WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.540 Today, if you want to buy like a $10 phone case 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:05.599 from across the globe, you can just pull out 00:00:05.599 --> 00:00:07.639 your smartphone. Right. You just open an app. 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:10.259 Yeah. You track its journey across the Pacific 00:00:10.259 --> 00:00:13.339 Ocean on a digital map and you know precisely 00:00:13.339 --> 00:00:16.059 what day it will arrive. While the entire global 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:18.440 shipping industry today is highly regulated, 00:00:18.739 --> 00:00:22.140 it's guided by synchronized satellite GPS and 00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:24.920 meticulously optimized to avoid the slightest 00:00:24.920 --> 00:00:27.559 delay. It's a marvel of invisible infrastructure. 00:00:28.140 --> 00:00:29.879 I mean, we've simply been conditioned to expect 00:00:29.879 --> 00:00:32.579 these massive logistical networks to work safely 00:00:32.579 --> 00:00:34.619 and efficiently without ever really thinking 00:00:34.619 --> 00:00:36.799 about the underlying mechanics. Exactly. But 00:00:36.799 --> 00:00:40.479 if you roll the clock back just 150 years to 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:43.159 the late 19th century and the dawn of globalized 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.380 steam power, that illusion of control completely 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.840 vanishes. Yeah. Moving cargo back then essentially 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.079 meant taking an undersized iron boiler, dropping 00:00:52.079 --> 00:00:54.630 it into a 100 -foot boat. filling the hull with 00:00:54.630 --> 00:00:57.630 highly combustible rocks and sending it out blindly 00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.950 into a fog bank. It was incredibly dangerous. 00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:02.990 Welcome to today's deep dive. We're looking at 00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:06.489 a single source today, a Wikipedia article detailing 00:01:06.489 --> 00:01:09.430 the 20 -year history of a 19th century New Zealand 00:01:09.430 --> 00:01:12.909 coastal trading ship called the S .S. Go ahead. 00:01:13.189 --> 00:01:15.430 Right. And on the surface, the source document 00:01:15.430 --> 00:01:18.290 reads like a pretty dry maritime timeline. It 00:01:18.290 --> 00:01:20.909 lists launch dates, tonnages, corporate owners 00:01:20.909 --> 00:01:23.530 and shipping routes. Right. But beneath those 00:01:23.530 --> 00:01:26.150 statistics is this really fascinating historical 00:01:26.150 --> 00:01:28.769 microcosm. OK, let's unpack this because what 00:01:28.769 --> 00:01:31.049 we actually have here isn't just a boring timeline 00:01:31.049 --> 00:01:34.209 of a boat. No, not at all. It is a wild, chaotic 00:01:34.209 --> 00:01:37.290 story filled with sketchy sales tactics, absolutely 00:01:37.290 --> 00:01:40.170 terrible navigation and a mechanical lemon of 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:42.969 a ship that seemingly had nine lives before meeting 00:01:42.969 --> 00:01:45.569 a very tragic, foggy end. The go -ahead was just 00:01:45.569 --> 00:01:47.870 one of thousands of vessels working the coastlines 00:01:47.870 --> 00:01:50.530 during that era, but its 20 -year career spanning 00:01:50.530 --> 00:01:54.390 from 1867 to 1887 perfectly encapsulates the 00:01:54.390 --> 00:01:56.670 massive technological growing pains of the late 00:01:56.670 --> 00:02:00.109 1800s. Yeah, you are seeing the real -time trial 00:02:00.109 --> 00:02:02.109 -and -error reality of humanity trying to figure 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:04.510 out how to conquer the oceans with steam technology. 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:08.590 So let's start at the very beginning, April 1867. 00:02:09.199 --> 00:02:12.759 The Go Ahead is launched in Scotland. She is 00:02:12.759 --> 00:02:15.360 built for the Clyde Shipping Company, specifically 00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:17.439 designed to be sailed all the way down to New 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:20.120 Zealand to run coastal trading routes. And her 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:22.099 initial design is a really fascinating bridge 00:02:22.099 --> 00:02:25.139 between two eras. She's technically a top sale 00:02:25.139 --> 00:02:27.900 schooner, meaning she has masts and sails, but 00:02:27.900 --> 00:02:30.340 she's also a twin screw steamer. Right, and I 00:02:30.340 --> 00:02:32.500 have to imagine that... building a hybrid vessel 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:34.740 like this was essentially an insurance policy 00:02:34.740 --> 00:02:38.159 against early unreliable technology. Like if 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:40.319 the primitive steam engines inevitably fail, 00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:42.659 you can still rely on the wind to get you to 00:02:42.659 --> 00:02:45.810 port. That is a very astute deduction. Early 00:02:45.810 --> 00:02:48.629 marine steam engines were notoriously temperamental, 00:02:48.770 --> 00:02:51.750 and coal was heavy and expensive. The sails were 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:54.050 absolutely necessary for long -haul voyages like 00:02:54.050 --> 00:02:56.689 that massive initial journey from Scotland to 00:02:56.689 --> 00:02:59.389 Australia. Wow. The go -ahead was equipped with 00:02:59.389 --> 00:03:01.889 high -pressure engines putting out 30, maybe 00:03:01.889 --> 00:03:04.949 35 horsepower. Wait, 35? That's it? Yeah. To 00:03:04.949 --> 00:03:07.169 give you some modern perspective, a standard 00:03:07.169 --> 00:03:10.969 ride on lawnmower today easily produces 25 horsepower. 00:03:11.189 --> 00:03:14.789 That is insane. Right, yet here was a heavy iron 00:03:14.789 --> 00:03:18.009 ship 110 feet long at the keel meant to carry 00:03:18.009 --> 00:03:21.210 cargo and passengers through the punishing ocean 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:23.750 swells of the southern hemisphere on just a fraction 00:03:23.750 --> 00:03:26.289 more power. Which totally explains why her commercial 00:03:26.289 --> 00:03:28.650 life immediately goes sideways. They sail her 00:03:28.650 --> 00:03:31.770 out to Melbourne, Australia, arriving in November 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:35.949 of 1867. It does not go well. Not at all. The 00:03:35.949 --> 00:03:38.090 owners try to sell her right there at the docks, 00:03:38.270 --> 00:03:41.319 but nobody bites. They simply cannot unload this 00:03:41.319 --> 00:03:43.419 brand new ship. Oh, no one wanted it. Because 00:03:43.419 --> 00:03:45.939 the Australian market rejects her, they send 00:03:45.939 --> 00:03:48.639 her onward to Westport, New Zealand. And this 00:03:48.639 --> 00:03:51.419 is where the agents in Wellington, a firm called 00:03:51.419 --> 00:03:54.039 AP Stewart & Co, put out an advertisement that 00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:56.639 I could only describe as a masterpiece of absolute 00:03:56.639 --> 00:03:58.900 fiction. Oh, it really is. It is one of the more 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:00.879 remarkable pieces of historical marketing in 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:02.979 the maritime archives. They advertise that the 00:04:02.979 --> 00:04:05.780 go ahead has a draft of only four feet of water. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.840 Which implies she can glide into incredibly shallow, 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:12.360 undeveloped colonial ports. Then they claim she 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:15.560 can carry 1 ,000 sheep. Just visualize that for 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:18.779 a second. A thousand sheep crammed onto a 110 00:04:18.779 --> 00:04:21.759 foot boat. It's absurd. And they billedly call 00:04:21.759 --> 00:04:24.680 her quote unquote, highly suited for coastal 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.860 trading, tacking on that classic desperate urgency 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:31.660 you see in classified ads. Must be sold. Owner 00:04:31.660 --> 00:04:34.420 leaving the colony. Right, the classic excuse. 00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:36.939 I mean, this sounds exactly like buying a used 00:04:36.939 --> 00:04:39.639 car on Craigslist where the seller writes, runs 00:04:39.639 --> 00:04:43.199 great, just needs gas. But the reality is the 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:45.959 engine block is fundamentally cracked. The used 00:04:45.959 --> 00:04:48.079 car analogy holds up perfectly when you look 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:50.899 at her maiden voyages in New Zealand. The reality 00:04:50.899 --> 00:04:53.699 was an immediate logistical disaster. Oh, completely. 00:04:53.959 --> 00:04:56.040 When the crew tried to sail from Westcourt down 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:58.019 to Wellington, they couldn't even complete the 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:00.639 trip as planned. The historical record explicitly 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:02.800 notes she couldn't maintain steam pressure because 00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:06.339 of bad coals on board. OK, so when the historical 00:05:06.339 --> 00:05:09.339 record blames bad coals, I am assuming they aren't 00:05:09.339 --> 00:05:11.279 just complaining about dirty rocks, right? No, 00:05:11.279 --> 00:05:14.180 it's a structural issue with the fuel. If you 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:16.819 load a ship with a batch of coal that has low 00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:19.680 carbon content or incredibly high moisture, it 00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.120 physically cannot burn hot enough to boil the 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:24.420 water. Exactly. And without that intense heat, 00:05:24.899 --> 00:05:27.139 you can't create the necessary steam pressure 00:05:27.139 --> 00:05:30.040 to turn the screws right. Precisely. Coal quality 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:32.660 in the 19th century varied wildly depending on 00:05:32.660 --> 00:05:35.850 the mine it came from. In a steamship, your survival 00:05:35.850 --> 00:05:38.949 entirely depends on maintaining a constant, intense 00:05:38.949 --> 00:05:41.990 thermal output. If the coal is full of impurities, 00:05:42.550 --> 00:05:44.949 the temperature in the furnace drops. The steam 00:05:44.949 --> 00:05:47.089 pressure plummets, the engine stall, and suddenly 00:05:47.089 --> 00:05:49.370 you are just a very heavy piece of iron drifting 00:05:49.370 --> 00:05:52.100 helplessly in the ocean currents. Wow. The go 00:05:52.100 --> 00:05:54.500 -ahead was forced to abandon her route and detour 00:05:54.500 --> 00:05:57.279 to Nelson just to find better fuel. And even 00:05:57.279 --> 00:05:59.740 when they finally limped into Wellington in January 00:05:59.740 --> 00:06:03.019 1868, the problems didn't end. She just sat there 00:06:03.019 --> 00:06:05.540 at Queens Wharf for months. Yeah, they attempted 00:06:05.540 --> 00:06:09.300 to do a proper trial run in Evans Bay and they 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:11.899 made a devastating discovery. Her boiler was 00:06:11.899 --> 00:06:14.939 literally too small for the ship. Oh! Structurally, 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:18.129 that is a fatal engineering flaw. The boiler 00:06:18.129 --> 00:06:21.089 is the heart of any steam vessel. It is the sealed 00:06:21.089 --> 00:06:23.550 vessel where water is heated to generate steam. 00:06:24.149 --> 00:06:26.949 If the boiler is physically too small, it cannot 00:06:26.949 --> 00:06:29.589 generate enough steam volume to feed those high 00:06:29.589 --> 00:06:32.189 pressure engines, regardless of how pristine 00:06:32.189 --> 00:06:34.589 your coal is. That makes sense. The builders 00:06:34.589 --> 00:06:37.189 in Scotland had constructed a ship whose heart 00:06:37.189 --> 00:06:40.370 could not support its muscles. It is no wonder 00:06:40.370 --> 00:06:42.370 the buyers in Melbourne took one look at her 00:06:42.370 --> 00:06:44.899 performance and walked away. So the original 00:06:44.899 --> 00:06:47.100 owners are stuck with this mechanical woman. 00:06:47.259 --> 00:06:50.560 She is stranded at the wharf, surrounded by swirling 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:53.399 rumors and legal strife over payments. Yes. But 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:55.579 because the ship was an unsellable disaster, 00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:58.300 they had to find a market desperate enough to 00:06:58.300 --> 00:07:01.019 completely overlook her glaring flaws. And luckily 00:07:01.019 --> 00:07:03.259 for them, there was one. Yeah. Fortunately for 00:07:03.259 --> 00:07:05.579 the owners, desperation was brewing right up 00:07:05.579 --> 00:07:08.279 the coast. The Thames Gold Rush was taking off 00:07:08.279 --> 00:07:11.459 near Auckland in the summer of 1868. And you 00:07:11.459 --> 00:07:13.620 know, whenever you inject a gold rush into a 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:16.220 developing region, it creates absolute logistical 00:07:16.220 --> 00:07:19.220 chaos. Suddenly, there is a voracious frenzy 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:21.980 to move thousands of prospectors, heavy mining 00:07:21.980 --> 00:07:24.939 equipment, and basic survival supplies up and 00:07:24.939 --> 00:07:27.060 down the rugged coastlines. And when there's 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:30.129 a gold rush... People aren't exactly picky about 00:07:30.129 --> 00:07:32.170 the quality of their transportation. Not at all. 00:07:32.470 --> 00:07:34.670 An Auckland company finally buys the Go Ahead 00:07:34.670 --> 00:07:38.769 in August 1868. By September, she is taking her 00:07:38.769 --> 00:07:41.629 first 25 passengers, and she quickly becomes 00:07:41.629 --> 00:07:44.290 an absolute workhorse. Yeah, she really does. 00:07:44.529 --> 00:07:47.649 In 1870, when a rival ship named the S .S. Touranga 00:07:47.649 --> 00:07:50.709 tragically sinks, the Go Ahead simply slots right 00:07:50.709 --> 00:07:53.629 into its vacated route. She is constantly moving. 00:07:53.879 --> 00:07:56.300 She found her economic niche because the demand 00:07:56.300 --> 00:07:59.300 for transport was entirely inelastic. But the 00:07:59.300 --> 00:08:01.660 physical toll this heavy usage took on the ship, 00:08:02.019 --> 00:08:03.959 and more importantly on the human beings operating 00:08:03.959 --> 00:08:06.600 her, is staggering to consider. Oh, the numbers 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.660 are wild. We have records from 1875 showing that 00:08:09.660 --> 00:08:12.420 in a period of just over three months, the Goahead 00:08:12.420 --> 00:08:17.000 burned 289 tons of coal to cover over 6 ,600 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:18.839 miles. I want to stop right there and look at 00:08:18.839 --> 00:08:20.759 those numbers because I did the math on this 00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:22.899 while I was reviewing the source. That breaks 00:08:22.899 --> 00:08:26.360 down to 97 pounds of coal burned for every single 00:08:26.360 --> 00:08:29.019 mile traveled. It's hard to even picture. Yeah, 00:08:29.079 --> 00:08:31.519 I really have to push back on this romanticized 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:34.620 steampunk vision we all seem to have of 19th 00:08:34.620 --> 00:08:37.500 century maritime travel. The popular image is 00:08:37.500 --> 00:08:40.720 gentlemen in top hats smoking cigars on a polished 00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:43.440 wooden deck. Right, the luxury liner image. Exactly. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.100 But down below the water line, the human logistics 00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:50.860 of this operation are horrifying. Shoveling 97 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:53.620 pounds of coal into a furnace every single mile 00:08:53.620 --> 00:08:56.500 for thousands of miles requires a level of physical 00:08:56.500 --> 00:08:58.690 suffering that is hard to fathom. Stripping away 00:08:58.690 --> 00:09:00.870 that steampunk romance is crucial to understanding 00:09:00.870 --> 00:09:03.710 the era. There is zero automation in this process. 00:09:04.049 --> 00:09:07.090 Every single one of those 289 tons of coal was 00:09:07.090 --> 00:09:10.169 moved by human muscle. The stokers worked deep 00:09:10.169 --> 00:09:12.149 in the bowels of the hull. It was pitch black, 00:09:12.149 --> 00:09:14.370 lit only by the glare of the furnace. And I bet 00:09:14.370 --> 00:09:17.070 the air was just awful. The air was incredibly 00:09:17.070 --> 00:09:19.409 thick with airborne pull dust, which instantly 00:09:19.409 --> 00:09:22.470 coats your lungs and your eyes. The ambient temperature 00:09:22.470 --> 00:09:25.809 standing next to a roaring ship's boiler is suffocating, 00:09:26.110 --> 00:09:28.710 easily sitting well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. 00:09:29.470 --> 00:09:30.970 And while you are dealing with the heat and the 00:09:30.970 --> 00:09:33.330 dust, the ship itself is pitching and rolling 00:09:33.330 --> 00:09:35.850 violently in the open ocean. Right. You are trying 00:09:35.850 --> 00:09:39.090 to maintain your footing on slippery steel grates, 00:09:39.389 --> 00:09:42.110 swinging a heavy iron shovel, and throwing nearly 00:09:42.110 --> 00:09:44.490 a hundred pounds of jagged rock into a raging 00:09:44.490 --> 00:09:47.309 fire for every mile the ship advances. Sounds 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:49.250 like a nightmare. If your muscles give out and 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:51.509 you stop shoveling, the ship loses pressure and 00:09:51.509 --> 00:09:55.169 stops moving. It was brutal, relentless, punishing 00:09:55.169 --> 00:09:59.240 labor. those stokers literally fueled the economic 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.720 boom of the colonial era with their own bodies. 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:03.960 Well, all that relentless heavy -duty coastal 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:05.860 work eventually caught up with the hardware of 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:09.580 the ship itself. By the time we reach the 1870s, 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:12.039 the go -ahead enters an era I like to call her 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:14.519 bumper car phase. That is a very apt description. 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:17.659 The narrative shifts sharply away from her economic 00:10:17.659 --> 00:10:20.799 utility and highlights a staggering lack of basic 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:23.480 safety protocols. She just starts crashing into 00:10:23.480 --> 00:10:27.240 things. Constantly. In September 1870 she collides 00:10:27.240 --> 00:10:30.179 with a ship called the Ivanhoe. The historical 00:10:30.179 --> 00:10:33.059 report explicitly states she was going full speed 00:10:33.059 --> 00:10:36.600 and they crashed because the go -ahead had absolutely 00:10:36.600 --> 00:10:39.940 no forward lookout posted, none. A subsequent 00:10:39.940 --> 00:10:42.539 court of inquiry actually assigned blame to both 00:10:42.539 --> 00:10:45.460 ship masters for that collision. What's fascinating 00:10:45.460 --> 00:10:48.059 here is how these frequent incidents highlight 00:10:48.059 --> 00:10:51.000 the incredible tolerance for risk and damage 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:53.769 in early commercial shipping. Oh for sure. We 00:10:53.769 --> 00:10:55.830 have to remember that there were no universal, 00:10:56.149 --> 00:10:58.250 internationally enforced rules of the road for 00:10:58.250 --> 00:11:00.970 the oceans yet. Furthermore, these heavy iron 00:11:00.970 --> 00:11:03.450 ships were notoriously underpowered, making them 00:11:03.450 --> 00:11:05.570 incredibly slow to respond to the home. Right, 00:11:05.649 --> 00:11:07.889 they had tiny engines. If an obstacle appeared 00:11:07.889 --> 00:11:10.309 in the mist, a 30 horsepower engine couldn't 00:11:10.309 --> 00:11:12.669 reverse the momentum of a fully loaded hull in 00:11:12.669 --> 00:11:15.450 time. That tolerance for risk is fully on display 00:11:15.450 --> 00:11:18.750 in 1877. the go -ahead gets stranded on the South 00:11:18.750 --> 00:11:20.769 Spit while trying to leave Gisborne. What a major 00:11:20.769 --> 00:11:23.409 stranding. Yeah, the grounding is so severe that 00:11:23.409 --> 00:11:25.929 the initial reports claim she has been abandoned. 00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:29.029 Everyone thinks she is entirely beyond salvage, 00:11:29.309 --> 00:11:31.629 a total loss. But then? Yeah, three weeks later, 00:11:31.649 --> 00:11:34.210 they manage to drag her back to Auckland, and 00:11:34.210 --> 00:11:38.090 she gets repaired for 1 ,400 pounds. But here 00:11:38.090 --> 00:11:42.149 is the critical economic detail. She was insured. 00:11:42.299 --> 00:11:45.480 for 4 ,000 pounds. Why? The owners were perfectly 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:47.279 covered. Oh, and the captain who drove her into 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:50.139 the spit, he kept his certificate. The court 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:53.000 decided his mistake wasn't severe enough to suspend 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.259 his right to command. If we connect this to the 00:11:56.259 --> 00:11:59.039 bigger picture, we see a massive moral hazard 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.879 introduced by the early marine insurance industry. 00:12:01.899 --> 00:12:04.600 Oh, absolutely. When a ship owner can repair 00:12:04.600 --> 00:12:07.100 a vessel for a fraction of its insured value 00:12:07.100 --> 00:12:09.639 or completely recoup their capital if it sinks, 00:12:10.250 --> 00:12:12.809 Their financial incentive to invest in rigorous 00:12:12.809 --> 00:12:15.509 safety protocols drops to near zero. It's just 00:12:15.509 --> 00:12:17.509 bad business to be safe, basically. Exactly. 00:12:18.129 --> 00:12:20.429 Furthermore, competent navigators, even the ones 00:12:20.429 --> 00:12:22.450 who occasionally ran their ships aground, were 00:12:22.450 --> 00:12:25.409 a scarce resource in the colonies. The economic 00:12:25.409 --> 00:12:27.350 system simply needed them back out on the water 00:12:27.350 --> 00:12:30.350 moving cargo. But the go ahead wasn't done playing 00:12:30.350 --> 00:12:34.269 bumper cars. In 1878, she breaks down entirely 00:12:34.269 --> 00:12:37.659 in a storm. In 1879, she snaps a propeller. It 00:12:37.659 --> 00:12:39.840 just keeps going. Later that exact same year, 00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.440 she collides with yet another ship recorded as 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:45.259 either the Hurra or the Huya. Once again, both 00:12:45.259 --> 00:12:47.440 captains are blamed and neither is suspended. 00:12:47.799 --> 00:12:49.980 Unbelievable. It reminds me of having a smartphone 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:53.259 with a terrible degraded battery that keeps randomly 00:12:53.259 --> 00:12:55.240 shutting down. OK, I see where you're going with 00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:57.539 this. Instead of throwing the defective phone 00:12:57.539 --> 00:13:01.139 away. You pry it open, haphazardly solder in 00:13:01.139 --> 00:13:04.639 a massive aftermarket battery, and bolt a heavy 00:13:04.639 --> 00:13:07.580 industrial metal case around the outside to force 00:13:07.580 --> 00:13:09.940 it to keep running. They didn't scrap the ship. 00:13:10.120 --> 00:13:12.039 They physically hacked its hardware to keep it 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:15.279 alive. That analogy perfectly captures the extreme 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:18.299 mechanical interventions of 1879. The owners 00:13:18.299 --> 00:13:20.519 at the time, Johnston and Combe, decided against 00:13:20.519 --> 00:13:23.440 scrapping her. Instead, they authorized a massive 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:26.240 structural overhaul. They didn't just repair 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:29.000 her, they literally lengthened the ship's hull. 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:32.779 I have to pause here because the phrase Lengthen 00:13:32.779 --> 00:13:35.899 the ship's hull sounds so casual in the Wikipedia 00:13:35.899 --> 00:13:38.879 source, but the actual engineering behind that 00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:41.559 in 1879 must have been a monumental undertaking. 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:45.240 How do you physically stretch a heavy iron steamship? 00:13:45.860 --> 00:13:48.919 It is a phenomenal feat of 19th century engineering. 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:52.639 They would place the ship on a dry slipway. carefully 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:55.019 drill out the iron rivets around the midsection 00:13:55.019 --> 00:13:57.779 and physically cut the ship in half. They just 00:13:57.779 --> 00:14:00.500 cut it in half. Literally in half. Using heavy 00:14:00.500 --> 00:14:02.600 winches, they would pull the bow and the stern 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:05.919 apart, creating a gap in the middle. Then shipwrights 00:14:05.919 --> 00:14:08.000 would build an entirely new central section, 00:14:08.299 --> 00:14:10.480 plating it with iron and riveting the entire 00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:13.179 vessel back together. Wow. This process increased 00:14:13.179 --> 00:14:16.120 her cargo capacity and, crucially, provided the 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.240 physical space needed to correct her original 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:21.059 fatal design flaw. They finally installed a newly 00:14:21.059 --> 00:14:24.240 designed properly sized boiler and upgraded her 00:14:24.240 --> 00:14:26.820 to significantly more powerful 45 horsepower 00:14:26.820 --> 00:14:29.000 engines. The local papers actually described 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:31.340 her as almost a new ship. She basically was. 00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:34.059 She goes back out into the coastal trade, running 00:14:34.059 --> 00:14:37.480 routes to Wellington, Napier and Dunedin. But 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.139 here's the tragic reality of early technology. 00:14:40.409 --> 00:14:43.190 You can upgrade the internal hardware all you 00:14:43.190 --> 00:14:45.889 want, but you cannot patch out human error. No, 00:14:45.970 --> 00:14:48.149 you can't. And you certainly cannot engineer 00:14:48.149 --> 00:14:50.970 your way out of the sheer force of nature. Because 00:14:50.970 --> 00:14:54.909 all of this leads us to May of 1887. The final 00:14:54.909 --> 00:14:58.750 voyage into the fog. May 20, 1887. The go -ahead 00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:00.870 is navigating off the coast to keep kidnappers 00:15:00.870 --> 00:15:03.850 at two o 'clock in the morning. The historical 00:15:03.850 --> 00:15:07.009 reports describe terribly thick weather. Very 00:15:07.009 --> 00:15:09.330 dense fog. The fog is so dense that the True 00:15:09.330 --> 00:15:11.850 has absolutely no visual references. In fact, 00:15:11.929 --> 00:15:14.269 the visibility was so nonexistent that the ship 00:15:14.269 --> 00:15:16.309 was already inside the breaking waves of the 00:15:16.309 --> 00:15:18.809 coastline before anyone on board even realized 00:15:18.809 --> 00:15:21.179 something was wrong. That specific scenario is 00:15:21.179 --> 00:15:23.480 the ultimate nightmare for Mariner. On the ocean, 00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:25.559 by the time you can actually hear the sound of 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:28.120 the surf crashing over the relentless mechanical 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:30.019 noise of your own steam engines, it is already 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:32.980 too late. Even with her upgraded 45 horsepower 00:15:32.980 --> 00:15:36.200 engines, you simply have no time to arrest the 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:38.919 forward momentum of the ship or turn the rudder 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:41.419 to change course. The source notes that Captain 00:15:41.419 --> 00:15:44.299 Plumlee was navigating by dead reckoning at the 00:15:44.299 --> 00:15:46.519 time of the crash. I've heard that term used 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:49.220 in movies, but mechanically speaking, dead reck 00:15:49.220 --> 00:15:52.169 - essentially means navigating entirely blind. 00:15:52.409 --> 00:15:55.450 Right. Yes, essentially. It's navigation without 00:15:55.450 --> 00:15:58.370 any external visual or celestial reference. You 00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:01.490 take your last known GPS free position. You factor 00:16:01.490 --> 00:16:03.870 in your estimated speed. You look at your compass 00:16:03.870 --> 00:16:06.169 heading and you basically just guess where you 00:16:06.169 --> 00:16:09.210 are on the map. Exactly. And the fatal flaw of 00:16:09.210 --> 00:16:11.330 dead reckoning is what it cannot account for. 00:16:11.710 --> 00:16:13.990 Your compass and your speed might tell you that 00:16:13.990 --> 00:16:16.509 you are safely out in deep water. Right. But 00:16:16.509 --> 00:16:19.330 dead reckoning cannot measure the hidden ocean 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.399 currents. It can't account for heavy winds. silently 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:24.799 pushing your hull sideways in the dark. Oh, wow. 00:16:24.899 --> 00:16:26.659 So you think you're going straight, but you're 00:16:26.659 --> 00:16:28.860 actually drifting diagonally. Precisely. That 00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:32.220 is exactly why relying on it in a blinding fog 00:16:32.220 --> 00:16:35.240 bank near a jagged coastline is so incredibly 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:38.100 dangerous. And the danger caught up to them. 00:16:38.460 --> 00:16:41.019 She grounded hard on the rocks, the ship turned 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:43.600 bottom upwards in the surf, and the hull finally 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:46.600 break apart. A total loss. Here's where it gets 00:16:46.600 --> 00:16:49.590 really interesting. Or rather... incredibly tragic 00:16:49.590 --> 00:16:54.389 because the human cost of all this systemic risk 00:16:54.389 --> 00:16:59.610 taking finally comes due. A stoker, one of those 00:16:59.610 --> 00:17:02.330 exact men we talked about earlier, working down 00:17:02.330 --> 00:17:05.190 in the dark sweltering hundred degree belly of 00:17:05.190 --> 00:17:08.670 the ship. Yes. A man named James Gunning drowned 00:17:08.670 --> 00:17:11.269 in the wreck. The ensuing wreck inquiry paints 00:17:11.269 --> 00:17:13.569 a very stark picture of the guesswork involved 00:17:13.569 --> 00:17:16.269 in that era. Captain Plumlee testified that he 00:17:16.269 --> 00:17:18.170 firmly believed he was making eight and a half 00:17:18.170 --> 00:17:20.829 to nine knots and he was confident he was safely 00:17:20.829 --> 00:17:23.170 six miles north of the Cape. But the court found 00:17:23.170 --> 00:17:25.750 him unequivocally guilty of negligent navigation. 00:17:26.529 --> 00:17:28.250 Their specific phrasing was that he was trying 00:17:28.250 --> 00:17:31.049 to quote -unquote cut the headland too fine in 00:17:31.049 --> 00:17:33.130 foggy weather. Right. He was cactively trying 00:17:33.130 --> 00:17:35.150 to shave a few miles off his route to save time 00:17:35.150 --> 00:17:37.690 and coal by hugging the dangerous coastline when 00:17:37.690 --> 00:17:39.289 he couldn't see ten feet in front of the bow. 00:17:40.230 --> 00:17:42.500 I have to say Looking at the outcome of this 00:17:42.500 --> 00:17:45.059 inquiry, I am firmly pushing back on the idea 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:47.680 of justice here. I don't blame you. The leniency 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.819 of the Maritime Court is unbelievable. It is 00:17:50.819 --> 00:17:53.380 definitely a jarring conclusion for anyone looking 00:17:53.380 --> 00:17:55.880 at it through a modern lens. Think about the 00:17:55.880 --> 00:17:59.059 facts of the case. A crew member, James Gunning, 00:17:59.599 --> 00:18:03.220 is dead. A heavily upgraded steamship ensured 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:06.339 for 5 ,500 pounds is completely destroyed, lying 00:18:06.339 --> 00:18:09.210 bottom up in the surf. All of this happened because 00:18:09.210 --> 00:18:11.670 the captain was recklessly trying to cut corners 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:14.529 blindly in a fog bank. Yes. And what is Captain 00:18:14.529 --> 00:18:16.589 Plumlee's punishment for all of this destruction 00:18:16.589 --> 00:18:19.569 and loss of life? A three -month suspension of 00:18:19.569 --> 00:18:22.609 his master certificate. Three months. Got a slap 00:18:22.609 --> 00:18:25.009 on the wrist. The Wikipedia source casually notes 00:18:25.009 --> 00:18:27.509 that by September of that exact same year, just 00:18:27.509 --> 00:18:30.109 four months later, he was already commanding 00:18:30.109 --> 00:18:33.039 another steamer, the Wallaby. This raises an 00:18:33.039 --> 00:18:34.819 important question about the stark priorities 00:18:34.819 --> 00:18:37.640 of the 1880s. We have to confront how the colonial 00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:40.319 economy valued human life versus capital. They 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:42.420 clearly valued the capital more. Absolutely. 00:18:42.740 --> 00:18:46.119 The owners were insured for 5 ,500 pounds, meaning 00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:48.880 their financial capital was entirely protected 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:51.859 from the captain's negligence. The loss of a 00:18:51.859 --> 00:18:54.980 stoker, as tragic as it is, was viewed by the 00:18:54.980 --> 00:18:57.920 systemic powers of the time as a highly replaceable 00:18:57.920 --> 00:19:00.740 labor loss. That's just incredibly dark. And 00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:03.779 as we discussed with the 1877 stranding, the 00:19:03.779 --> 00:19:06.819 colonial supply chain was so desperate for experienced 00:19:06.819 --> 00:19:09.480 ship masters to keep the goods flowing that the 00:19:09.480 --> 00:19:12.319 court simply refused to sideline a captain for 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:15.079 long, even one who had just proven to be fatally 00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:18.299 reckless. The endless economic demand for moving 00:19:18.299 --> 00:19:21.059 goods completely trumped the demand for safety 00:19:21.059 --> 00:19:23.799 or accountability. Meanwhile, the physical remains 00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:26.039 of the mighty go -ahead were basically worthless. 00:19:26.660 --> 00:19:28.819 The ruined hull and the upgraded machinery were 00:19:28.819 --> 00:19:31.700 auctioned off for a measly 13 pounds. 13 pounds? 00:19:32.079 --> 00:19:34.039 Salvage attempts were made. Ships with names 00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.200 like the Fairy and the Bella sailed out to try 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:38.880 and pull valuable metal out of the surf, but 00:19:38.880 --> 00:19:40.960 poor weather ruined the attempts. They managed 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:43.240 to recover a ship's bell and a compass, but the 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:45.059 rest of the vessel was surrendered to the sea. 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:48.460 Which leaves us looking back at the entire chaotic 00:19:48.460 --> 00:19:52.380 20 year lifespan of this single vessel. So what 00:19:52.380 --> 00:19:55.220 does this all mean? We started our timeline with 00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:58.079 a 30 horsepower, heavily flawed, limit of a boat 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:00.640 failing to sell in Melbourne, and we ended with 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.559 a tragic, fatal shipwreck on the rocks of Cape 00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:06.859 Kidnappers. Looking at the whole picture, what 00:20:06.859 --> 00:20:08.920 is the ultimate takeaway here for you? Well, 00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:11.309 if we connect this to the bigger picture. The 00:20:11.309 --> 00:20:14.230 SS Go Ahead serves as the perfect microcosm of 00:20:14.230 --> 00:20:17.309 the industrial era. It shows you firsthand how 00:20:17.309 --> 00:20:20.450 trial and error defined early technology. Humanity 00:20:20.450 --> 00:20:23.329 didn't arrive at the sleek, GPS -guided, highly 00:20:23.329 --> 00:20:26.190 regulated maritime system we enjoy today through 00:20:26.190 --> 00:20:29.069 pure, flawless theory. We got here by making 00:20:29.069 --> 00:20:31.549 terrible, expensive, and often fatal mistakes. 00:20:31.569 --> 00:20:33.410 We learned the hard way. Engineers learned about 00:20:33.410 --> 00:20:35.789 the strict mathematical necessity of correctly 00:20:35.789 --> 00:20:38.710 sized boilers by failing miserably in Evans Bay. 00:20:39.329 --> 00:20:40.950 The industry learned about the critical need 00:20:40.950 --> 00:20:43.569 to standardize fuel because bad coals were stalling 00:20:43.569 --> 00:20:46.309 ships in open water. Regulators realized the 00:20:46.309 --> 00:20:48.950 absolute necessity for mandatory forward lookouts 00:20:48.950 --> 00:20:51.509 and universal right -of -way rules by watching 00:20:51.509 --> 00:20:54.849 ships crash into vessels like the Ivanhoe. And 00:20:54.849 --> 00:20:57.630 tragically, we learned the sheer limits of coastal 00:20:57.630 --> 00:21:00.670 navigation and dead reckoning through fatal wrecks 00:21:00.670 --> 00:21:02.410 like the one at Cape Kidnappers. That's a heavy 00:21:02.410 --> 00:21:05.250 thought. Every modern safety standard and every 00:21:05.250 --> 00:21:07.650 modern regulation that protects maritime workers 00:21:07.650 --> 00:21:10.069 today is essentially written in the wreckage 00:21:10.069 --> 00:21:12.970 of ships exactly like the... Go ahead. It is 00:21:12.970 --> 00:21:17.309 the physical rusted cost of progress. And there 00:21:17.309 --> 00:21:20.589 is one final incredibly haunting image from the 00:21:20.589 --> 00:21:21.930 source material that I want to leave you with 00:21:21.930 --> 00:21:25.150 today. Go for it. After the wreck in 1887, the 00:21:25.150 --> 00:21:27.049 salvagers couldn't retrieve the massive iron 00:21:27.049 --> 00:21:29.390 boiler, the brand new one they had just installed 00:21:29.390 --> 00:21:32.390 during that massive engineering overhaul in 1879. 00:21:32.789 --> 00:21:34.910 It was simply too heavy and the breaking surf 00:21:34.910 --> 00:21:37.009 was too violent. So they just left it. Decades 00:21:37.009 --> 00:21:39.380 later... A local New Zealand newspaper noted 00:21:39.380 --> 00:21:41.279 that the boiler was still sitting there, highly 00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:44.119 visible on the beach in 1937. And reportedly, 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:47.220 as recently as 2011, pieces of that exact same 00:21:47.220 --> 00:21:49.160 iron boiler were still visible in the sand at 00:21:49.160 --> 00:21:53.519 Cape Kidnappers. Wow. Over a century later, a 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:56.519 piece of that Scottish engineering is still holding 00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:59.400 its ground against the Pacific Ocean. It is a 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:02.559 rusted monument to a wild, chaotic era of trial 00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:04.829 and error. So I want you to think about the device 00:22:04.829 --> 00:22:06.650 you're using to listen to this deep dive right 00:22:06.650 --> 00:22:09.130 now, or maybe the cutting -edge electric car 00:22:09.130 --> 00:22:11.289 sitting in your driveway. Oh, I like this. What 00:22:11.289 --> 00:22:14.069 massive rusted pieces of our own modern, quote 00:22:14.069 --> 00:22:16.730 -unquote, perfect technology will be sitting 00:22:16.730 --> 00:22:19.769 abandoned on some distant coastline 140 years 00:22:19.769 --> 00:22:22.390 from now, slowly being swallowed by the sea? 00:22:23.009 --> 00:22:24.930 It is definitely something to think about. A 00:22:24.930 --> 00:22:27.289 very powerful perspective on the impermanence 00:22:27.289 --> 00:22:29.529 of our own technological marvels. Until next 00:22:29.529 --> 00:22:30.609 time, keep digging deeper.