Season 1
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime storyteller John McCrystal for a lively retelling of one of the sea’s most enduring mysteries: the disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste. Together, they separate legend from evidence, tracing how an abandoned but seaworthy ship found near the Azores in 1872 became a ghost-ship story layered with half-truths, newspaper embellishment, Conan Doyle inspired mythmaking, and increasingly wild theories. What remains is not just a puzzle about a missing captain, family, and crew, but a compelling look at how maritime disasters become folklore and how the plainest explanation can still be the most haunting.
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime writer John McCrystal for a gripping account of the wreck of the Strathmore, an iron clipper bound for Dunedin in 1875. McCrystal traces the ship’s fatal encounter with the Crozet Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, the desperate struggle of passengers and crew to survive on a barren rock, and the extraordinary endurance that kept the remaining castaways alive for more than six months before rescue. It is a stark, human story of navigation, disaster, leadership, loss, and survival at the edge of the world.
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime historian John McCrystal for a gripping Shipwreck Tale from New Zealand’s wild South Westland coast. They recount the extraordinary ordeal of ten sealers abandoned on the tiny Open Bay Islands in 1810, left to survive for nearly four years after their ship, the Active, vanished without returning. What begins as a brutal but routine sealing expedition becomes a story of hunger, improvisation, failed escapes, fragile hope and remarkable endurance, and a mystery that still lingers over the fate of the missing vessel.
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime storyteller John McCrystal for a gripping account of the Franklin Expedition, the doomed 1845 voyage of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in search of the Northwest Passage. Together they explore Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated Arctic mission, the mystery of why two heavily fortified ships were abandoned, and the disturbing clues left behind: graves, cairns, Inuit oral histories, forensic evidence, possible lead poisoning, starvation, scurvy and cannibalism. It is a haunting shipwreck tale without survivors, where modern science and historical testimony shed light on one of exploration history’s most enduring mysteries while leaving its central questions unresolved.
In this episode of Shipwreck Tales, John McCrystal joins Graeme Hill to recount the extraordinary true story of the Essex: the Nantucket whaler rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820, later inspiring Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. What begins as a freak collision in the middle of the Pacific becomes a harrowing account of survival, starvation, impossible choices, and the long shadow the ordeal cast over those who made it home.
In this episode of Shipwreck Tales, John McCrystal revisits one of history’s most extraordinary survival stories: Ernest Shackleton and the loss of the Endurance. What began as an ambitious plan to cross Antarctica became a brutal test of leadership, endurance, and human will after the ship was trapped, crushed, and swallowed by the ice. From the dark Antarctic winter to the desperate open-boat voyage to South Georgia, this introduction sets up the remarkable story of how Shackleton fought to bring his men home alive.
In this episode of Shipwreck Tales, Graeme Hill is joined by John McCrystal to explore the lesser-known, darker side of Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: the story of the Ross Sea Party. Tasked with laying vital supply depots for Shackleton’s planned crossing of Antarctica, the party endured poor preparation, brutal weather, isolation, scurvy, shipwreck and loss. What follows is a gripping account of duty, survival and sacrifice, not for glory, but to complete a mission that became tragically pointless.
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime historian John McCrystal for a gripping Shipwreck Tales account of the Betsey, a small sealing brig caught in the brutal realities of early 19th-century southern waters. What begins as a routine voyage from Sydney to Macquarie Island becomes a desperate fight for survival, as scurvy, starvation, broken equipment and relentless weather drive the crew towards the New Zealand coast.
In this episode, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime historian John McCrystal for a gripping account of the USS Indianapolis, one of the most harrowing naval disasters of the Second World War. After delivering components for the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima, the ship was torpedoed in the Pacific, leaving hundreds of sailors stranded for days in open water. Hill and McCrystal trace the ship’s wartime role, the chaos of its sinking, the horror faced by survivors, and the long fight to clear Captain Charles McVeigh’s name.
In this episode of Shipwreck Tales, Graeme Hill is joined by maritime storyteller John McCrystal to revisit one of the most infamous disasters in French naval history: the wreck of the Medusa. What begins as a tale of poor command, political favouritism and navigational failure becomes a grim account of abandonment, survival and moral collapse on the makeshift raft that inspired one of history’s most powerful maritime paintings. Hill and McCrystal unpack the tragedy with a mix of historical detail, dark humour and clear-eyed reflection on how leadership failure at sea became a national scandal.