Inquiry and hypotheses
In addition to the 74 casualties, the disappearance of Naronic caused a net loss for the White Star Line, which had not insured the ship that was worth £121,685. However, as early as 1894 another cattle transporter replaced it, the Cevic, which was much larger, and another one was ordered to compensate for the loss, the Georgic, which was put into service in 1895. Insurers had to reimburse the cargo, which was valued at £61,855.[9] The shock was also difficult for the families of the sixty British sailors and the fourteen American passengers. The wives of two crew members were sent to asylum due to trauma.[10]
In June 1893, when hopes of recovering the ship had vanished, a commission of inquiry was convened at the initiative of the Board of Trade at St George's Hall, Liverpool. It was a priority of the investigation to refute a rumour created in the press. An inhabitant of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, claiming to be the brother of a ship's mechanic, had indeed declared having received a letter from the latter declaring that the boilers were in very poor condition and threatened the safety of Naronic. After investigating this matter, the commission concluded: “The machines and boilers were described by the inspector of the Board of Trade as being the best, and as having been installed at best… The machines are not only the best in their category, but were also maintained on each trip.”[10]
Other rumours were that Naronic capsized after being caught in a storm. Experiments were carried out on her sister ship, the Bovic, and showed that the ship was very stable, even when loaded. Captain Thompson, then captain of Bovic, who had also commanded Naronic during its first three round trips, confirmed that, even in the storm, the ship never seemed to him to be unstable.[9] Two of the letters found in bottles evoked a collision with an iceberg, and certain ships had spotted ice in the North Atlantic in February 1893. This led the commission to also examine this a hypothesis that the ship hit an iceberg. The ship's course, estimated with the help of Captain Thompson, however, passed well south of Newfoundland, and investigation concluded that Naronic was at least 100 miles from the nearest ice.[4] This conclusion was however questionable, with the New York press reporting at the time that several ships reported ice in this region, which was also where Titanic sank nineteen years later.[11] After evaluating the safety of the vessel, the commission recognized its powerlessness, and declared: "Unless new elements are provided, the probable cause of the loss of the vessel remains a matter of speculation and adds to the mysteries of the sea."
Naronic's cargo list, published in the New York Herald in March 1893, included several chemicals (acids, potassium chlorate, sodium sulphide, calcium hypochlorite). Under certain conditions, these products could have caused an explosion resulting in the sinking of Naronic if the storm had displaced them or freed them from their bottles, which led historians John P. Eaton and Charles A. Haas to evoke a century later this hypothesis which had not been considered by the official inquiry. In October 1893, a newspaper reported the testimony of the captain of the Norwegian ship Emblem, who declared to have spotted in July a lifeboat of Naronic, floating upside down and covered with barnacles. Everything seemed to indicate that the boat was hastily prepared, confirming the hypothesis of a rapid and sudden sinking.
Messages in bottles
Four bottles with messages inside, which were recovered later, that claimed to have been written while Naronic was sinking. Two of the bottles were found in the US, one on 3 March in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, and one in Ocean View, Virginia, on 30 March. A third bottle was found in June 1893 in the Irish Channel, and the fourth was found on September 18 in the River Mersey near the ship's point of departure, Liverpool. While all four specifically mention Naronic sinking, the second bottle found contained the most detailed message:[3]
"3:10 AM Feb.19. SS Naronic at sea. To who picks this up: report when you find this to our agents if not heard of before, that our ship is sinking fast beneath the waves. It's such a storm that we can never live in the small boats. One boat has already gone with her human cargo below. God let all of us live through this. We were struck by an iceberg in a blinding snowstorm and floated two hours. Now it 3:20 AM by my watch and the great ship is dead level with the sea. Report to the agents at Broadway, New New York, M. Kersey & Company. Goodby all.[3]"
It was signed "John Olsen, Cattleman"; however, there was no one with this name listed on the ship's manifest, the closest being John O'Hara and John Watson. A similar situation exists with the first bottle found, in that the signature, "L. Winsel", is also not on the manifest, the closest being crew member John L. Watson. The third bottle, which was found in the Irish Channel said Naronic had struck an iceberg and was sinking fast.
