In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime historian John McCrystal to revisit the tragic wreck of the SS Penguin, the Cook Strait ferry that sank off Wellington’s south coast in 1909 with the loss of 75 lives. McCrystal sets the scene of a routine crossing turned fatal by wild weather, uncertain currents, and the limits of early navigation, before exploring the human stories of courage and loss that followed. The conversation also examines the enduring mystery of what the Penguin struck that night, including the compelling theory that it may have collided with the drifting remains of another lost vessel, the Rio Loge.