{"id":162,"date":"2026-10-28T17:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T01:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/?p=162"},"modified":"2026-11-01T17:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T01:34:12","slug":"hopestar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/?p=162","title":{"rendered":"Hopestar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On November 2, 1948, the cargo steamship <em>Hopestar<\/em> left the Tyne in ballast for Philadelphia to load a cargo of grain for delivery to Alexandria, Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It would prove to be her last voyage. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/lostships.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/HOPESTAR.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-164\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.8750250832764779;width:406px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lostships.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/HOPESTAR.jpg 750w, https:\/\/lostships.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/HOPESTAR-300x160.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hopestar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was about 900 miles east of New York on November 14 when she radioed the company&#8217;s agents in Philadelphia stating that she had sustained damage to her deep tank owing to heavy weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The message from the <em>Hopestar<\/em>&#8216;s Master, Capt. F. H. Dufton, said the <em>Hopestar<\/em> would make an emergency stop at Cape Henlopen, Delaware., and was expected to arrive there by 10:30 p m. on November 17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was the last message ever received from the ship and her crew of 40 men. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A massive search covering 10,000 square miles of ocean was conducted by the RAF, RCAF, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Air Force aircraft. A number of ships braved heavy seas to add to the effort but none reported sighting her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The search for the <em>Hopestar<\/em> was abandoned on November 27 and on December 31, the last day of the year, she was posted missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 5,627-ton, turbine-engined ship was built in 1936 at the Tyneside shipyard of Swan, Hunter &amp; Wigham Richardson. Reportedly, only a simple ceremony was held at her launching because of the death of King George VI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <em>Hopestar<\/em> sailed through the war unscathed and, in addition to her ordinary cargo-carrying duties, she served as a weather reporting ship, sending news to the air ministry in London on her trips across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Capt. Dufton, 28, was one of the youngest ship captains in the British Merchant Navy and, just 10 months previous, had served as the <em>Hopestar<\/em>&#8216;s First Mate. &nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A young captain and his 40-man crew were lost when their freighter, the 5,627-ton Hopestar, foundered in a severe storm in the Mid-Atlantic on November 14, 1948. U.S., Canadian and British aircraft and numerous ships conducted a two-week search that covered 10,000 square miles but no trace of the Hopestar or her crew was ever found.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}