On the evening of September 9th 1980, a massive cargo ship pushes through the Pacific bound for Japan.
Approaching from the east is Typhoon Orchid, a powerful storm , growing more violent by the hour.
For eight weeks, the MV Derbyshire had sailed all the way from the vast iron mines of Canada, her holds
packed with 150,000 tons of ore. She had crossed the Atlantic, skirted Africa’s southernmost tip,
and carved her way through the vast Indian Ocean. After eight weeks out at sea, the ship’s crew of 42 seasoned
seafarers, engineers, and deck hands are looking  forward to wrapping up the final leg of their
long voyage. The Derbyshire’s captain, 47-year-old  Jeffrey Underhill, is a trusted British mariner
with over two decades of experience. He too is looking forward to completing the voyage.
His wife has flown out from England to wait for him in Japan for a welcome reunion after months out at sea.
But on the otherwise routine crossing there  is one minor concern relating to Typhoon Orchid.
For days, Captain Underhill has been relying on  conflicting weather reports. Convinced he could
outrun the storm he’s held course, trusting his ship’s speed and power. But now there’s no escape.
The nearest safe harbor is hundreds of kilometers away, and changing course
would expose the ship’s broadside to the typhoon’s full force.
What Captain Underhill does next, is standard procedure.
He reduces speed, and turns the ship’s  bow at a slight angle to the waves. A nautical
maneuver used to stabilize a vessel in rough seas. Earlier he also sent out a message to controllers
thousands of kilometers away reporting severe  weather in the ship’s position. But over the next
few hours the storm only intensifies. The waves swell more than 10m high, and nearly as long as
the Derbyshire herself. The massive ship climbs  each peak then slams into the troughs.
Despite the heavy seas, there’s no sign of distress. Captain Underhill stands firm. He knows his ship and he’s seen worse.
At nearly 170,000 tons, the Derbyshire is a steel fortress. Stretching nearly 1,000 ft,
she’s longer than the Titanic and nearly twice as wide. Towering 15 stories from engine room to
bridge, each of her nine holds is the size of a seven story building. And she’s not just big she’s state-of-the-art.
Built to withstand some of the  most brutal seas on Earth. Tonight should be no different.
On board everything is routine.
The crew monitor systems secure loose equipment and adjust  heading and engine power.
They’ll simply ride out the storm. But out there in the blackness beyond the crew’s notice,
something unseen and unstoppable is already in motion. By dawn, the Derbyshire
and everyone on board will be gone. And for nearly two decades the world won’t know why.
The Derbyshire fell silent on September 9th 1980.  No distress call. No final message.
And for 6 days, nothing happened. The ship’s owner didn’t even report it missing. Maybe it was confidence that
the ship had simply lost radio contact and would reappear. But the days stretched on and still no word.
It wasn’t until September 15th that the alarm was finally raised. But by then whatever happened was long over.
An international search began with air and sea units scouring the ship’s  last known coordinates.
But they found nothing. No debris. No life rafts. No wreckage. Less than a week
later, the search was called off. The media seized on the ship’s disappearance as an oddity.
Smaller ships had weathered the typhoon just fine. The Derbyshire vanished without even a distress call.
The official explanation was that the sea had simply taken the ship. A conclusion drawn almost immediately.
And just as quickly as the search  ended, so did the news coverage.
Authorities  repeatedly dismissed calls to keep searching.  There was nothing to be found they insisted.
Nothing to investigate. But for the families  left behind, it just didn’t add up.
The search had been too brief. The answers too convenient. It was as if something was deliberately being hidden.
The Derbyshire was built only 4 years  earlier at the Swan Hunter shipyard in Britain.
Another steel giant joining the world’s ever  expanding fleet. She could transport over 150,000
tons – more than four times what ships could just a couple decades earlier. And for good reason.
Multinational corporations are driving record  demand for raw materials and goods.
The Derbyshire was also a new kind of ship.
The OBO, or Ore-Bulk-Oil carrier, is a new class of ship that can transport
a variety of goods. It meant the Derbyshire could sail from the Middle East to Australia loaded
with oil and then make the return trip carrying iron ore. There’s no ballast time, no empty returns.
A well operated OBO keeps moving and keeps earning, generating 20 to 30% higher revenues.
The Derbyshire was just one of six ships in a series of OBO carriers known as the Bridge Class.
Ordered by Britain’s leading shipping firms and built by one of the country’s top ship builders, there was a lot
riding on the design. By the 1970s Britain’s  ship building dominance was starting to slip.
Japan and South Korea were building ships  faster cheaper and more efficiently.
And Swan Hunter, once a titan of the industry, struggled to stay competitive, facing mounting pressure
to cut costs. So whatever ended up dooming the Derbyshire, might have been there from the very start.
Peter Ridyard lost his son aboard the  Derbyshire. Like other family members, he was desperate for answers.
But Ridyard wasn’t just a grieving father. He was an expert. A seasoned ship surveyor who knew the industry.
And when he started digging around, he made a shocking discovery.
In 1982, just 18 months after the Derbyshire vanished,  another bridge-class ship was caught in a violent storm.
As the crew battled the raging North Sea,  something terrifying happened. Massive cracks began
appearing just forward of the superstructure. The captain, fearing his ship would break apart, ordered
an evacuation. Airlifting the crew to safety.  Digging deeper, Ridyard learned that what happened
wasn’t an isolated incident. Every bridge-class ship had developed stress cracks, all in the exact same area.
And one by one they were quietly  being brought into port for repairs.
Then Ridyard uncovered something even more alarming. The ships hadn’t been built according to their original plans.
With several last-minute modifications having been made at the shipyard. Ridyard suspected shoddy
workmanship and what he believed to be  a flaw in the ship’s design.
Determined to expose the truth he sent his findings to the Department of Transportation. But he got nowhere.
The Department of Transport say they’re always  willing to look at any fresh evidence that might
be presented to them, but they point out that the sinking of the Derbyshire was thoroughly
investigated at the time and they have no plans  for any further inquiry. Officials refused to listen.
But the families refused to be ignored.
In 1984 they formed the Darbyshire Families Association. Determined to expose the truth.
In November 1986, yet another Bridge-class ship was caught in distress.
The Kowloon Bridge had broken  up in shallow waters off the coast of Ireland.
While crossing the Atlantic and battling rough seas, her hull already weakened began to crack
under the relentless force of the ocean. The Kowloon Bridge was the only remaining Bridge-class
ship that hadn’t undergone repairs, other than the Derbyshire. And now with her destruction unfolding
in full view, the British government could no longer ignore the suspicions surrounding the Derbyshire’s disappearance.
An official inquiry was finally opened. For 6 months, experts, ship builders, and lawyers paraded their theories.
But all along something was off. Peter Ridyard was never allowed to present his research.
Despite a mountain of evidence pointing to structural failure, his concerns were barely acknowledged.
And on January 18th, 1989, the official findings were published.
No evidence of structural failure.  The Derbyshire was just another ship that had
been lost to the sea. The families were outraged. They had spent years fighting for the truth and
now all the doors had shut. All they had left was to plead their case to anyone who would listen.
We want men to go away to sea knowing  that the ship underneath them is safe.
Not worrying whether they come home again or not.
There have been six sister ships along with the Derbyshire, all of which appear to have had structural faults…
For years, the families fought to keep their story alive. And in 1994, their persistence finally paid off.
The International Transport Workers Federation, compelled by the family’s plight decided enough was enough.
In May 1994 a team of investigators funded by the ITF,
traveled to the remote waters where the Derbyshire was last heard from.
The odds were against them. The ship had vanished 14 years earlier.
And British officials had long insisted that finding it would be impossible.
But they found the ship in just 23 hours, nearly 4 km down, resting silently on the ocean floor.
The Derbyshire was no longer just a  name printed on a lost ship report.
But it would take another 6 years to  fully piece together the puzzle.
And the haunting images made one thing unmistakably clear: Everyone was wrong about what really happened.
On the evening of September 9th 1980, the  bridge of the MV Derbyshire is tense, but composed.
Captain Jeffrey Underhill and his officers  monitor the Typhoon’s progress, adjusting course
and running the engines at reduced speed for controlled maneuvering. Instruments flicker and
the ship’s steel frame groans as it pitches  violently. Plunging into deep troughs before
climbing the next towering crest. But despite the rough conditions, there’s an unspoken confidence.
Their ship is built for this. Yet what the  crew doesn’t realize is that the Derbyshire
is already beginning to lose the battle. At the very front of the ship, waves hammer the foredeck.
Sending thousands of gallons of seawater over deck fittings, hatches and ventilation covers.
Over the course of hours the sheer force of the water has damaged or torn them away.
Below is a space called the ‘bouson’s store’. It gradually fills with thousands of pounds of water. The added weight pulls the bow
deeper into the storm allowing even more waves to crash over the deck. Above ventilator tops designed
to keep the water out are further weakened. One by one they’re torn away, exposing machinery rooms and
the four peak ballast tank below. These two begin to flood. Adding even more weight to the bow and
causing the ship to ride even lower into the waves. On the bridge the difference is imperceptible, but
the Derbyshire is struggling. Growing increasingly  vulnerable to the oncoming waves.
Massive crests now slam into the forward deck, and the number one hold hatch cover measuring about the size
of a tennis court gives way under the crushing force of the water. Thousands of tons of seawater
explode into the cargo hold. The added weight is merciless forcing the bow to lurch even lower.
The number two hatch cover is next. Driven inward by the wave pressure, it also quickly fills with water.
As the bow sinks further, the massive ship  is pushed to its limits. Straining under the sheer weight.
Then the final blow. Number three hold gives way and all forward freeboard and buoyancy is lost.
The remaining hatch covers implode setting off a domino effect. Each collapse more violent than the last.
Below the surface the pressure collapses air  pockets and tanks tearing the vessel apart from within.
The Derbyshire, the largest British flagged  vessel ever lost at sea, disappears beneath the Pacific.
It wasn’t uh, it was just a run-of-the-mill  typhoon. It was not spectacular – and two other
carriers, bulk carriers had actually gone through the same typhoon. So Derbyshire should have gone
through with no problem whatsoever. The families had been wrong about what doomed the Derbyshire.
It wasn’t a structural failure, but a series of  small compounding breakdowns. But that didn’t matter.
What did was their refusal, from the very  beginning, to accept the official explanation.
In the 1970s, hundreds of cargo ships were  lost every single year, and seafarers were dying routinely.
It’s just the way it was. So officials were never really hiding anything.
They just didn’t care. But through their years of persistence, the families forced an industry to change.
Ship designs improved, rules were  tightened, and inspections got tougher.
In the end, they didn’t just find a ship,  They changed the course of maritime history.
And in doing so protected thousands of  others who would one day sail the same seas.
It barely made it off the runway.  With a single fuel tank hanging off the
left wing, the pilot has to constantly  trim just to keep it flying straight.
And that jamming pod – it’s meant for a completely different type of aircraft. But this abomination
is headed straight for the enemy. And it’s going to flip the entire air war in a single afternoon .
I’m putting the finishing touches on my most ambitious project yet. A deep dive into one of
the greatest air combat stories in history.  And it’s never been told like this before.
Did you actually see uh your missile hit the plane? Yes it was beautiful.
What started out as a regular Mustard video has turned into an obsession. For  months I’ve been piecing together a brilliant story.
Researching and painstakingly choreographing dog fights. Shot by shot, frame by frame.
I’ve built new 3D models because the ones available just weren’t good enough. All of it crafted to bring
this story to life with unprecedented accuracy. And I’ll be releasing it next month on Nebula.
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