MacTavish circled the ship for twenty minutes. He tried hailing it on the radio—static. When he attempted to approach the bow, his own engine sputtered and died. As he drifted, he claims the Michelle simply "folded into the fog" and vanished.
Her fate seemed sealed on November 12, 1952. En route from Galway to Reykjavik with a cargo of dried fish and industrial lubricants, she sailed into a ferocious gale. The last radio transmission was garbled: "Hull breached... pumps not... God save..." ss michelle
Here is the strange, fragmented history of the ship that refuses to stay forgotten. The SS Michelle was born from the rubble of post-war Germany. Originally named MS Elbe Trader , she was a modest freighter—250 feet long, designed to haul timber and coal. In 1949, she was purchased by a shadowy French-Italian consortium and rechristened the Michelle , reportedly after the owner’s daughter. MacTavish circled the ship for twenty minutes