George A. Lawry

George A. Lawry, December 17, 1913.

The schooner George A. Lawry was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of six. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

On December 17, 1913, it was reported that "several days ago" the battleship USS Vermont had one of her propeller shafts broken and the other cracked by a "heavy storm." As the battleship USS Delaware was towing her to Hampton Roads, that storm must have been in the Atlantic. (In fact, the battleships were on their way back across the Atlantic from the Mediterranean.) "The storm had abated when the dispatch was sent [December 17, the day the George A. Lawry was lost], and there was a fresh northwest breeze and a moderate sea." ("Tug to Meet the Vermont," The New York Times, December 18, 1913.)

Again, Berlitz gives us very little information. We don't know whether December 17 is the date the George A. Lawry was reported missing or the date she sailed, whether she hit or missed that storm. Anyway, knowing that there was a storm in the Atlantic makes the whole affair look a lot less mysterious.

Update: According to Singer, December 17 was the day the George A. Lawry left Jacksonville, bound for New York. That would mean she ran into the abated or abating storm. Now we'd have to know whether abated means the storm had blown over or whether it just had abated at the position of the battleships but had moved to the position of the George A. Lawry. At 108 tons, she wasn't exactly an ocean liner, either. (Singer, p. 227.)