MV Derbyshire was a British ore-bulk-oil combination carrier built in 1976 by Swan Hunter, as the last in the series of the sextet. She was registered at Liverpool and owned by Bibby Line. Derbyshire was lost on 9 September 1980 during Typhoon Orchid, south of Japan. All 42 crew members and two of their wives were killed in the sinking. At 91,655 gross register tons, she is the largest British ship ever to have been lost at sea. History MV Derbyshire was launched in late 1975 and entered service in June 1976, as the last ship of the Bridge-class combination carrier, originally named Liverpool Bridge. She and English Bridge (later Worcestershire and Kowloon Bridge) were built by the Seabridge Shipping Ltd. consortium for Bibby Line. The ship was laid up for two of its four years of service life. In 1978, Liverpool Bridge was renamed Derbyshire, the fourth ship to carry the name in the company's fleet. On 11 July 1980, on what turned out to be the ship's final voyage, Derbyshire left Sept-Îles, Quebec, Canada, her destination being Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, though she foundered near Okinawa, in southern Japan. Derbyshire was carrying a cargo of 157,446 tonnes of iron ore. On 9 September 1980, Derbyshire hove-to in Typhoon Orchid, some from Okinawa, and was overwhelmed by the tropical storm, killing all aboard. She never issued a mayday distress message. The ship had been following weather routing advice by Ocean Routes, a commercial weather routing company. The search for Derbyshire began on 15 September 1980 and was called off six days later. When no trace of the vessel was found, it was declared lost. Six weeks after Derbyshire sank, one of the vessel's lifeboats was sighted by a Japanese tanker. Derbyshires sister ship Kowloon Bridge was lost off the coast of Ireland in 1986, following the observation of deck cracking, first discovered after an Atlantic crossing. In the wake of this second disaster, Nautilus International, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and the International Transport Workers' Federation funded a new investigation, sought by relatives of the Derbyshire victims. Further investigation In 1994, a deep-water search began. In June 1994, the wreck of Derbyshire was found at a depth of , spread over . A subsequent expedition spent over 40 days photographing and examining the debris field, looking for evidence of what sank the ship. Ultimately, it