Guiding Star. Wooden ship, 2013 tons. Built at Nova Scotia, 1852. Lbd 233 x 38 x 22.1 ft. Completed her first round trip to Melbourne in 1854. Left again for Melbourne on 9 January 1855 carrying 480 passengers and crew (some references say 546) and completely vanished without trace. That year vast icefields were sighted moving north into the Indian Ocean, and when the Guiding Star vanished it was believed she had hit an iceberg.
“She was last seen in the Southern Ocean by the American Ship MERCURY, on 12th February 1855. On 19th February, large icebergs were seen and narrowly avoided by the ship GEORGE MARSHALL, on the same route of GUIDING STAR, which at that time was about 36 hours behind the George Marshall.
Ever since never was heard of the Guiding star. It is thought that she was embayed in a huge icefield that had boundaries extending from 44°S-28°W to 40°S-20°W.
Many emigrant ships, including the GUIDING STAR promised a fast passage and they did that by going as far as possible South to catch up with favourable winds towards Australia.
From calculations, GUIDING STAR is assumed to have foundered in the night of 20th/21st February.”
Hey, nice find! And I was in the ballpark of the age, if this is indeed that ship!
OK Mr. Expert Researcher. ;-) Here is another one for you. If you read the comments to the article there was one that pointed out some of the passengers owned 80% of a new computer part patent. They asked “who owns the other 20%?”
Of course heirs would own the other 80%, but might be induced to sell out cheap, or there could have been a significant change in share price of a company that owned the patent, or something similar.