L. Goff, Rickey A. Sallee; Wiper Thaddeus M. Simmons; OSs Alfred W. Schmidt Jr., Edward E. Bradley, Stephen James Connors; Chief Seward Eddie Sylvester, Chief Cook Carl Jackson, Cook/Baker Noel W. McLaughlin, Steward Utility/Second Cook Earl K. Whatley, Messman/Third Cook Jerry Batchler Jr., Messman Tracy R. Walker; Oilers Otis R. Hunter, Walter M. Mitchell, Claude D. Berry, and FOWTs Calvin E. Bethard, Abraham G. Murillo and George E. Ward Jr.
The SS Poet was built in 1944 by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Co., in Richmond, Calif. and served as a troop carrier (the SS General Omar Bundy ) during World War II. In 1976, it was renamed the SS Portmar (Calmar Line) and later re-christened as the SS Poet. It was, at that time, the first U.S.-flag vessel lost at sea in 17 years.
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