SS Naronic

The SS Bovic, sister ship of the SS Naronic
History
Name:	Naronic
Owner:	White Star Line
Builder:	Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Yard number:	251
Launched:	26 May 1892
Completed:	11 July 1892
Maiden voyage:	15 July 1892
Fate:	Disappeared after 11 February 1893
General characteristics
Tonnage:	6594 gt
Length:	470 ft (143.3 m)
Propulsion:	Twin reciprocating engines, twin propellers
Speed:	13 knots (24.1 km/h)
Crew:	50

SS Naronic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line. The ship was lost at sea after leaving Liverpool on February 11, 1893 bound for New York, with the loss of all 74 people on board. The ship's fate is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

Naronic was launched on May 26, 1892, completed on 11 July 1892 and departed for her maiden voyage on 15 July 1892, sailing from Liverpool to New York. The 470 ft, twin screw steamship was designed as a freighter with the addition of limited passenger quarters to handle the increased traffic that White Star was experiencing on its non-New York routes. After her first run, Naronic made five more sailings without incident, before departing on what was to be her final voyage on February 11, 1893 under the command of Captain William Roberts.

For this voyage to New York, Naronic had a crew of 50, plus 24 cattlemen to attend to the ship's primary cargo, livestock. After leaving Liverpool, she stopped briefly at Point Lynas, Anglesey, North Wales, to put her pilot ashore before heading west into heavy seas, never to be seen again.

Naronic had no wireless telegraph with which to send a distress call (it would be another five years before the Marconi Company opened their factory that produced the system the RMS Titanic used to send her distress signals), so whatever problem she encountered, her crew was on their own. The only knowledge we have of the incident comes from two sources.

The British steamer SS Coventry reported seeing two of Naronic's empty lifeboats; the first lifeboat, found at 2:00 am on 4 March, was capsized and the second, found at 2:00 pm, was swamped. The first of these was found 19 miles (some sources put this at 90 miles) from the site where the White Star Line's Titanic would later meet a similar fate.