The loss of the SS Waratah
The liner SS Waratah vanished off South Africa on 27 July 1909, on her way from Australia toward England. A passenger who left at Durban later told of dreams about her loss.
The Guardian records that the Waratah vanished on 27 July 1909 while rounding South Africa, on a voyage between Australia and England that was half done. She had left Adelaide on 7 July and reached Durban on 25 July, where 30 passengers went ashore.
One of them was the businessman Claude Sawyer, who had a ticket to Cape Town. Wikipedia says he stayed in Durban for over a week, then sailed to Cape Town on the Kildonan Castle and cabled his wife that he had thought the Waratah "Top-Heavy". He told a Cape Times reporter he had left the ship because he grew nervous about how she behaved and feared she was unsafe.
On 22 January 1910 the London weekly John Bull published a new version from Sawyer. He said he had left because of dreams in which a spectral figure stood standing in his cabin, a long sword in the left hand and a bloody rag in the other. The Guardian quotes him on a dream of the Waratah among big waves, rolling over onto her starboard side and vanishing. Pauline Conolly's account also says Sawyer's nights on the voyage were disturbed by dreams of a blood-stained figure with a sword.
"Waratah reached Durban at 11:00 AM on 25 July where 30 passengers disembarked. One of these was Claude Gustav Sawyer, a businessman and an experienced sea traveller who was booked through to Cape Town, yet left the ship when she arrived in Port Natal. Popular myth has it that Sawyer raced off the ship, went straight to the telegraph office to cable his wife, then booked the next ship to Cape Town that wasn't Waratah. However, this legend does not align with the facts. In truth, after departing Waratah Sawyer remained in Durban for over a week before continuing on to Cape Town aboard the Union Castle Line ship Kildonan Castle, which departed Durban on 2 August and arrived in Table Bay on 4 August. It was only upon Sawyer's arrival in Cape Town that he sent his now famous telegram to his wife Emily which read, "Booked Cape Town, Thought Waratah Top-Heavy, Landed Durban, Claude." He then remained in Cape Town for almost two weeks before finally boarding the Union Castle steamer Galician on 16 August for his return trip to London. While awaiting his return to London, Sawyer gave an interview to a Cape Times reporter in which he stated that he disembarked from Waratah early in Durban because he had become nervous about the liner's behaviour and feared she was not seaworthy.[20] Four months later Claude Sawyer's story would take a dramatic and eerie turn. In an article dated 22 January 1910 which appeared in the London weekly tabloid John Bull, Sawyer now claimed he left Waratah pre-emptively due to a series of dreams or visions in which a spectral figure appeared in his cabin holding a long sword in his left hand and a blood-soaked rag in the other."
- Waratah: the search for the ship that vanished, The Guardian (2004)
- SS Waratah: Australia's Titanic, Pauline Conolly (author)