Ships that sank immediately after launch

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

After hearing about a yacht that immediately sank earlier this year, I got interested and did some research. Didn’t find a whole lot of large ships that sank right after launch, so obviously the people who make and launch them usually know what they are doing.

The list is limited to largish ships. I realize that the line between ships and boats is a bit nebulous, so I had to exercise some judgement here. Also what’s considered a large ship has changed over the years, so they’ll be included if the vessel was considered a ship at the time of launching.

At any rate, I only found five immediate (or almost immediate) sinkings, but perhaps I missed some. Here’s my results:

  1. Vasa; launched: 1628/08/10; location Stockholm. The pride of the Swedish Navy. It was top heavy, with too many cannon in too high a location. Didn’t sink immediately, but within a hour or so while sailing across the harbor. As soon as it encountered wind stronger than a breeze, it keeled over enough that water poured into the lower gunports. Rediscovered in the 20th century; they raised the hull and put it in a museum.

  2. SS Daphne; launched 1883/07/03; location Govan, Scotland (now part of Glasgow). A passenger-cargo vessel. A mishap while launching: it was supposed to be stabilized by anchors on either side of the ship. However, one didn’t hold the bottom, and the ship was dragged out to the strong current in the river, which flipped it onto its side. Later was refloated and renamed the Rose.

  3. SS Principessa Jolanda; launched 1907/09/22; location Sestri Levante, Italy. A luxury transAtlantic liner. Launched without ballast but with all fittings and furnishings of the upper decks. That apparently made it unstable, so it almost immediately keeled over. Deemed unsalvageable, it was broken up instead of refloated.

  4. Kang Kon; launched 2025/05/21; location Chongjin, North Korea. A destroyer, actually unnamed at the time of launching. Kang Kon is the name they gave it after refloating. Something went wrong in the launch. It was being launched sideways, but the stern was released and the bow was not. That damaged the stern and it was partly submerged.

  5. Dolce Vento; launched 2025/09/02; location Zonguldak, Turkey. A luxury yacht (the one mentioned above). I couldn’t find an official report, so we don’t know for sure what happened, but it sank about 15 minutes after launch.

2

Do airships count? R101 went down a few hours into its maiden voyage.

3

Personally, I would describe it more as a reflection of the King’s own personal pride. As I understand it, after a few years during which the smaller ships in the Swedish navy were struggling in their engagements, the frustrated King demanded a massively overbuilt warship as an overreaction. His cowed underlings knew the design had serious problems but didn’t push back, so the ship was built to his wild specifications. Result: as we saw. Subsequent vessels were, uh, more sanely designed and more successful.

4

Heaven help me, I can’t stop reading this as sinking immediately after the midday meal.

5

Which is earlier than the scupper after supper.

6

A fast break (in two) after breakfast?

7

Her decks were awash after a nosh.

8

And if you are ever in Stockholm, go to the Vasa museum. It’s fascinating.

Thanks to helpful Dopers, I have two Vasa jigsaw puzzles in place of the one I should have bought at their gift shop.

9

Hadn’t thought about those. But sure, why not.

There’s a thread around about misread thread titles. Just remember there’s no such thing as a free launch.

10

Which was said by the NASA administrator testifying before Congress.

11

There was a U Boat that sunk because the Captain tried flushing the new fangled underwater toilet which was supposed to be operated by trained personnel. But it didn’t happen right away as I thought, it made it two years.