Yarmouth Castle Burning

The total loss of SS Yarmouth Castle in 1965 is the deadliest passenger ship disaster off the American coast since the burning of SS Morro Castle in 1934.

Eighty-four passengers and two crew died in the early-morning hours of November 13, 1965, when the cruise liner SS Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank near Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. Four others would die later from their injuries.

The ship had 552 people aboard on her weekend round trip between Miami and Nassau. Her total loss marks the deadliest passenger ship disaster off the coast of the United States since the burning of the liner SS Morro Castle off New Jersey in 1934. The survival of over 450 people from the inferno was nothing short of a miracle.

The subsequent accident investigation and voluminous press coverage exposed the cavalier operational practices of cruise lines at the time and eventually changed US and international standards for the construction and operations of passenger ships.

One of the great ironies of the disaster is that the COO of the Yarmouth Steamship Company avoided any significant monetary and legal repercussions from the disaster and went on to start the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines juggernaut.

Based on the authors’ collection of firsthand narratives from survivors and their families, thousands of pages of testimony from the United States Coast Guard accident investigation, and contemporaneous press coverage, the book is primarily the story of the night the Castle burned and, secondarily, the legal and regulatory aftermath of the disaster.