Study on the sinking of the "Melanie Schulte"

The freighter "Melanie Schulte" in 1952. Photo: Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum Emden

The last known position of the “Melanie Schulte” is in the North Atlantic, west of Scotland. The ship made its last radio call there on December 21, 1952. Then it sank. This was confirmed by pieces of wreckage that washed ashore in Scotland a month later. They showed that the material was partially broken. But why did a ship 136 meters long and 18 meters wide break apart? Assumptions were made in the course of an investigation report and court proceedings: Errors in the ship's design, incorrect navigation, unevenly distributed cargo, excessive sea state. But the actual cause could never be fully clarified.

Hereon researchers have now attempted to scientifically substantiate some of the assumptions. Dr. Ina Teutsch and Dr. Nikolaus Groll from the Institute of Coastal Systems - Analysis and Modelling have used an existing sea state simulation to do so. Using weather and sea state calculations from December 1952, they were able to estimate how strong the wind and how high the waves were in the North Atlantic at the time of the accident. The result: the sea state was high, but not unusually. The height of the waves is unlikely to have been the sole cause of the sinking. However, the wave length and the direction from which the waves hit the ship could have been more decisive.

This map shows Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, as well as the location of the rocky island of Rockall. It shows the last known position of the “Melanie Schulte”, from which the last report was made by radio at 12 noon on December 21, 1952. The two possible routes that the ship may have taken on its journey from Narvik (Norway) to Mobile (Alabama, USA) are also outlined. Graphic: Hereon/Ina Teutsch/Nikolaus Groll. Source: German Weather Service

The results of the study confirm assumptions that had previously been made about the sinking of the “Melanie Schulte”, but could never be fully proven. In 1953, for example, experts drew similar conclusions to Groll and Teutsch. However, at the time they did not have the means to calculate their assumptions using complex sea simulations. “We have now been able to substantiate the findings empirically,” says Groll. For him and his colleague, however, the study means even more: “We usually use the data set we used for this study to investigate how the sea state climate develops. But this study has shown that the data and models can be used for much more.”

Backround of the study

Radio station at the "Melanie Schulte". Photo: Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum Emden

The study “Sea state observation of the sinking of the MS ‘Melanie Schulte’ in 1952” was carried out on the initiative of the Ostfriesisches Landesmuseum in Emden. The museum had dedicated a special exhibition to the freighter. Teutsch and Groll provided scientific content for this exhibition. The “Melanie Schulte” was a general cargo freighter owned by the Emden shipping company Schulte & Bruns and the Hamburg trading company Toepfer. The ship sank just a few weeks after being put into service. The sinking is considered one of the worst shipping disasters in German trading history after the Second World War.