Everyone has heard of a ship called the "Flying Dutchman" - this is the most famous ghost ship in the world. However, he is far from the only one. The ghost of a ship that once sunk is a fairly popular topic, so there is a wide variety of stories about such phenomena. Now you will learn the most famous of them.
"El Caleuche"
The El Caleuche is a ghost ship that, according to legend, sails in the waters off the coast of Chile. This ghost always swims exclusively at night and always appears suddenly from fog or mist over water. The ship guards the waters on which it sails, and also punishes those who harm the ocean, as well as the creatures that live in it. It is said that its crew consists of sailors who died in a shipwreck, as well as witches. The witches leave the ship on huge seahorses. But at the same time, it is worth noting that both sailors and witches make up a cheerful and happy team, since during calm and quiet nights, music and loud laughter come from this ship.
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror
On May 19, 1845, two bombardment ships left England for the Canadian Arctic. Their goal was extremely difficult - to sail through the dangerous waters of the Northwest Strait, which separates the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Under the direction of Sir John Franklin, the ships were to collect specimens and conduct scientific research along the way. However, none of the 134 people on board the two ships returned. Later, both ships were discovered near the island of King William - there they were stuck in the ice. Based on the logbook entries, Franklin died on June 11, 1847, and the ships were abandoned by their crews on April 22, 1848. The survivors tried to get over the ice and get to the continent, and more specifically, to Canada. Recently, the wreck of the wreck of HMS Erebus was discovered during an expedition through the Victoria Strait.
"Copenhagen"
On December 14, 1928, the Danish sailing ship Copenhagen, participating in the East Asia Campaign, left the Rio de la Plata, the area between Uruguay and Argentina, to go to Australia. It was notable for having five masts at once. She was a good ship, equipped with a radio transmitter, an auxiliary engine, and wide, roomy boats. It was a training ship, it had a crew of 60 people, most of whom were cadets. Some of them belonged to famous and wealthy Danish families. On December 21, the ship got in touch with the Norwegian steamer "William Bloomer" via radio, but after that no one else heard a word from him. After the disappearance of the Copenhagen, the most incredible theories immediately began to appear, but most likely the ship simply ran into an iceberg in the dark or fog. In 1930, there were reports that the ghost of a five-masted ship was seen on the water, and in 2012, the wreckage of a ship that could supposedly be Copenhagen was found on the island of Tristan da Cunha.
"Eurydice"
In 1878, the Navy training ship Eurydice disappeared while sailing near the Isle of Wight. A sudden snow storm sank the ship, taking 364 crew members with it, although the day was initially incredibly calm, nothing foreshadowed any weather changes. The storm hit so suddenly that the crew didn't even have time to react. "Eurydice" with raised sails, the wind carried in an unknown direction until the ship disappeared from sight. Ultimately, only two people survived, the ship was refloated, on which it landed, but was so damaged that it was decided to dismantle it for scrap. Since then, there have been constant rumors that a ghost is floating in the area where the Eurydice ran aground. Many people who happened to be near the Isle of Wight reported seeing a ghost ship there.
"Mary Celeste"
On December 4, 1872, the British brigantine Dei Gratia discovered the ship "Maria Celeste" near the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was abandoned, not a single person was found on it. Later it became known that there were ten people on board the ship, and none of them was ever found. One lifeboat was missing, but there was not a single entry in the logbook as to why the crew could have abandoned the ship. There were 1,700 barrels of alcohol on board, some of which were open. The ship was slightly damaged, slightly flooded, but was afloat. When the damage was repaired, the British authorities launched an investigation into what happened on the ship, but they could not give a clear answer. Various ideas have been put forward. For example, the possibility that the leaking barrels of alcohol could cause fears that the ship would catch fire. Therefore, Captain Benjamin Briggs could order the entire crew to leave the ship. It has also been hypothesized that Briggs might have thought that the damage to the ship was significantly worse than it actually was, which was the reason for the evacuation. Other ideas include sea monsters, pirates, and even rebellion.
"Flying Dutchman"
The most famous ghost ship is the Flying Dutchman, which terrorizes the Cape of Good Hope near South Africa. By the way, the term "Flying Dutchman" does not refer to the ship itself, as many believe, but to its captain. There are several versions of the story, but the most famous of them is the one in which the captain of the ship, Hendrik van der Decken, who lived in the 17th century and served in the Dutch East India Company, got on his ship in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. He vowed that despite all that the Lord brought down on him, he would deliver his ship to its destination. However, this was not destined to come true - the ship ran into a rock and sank along with the entire crew. As punishment for this, the captain and his ghostly crew must now constantly sail the waters of the Cape of Good Hope, waiting for forgiveness that may never come. The ship is not allowed into any of the ports, so it is forced to always be on the move, plow the expanses of the ocean, waiting for the expiration of their curse, and they can safely move to another world.
A strange thing: in the middle of the sea to meet a drifting ship with no signs of life on board. Empty. There is not anyone. Silence. And he sways on the waves - calmly, calmly, as if it were necessary, as if he did not need anyone else. It was as if he had already swum enough with these "conquerors of the seas", and he was so tired of them that he was only glad to part with them on occasion ... Terribly.
Sailors say that in the ocean - especially in the Atlantic - this happens often: empty fishing boats, small yachts, sometimes even liners come across - "", for example, is still looking for a last shelter. In most cases, by the appearance of the vessel, it is immediately clear what happened to it, and the main cause of maritime disasters, of course, will always be nature - the storm is not easy to defeat even for experienced sailors. But sometimes the disappearance of the crew is simply impossible to explain.
Imagine: a perfect whole, undamaged boat, her engines and generators are working, the radio and all emergency systems are in order, there is untouched food and a working laptop on the dining table, as if the crew hid from you somewhere in the hold a minute ago, but you they searched everything and did not find a single soul on board. You might think that this is just another marine tale, but in fact this is an excerpt from a police report about the disappearance of three members of the crew of the KZ-II catamaran yacht in April 2007.
Do you think we've got you intrigued now? In this material, we have collected the most famous and mysterious stories about ships that were found at sea at different times under the most mystical circumstances: without a crew on board or with dead sailors who died for an unknown reason, or as ghosts, reminiscent of the tragic events of the past.
M. V. Joyita, 1955
It was a luxury yacht built in 1931 in Los Angeles for film director Roland West. During World War II, MV Joyita was outfitted and operated as a patrol boat off the coast of Hawaii until the end of the war.
October 3, 1955 MV Joyita set sail from Samoa to the island of Tokelau - a distance of approximately 270 nautical miles. Just before the trip, she discovered a clutch malfunction on the main engine, which they could not fix on the spot, and the yacht went to sea under sail and with one auxiliary engine. There were 25 souls on board, including a government official, two children and a surgeon who was supposed to perform an operation in Tokelau.
The trip was supposed to take no more than 2 days, but MV Joyita did not arrive at the port of destination. The ship did not give any distress signals, even though its course ran along a fairly busy route, which is often ply by Coast Guard ships and which is well covered by relay stations. The search for the yacht was carried out on the territory of 100,000 square meters. miles by aviation forces, but MV Joyita could not be found.
Only five weeks later, on November 10, 1955, the ship was found. It drifted 600 miles from its planned route half submerged. 4 tons of cargo, crew and passengers were absent. The VHF radio was tuned to the international distress frequency. One auxiliary engine and bilge pump were still running, and the lights in the cabins were on. All clocks on board stopped at 10:25. The doctor's bag was found with four bloody bandages. The logbook, sextant and chronometer were missing, along with three life rafts.
The search team carefully examined the ship for damage to the hull, but did not find any. The fate of the crew and passengers could not be determined. Intriguing was the fact that the MV Joyita, with cork wood interiors, was virtually unsinkable, and the crew knew this very well. The missing cargo also remained a mystery.
Theories have been put forward in a variety of ways, ranging from the most bizarre, like the Japanese Navy, which still did not stop fighting after the end of World War II, located on some isolated base on one of the islands. Insurance fraud, piracy, rebellion were also considered as versions.
MV Joyita was restored, but, probably confirming her curse, she ran aground several times. In the late 1960s, the ship was sold for scrap.
Ourang Medan (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan), 1947
“Everyone is dead, it will come for me” and “I am dying” were the last two messages received from the crew of the cargo ship Ourang Medan in the Gulf of Malacca in June 1947. They were received along with SOS signals by two ships at once - British and Dutch - which is taken as another confirmation of the veracity of this mystical story.
The first message came in Morse code, the second - by radio. The ship in distress was searched for several hours, and the first to find it was the Briton Silver Star. After unsuccessful attempts to greet Ourang Medan with signal lights and whistles, it was decided to drop off a small team. Rescuers immediately went to the wheelhouse, from where the sounds of a working radio were heard, and found several crew members there.
All of them, including the captain, were dead. More bodies were found on the cargo deck. The Ourang Medan sailors were all allegedly lying in protective postures with horrified expressions on their faces. Many were covered in frost, and along with one of the crew groups, a dead dog was found, frozen stiff like a statue on all fours, snarling at someone into the void.
Suddenly, somewhere in the depths of the cargo deck, an explosion sounded, a fire started. Rescuers did not fight the fire and hurried to leave the vessel full of the dead. Over the next hour, Ourang Medan sounded a few more explosions, and it sank.
It is quite reasonable to believe that the story of Ourang Medan, if it was a disaster, is mostly fiction. Some argue that such a ship did not exist - at least, the name "Ourang Medan" was not found in the Lloyd's lists. But conspiracy theorists believe that the name of the vessel was fictitious, since the crew was engaged in the transport of smuggling, and the same smuggling - you never know what cargo was on board - caused the tragedy.
Octavius (Octavius), 1762-1775
The English merchant ship Octavius was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A boarding team from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded and found the entire crew dead, frozen. The captain's body was in his cabin, death found him writing something in the logbook, he was still sitting at the table with a pen in his hand. There were three more stiff bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor holding a tinderbox.
The boarding party left Octavius in a hurry, taking only the logbook with them. Unfortunately, the document was so damaged by cold and water that only the first and last pages could be read. The journal ended with an entry in 1762. This meant that the ship had been drifting dead for 13 years.
Octavius left England for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then unknown Northwest Passage, which was first successfully passed only in 1906. The ship was stuck in the Arctic ice, the unprepared crew froze to death - the discovered remains say that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later, Octavius was freed from the ice and drifted on the open sea with a dead crew. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
KZ II, 2007
The crew of the Australian catamaran KZ-II went missing in April 2007 under unclear circumstances. The story received a wide public outcry, as it resembles a similar case with the crew of the brigantine Mary Celeste (Mary Celeste).
On April 15, 2007, KZ-II departed Airlie Beach for Townsville. There were three crew members on board, including the owner. A day later, the yacht stopped communicating, and on April 18 it was accidentally discovered drifting near the Great Barrier Reef. On April 20, a patrol landed on the KZ-II and did not find any of the crew members on board.
At the same time, the ship did not have any damage, except for a torn sail, all systems worked properly, the generator and engine were turned on, and untouched food and a laptop were found on the dining table. The search for sailors continued until April 25, but did not bring any results.
The official version of what happened was a series of events, partially restored from the recordings of a video camera found on board the KZ-II. It is believed that at first one of the sailors dived into the sea for some reason. Perhaps he wanted to free a tangled fishing line. At the same moment, the wind began to carry the yacht to the side, something happened to the first sailor in the water, and the second sailor rushed to help him. The third sailor who remained on board tried to direct the yacht closer to his friends, for which he turned on the engine, but quickly realized that the wind was hindering the movement. He tried to quickly remove the sail and at that moment, for an unknown reason, he himself was overboard. The yacht began to go into the open ocean on its own, and the sailors could no longer catch up with it and eventually drowned.
Young Teazer (Young Teaser), 1813
The privateer schooner Young Teazer was built in early 1813. It was an amazingly fast and promising vessel, which already in the first months of the hunt showed itself quite well on the trading routes off the coast of Halifax. In June 1813 Teazer began to pursue the Scottish brig Sir John Sherbrooke. The schooner was able to escape in the fog, but soon the 74-gun ship of the line HMS La Hogue attacked her trail and drove the Teazer into a trap in Mahone Bay off the Nova Scotia peninsula. At dusk, HMS La Hogue was joined by HMS Orpheus, and they began to prepare for an attack on the privateer, who now had nowhere to go. HMS La Hogue dispatched five boarding parties to Young Teazer, but as they approached, the schooner exploded. The 7 surviving members of the Young Teazer crew subsequently unanimously claimed that it was First Lieutenant Frederick Johnson who detonated the ammunition, thus destroying both the ship and himself, and another 30 crew members, whose unidentified remains lie today in the Anglican cemetery in Mahone Bay.
Shortly after the tragic events, locals began to claim that they saw a flaming Young Teazer rise from the depths. On June 27, 1814, people in Mahone Bay were amazed to see the ghost of a schooner in the same place where she was destroyed. The ghost appeared and then silently disappeared in a flash of flame and smoke. This story spread so quickly across the country that onlookers began to specially flock to Mahone Bay the following June. The Young Teazer is said to have reappeared that time, and has reappeared every year since, and locals still claim that the schooner is periodically visible on foggy nights, especially on the first day after the full moon.
Mary Celeste (Marie Celeste), 1872
This ship can safely claim the title of the biggest maritime mystery of all time. So far, the investigation into the disappearance of his crew has not progressed a single step, and even after 143 years is the topic of much debate.
On November 7, 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste left New York for Genoa with a cargo of alcohol. On the afternoon of December 5, she was discovered 400 miles from Gibraltar without a crew. The ship sailed with raised sails, had no damage and, as it turned out later, even the hold with valuable cargo was not touched.
The brigantine was discovered and identified by Captain Morehouse from another merchant ship sailing in a parallel course. He, as it turned out, knew the owner of the Mary Celeste, Captain Briggs (Briggs), and respected him as a talented sailor - which is why Morehouse was very surprised when he realized that the brigantine he met was absurdly deviating from the known course. Morehouse tried to honk and, having received no answer, began to pursue the brigantine. Two hours later, his team landed on the Mary Celeste.
The ship seemed to have been abandoned with haste. Personal items were not touched, including jewelry, clothes, a supply of food, as well as the entire cargo. The boats were missing, as well as all the papers in the captain's cabin, with the exception of the diary, where the last entry is dated November 25 and reports that Mary Celeste has left the Azores.
There were no signs of violence on board. The only visible damage was copious water marks on the deck, suggesting that the crew abandoned the ship due to inclement weather. However, this contradicted the personality of Captain Briggs, who was characterized by relatives, friends and partners as a skilled and brave sailor who decided to leave the ship only in case of emergency and in case of mortal danger.
Morehouse took control of the brigantine and delivered it to Gibraltar on 13 December. There, a comprehensive survey of the ship was carried out, during which the inspectors found several stains in the captain's cabin that looked like dried blood. We also found several marks on the rails, which could have been left by a blunt object or an ax, but there were no such weapons on board the Mary Celeste at the time of the study. The ship itself was declared undamaged.
The versions of what happened were piracy, insurance fraud, a tsunami, an explosion caused by fumes from the cargo, ergotism from contaminated flour that drove the crew crazy, a mutiny, and several supernatural explanations. There is also a version that the crew of the Mary Celeste reached the coast of Spain, where in 1873 they found several boats from an unknown ship and several unidentified corpses in them.
Over the next 17 years, Mary Celeste passed from one owner to another 17 times, with often, as they say, tragic and fatal cases. The last owner of the brigantine flooded it to set up an insured event.
Lyubov Orlova, 2013
One of the most famous ghost ships of recent years is the Lyubov Orlova liner, which was lost in 2013 while being towed in the Caribbean Sea and has since appeared here and there in the Atlantic.
The liner, named after the famous Soviet actress, was built in 1976 and was part of the fleet of the Far Eastern Shipping Company. In 1999, the ship was sold to a company from Malta and was recruited for regular voyages to the Arctic. In 2010, the ship was arrested for debts and, after two years of inactivity in Canada, was sent by tugboat to the Dominican Republic for scrap. During towing in the Caribbean, there was a severe storm and the towing cables could not stand it. The crew of the tugboat tried to capture the out of control ship, but due to weather conditions, this was not possible - the ship was abandoned in neutral waters.
The search for the ship was unsuccessful. Its automatic identification system, a system that relays the geographical position of ships, was offline, making it impossible to locate. The Canadian authorities announced that since the ship can now only be in neutral waters in any case, Canada no longer bears responsibility for its fate - the search was stopped. It was believed that Lyubov Orlova was lost forever in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Unexpectedly, on February 1, 2013, Lyubov Orlova was spotted drifting 1,700 km off the coast of Ireland. It was discovered by the Canadian oil tanker Atlantic Hawk, which, in order to prevent the now world-famous “ghost ship” from becoming a real danger to nearby oil rigs, towed the ship to neutral waters, where it was forced to leave again. February 4 "Lyubov Orlova" was 463 km from St. John's, Canada. The Canadian authorities again refused to take any measures and the responsibility for the vessel was fully assigned to its owner. A few days later, Lyubov Orlova was again lost.
During the year, the 4,250-ton vessel, whose remains are valued at 34 million rubles, managed to avoid the scrutiny of the owner company's search crews and scrap metal hunters. The popularity of the ghost ship has risen to the appearance on social networks of fake users under the name "Lyubov Orlova" / "Lyubov Orlova" and the site whereisorlova.com, dedicated, however, to other ghost ships. The phrase “Where is Lyubov Orlova?” turned into a meme and, as they say, began to be printed on T-shirts and mugs.
In January 2014, the ghost ship was again seen drifting 2.4 thousand km. off the west coast of Ireland. Experts believed that the ship was moving towards the shores of Great Britain, where it was pushed by recent storms. The British authorities were preparing for a meeting with a celebrity, especially fearing that the drifting ship could be inhabited by cannibal rats, but Lyubov Orlova disappeared again.
Lady Lovibond (Lady Lovibond), 1748
In the 18th century, sailors firmly believed in omens, and quite often their superstitions were fueled by situations that are quite understandable and even prosaic by today's standards. Maybe that's why the "edifying" story of the sailing ship Lady Lovibond made it so popular, and the legend so long-playing.
On February 13, 1748, newly married Simon Reed and Annette set off on their honeymoon from Britain to Portugal on Reed's ship, the Lady Lovibond. Even before going to sea, John Rivers, Reed's first mate, fell in love with the captain's wife and was now going crazy with love and jealousy. Reeves began to have uncontrollable fits of anger, one day he broke into the helmsman and, having lost his temper, killed him. Rivers then took control of the ship and steered it to the Goodwin Sands, the infamous shoal in the English Channel. The ship was wrecked, no one escaped.
In 1848, a hundred years after the tragic events described, local fishermen saw a sailboat crashed on the Goodwin Sands. Rescue boats were sent to the crash site, but no vessel was found. In 1948, after another hundred years, the ghost of Lady Lovibond was again seen on the Goodwin Sands by Captain Bull Prestwick and was described by him exactly like the original ship of 1748, albeit with an eerie greenish glow. The next appearance of the ghost ship is expected in 2048. Let's wait.
Eliza Battle, 1858
Built in 1852 in Indiana, the Eliza Battle was a luxurious wooden steamer for the entertainment of presidents and VIPs. On a cold night in February 1858, a fire broke out on the main deck of the steamer on the Tombigbee River, strong winds helped the fire spread throughout the ship. About 100 people were on board that flight, of which 26 people could not escape. Today, locals say that during the spring floods, during the big moon period, Eliza Battle reappears on the Tombigbee River. She floats upstream with music and lights on the main deck. Sometimes they see only the silhouette of the ship. Fishermen believe that the appearance of Eliza Battle promises disaster to other ships that still sail this river.
Carrol A. Deering (Carroll A. Deering), 1921
The five-masted cargo schooner Carrol A Deering was built in 1911 and named after the owner's son. On December 2, 1920, she set sail from Rio de Janeiro to Norfolk, USA, two months later she was found stranded and abandoned by the crew.
The investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the Carrol A Deering crew, which was conducted under the supervision of US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, made it possible to partially restore the chain of events preceding the disappearance of the schooner and collect eyewitness accounts.
So, it was established that in early January 1921, on the way to the USA, Carrol A Deering made an intermediate stop on the island of Barbados, where a quarrel occurred between Captain Wormell and First Officer McLellan, and the latter threatened to kill the captain. After a quarrel, McLellan looked for work on other ships, claiming that the Carrol A Deering crew did not follow orders, and Captain Wormell did not allow him to punish the sailors. Hiring McLellan was turned down. The next few days in Barbados, he was often seen drunk with the Carrol A Deering team, for brawl McLellan even landed in prison, from where he was rescued by Captain Wormell. On January 9, 1921, the schooner went to sea, and what happened to her next is still a mystery.
January 16, 1921 Carrol A Deering was seen off the Bahamas. She sailed with one sail, despite favorable weather conditions, and performed strange maneuvers, periodically laying back on her course. On January 18, she was spotted at Cape Canaveral, on January 23 - at the Cape Fear lighthouse. On January 25, in the same area, the cargo steamer SS Hewitt, which followed the same course as Carrol A Deering, disappeared without a trace - this circumstance also got into the Carrol A Deering materials, but there was no direct connection between the incidents.
On January 29, the schooner in full sail passed the lighthouse of Cape Lookout. The lighthouse keeper even took a photo of her. According to him, a red-haired sailor on board Carrol A Deering shouted over the loudspeaker that the schooner had lost its anchors during a storm, and asked to convey a message to the ship's owners. The caretaker was unable to transmit the message due to the fact that the radio was broken at the lighthouse. Later, he noted that he was surprised that the crew of the schooner crowded on the quarter quarters, where only the captain and his assistants have the right to be, and even a simple sailor spoke to him from the ship, and not the captain or assistant.
On January 30, the schooner was seen sailing under full sail off Cape Hatteras, and on January 31, the US Coast Guard reported a five-masted sailboat that had run aground in the same area. His sails were raised, the boats were gone. Due to stormy weather, Carrol A Deering was only able to get on February 4 - no people were found on board. There were no personal belongings, documents, including the logbook, navigational equipment and anchors. Three pairs of shoes of different sizes were found in the captain's cabin. The last mark on the found map was dated January 23, and it was not made in the handwriting of Captain Warmell.
In 1922, the Carrol A Deering investigation was closed without any official conclusion. The schooner, which was slowly collapsing aground and could pose a danger to navigation, was blown up. Its skeleton remained in the same place for a long time, until it was finally destroyed by a hurricane in 1955.
Baychimo (Baychimo), 1931
Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After the First World War, it passed to Great Britain and for the next fourteen years it regularly served on routes along the Northwest coast of Canada, transporting furs. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles from the coast near the city of Barrow, the ship got stuck in the ice. The team temporarily left the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later, the weather cleared up, the sailors returned on board and continued sailing, but already on October 15, Baychimo again fell into an ice trap.
This time it was impossible to get to the nearest city - the crew had to arrange a temporary shelter on the shore, far from the ship, and here they were forced to spend a whole month. In mid-November, a snowstorm broke out that lasted several days. And when the weather cleared up on November 24, Baychimo was not in the same place. The sailors thought the ship was lost in a storm, but a few days later a local seal hunter reported seeing Baychimo about 45 miles from their camp. The team found the ship, removed the precious cargo from it and left it forever.
The story of Baychimo did not end there. For the next 40 years, he was occasionally seen drifting along the northern coast of Canada. Attempts were made to get on board the ship, some were quite successful, but due to weather conditions and the poor condition of the hull, the ship was abandoned again. The last time Baychimo was in 1969, that is, 38 years after the crew left it - at that time the frozen ship was part of the ice massif. In 2006, the government of Alaska attempted to locate the Arctic Ghost Ship, but all attempts to locate the ship were unsuccessful. Where the Baychimo is now - whether it lies at the bottom or is unrecognizably overgrown with ice - remains a mystery.
Flying Dutchman (Flying Dutchman), 1700s
This is probably the most famous ghost ship in the world, the popularity of which was added by the Pirates of the Caribbean, and even the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, where one of the characters was called Frying Dutchman - the Frying Dutchman.
There are many legends associated with this ship, forever roaming the oceans, and the main one concerns the Dutch captain Philip van der Decken (sometimes called Van Straaten), who returned from the East Indies in the 1700s and carried a young couple on board . The captain liked the girl so much that he faked the death of her betrothed and proposed to her. The girl refused Van der Decken and threw herself overboard in grief.
Immediately after that, at the Cape of Good Hope, the ship got into a storm. The superstitious sailors began to murmur. In an attempt to prevent the rebellion, the navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain, desperate and drinking after the suicide of his beloved, shot him and several other dissatisfied. One of the popular versions of the legend says that after the murder of the navigator Van der Decken, he swore by the bones of his mother that no one would go ashore until the ship passed the cape; he brought a curse and is now doomed to eternal sailing.
Usually people watch the "Flying Dutchman" in the sea from afar. According to legend, if you get close to it, the team will try to send a message to the shore to people who have long been dead. It is also believed that meeting with the "Dutchman" promises illness and even death. The latter is explained by yellow fever, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that breed in containers with food water. Such a disease can destroy the entire crew, and a meeting with such an infected ship could really be fatal: mosquitoes attacked living sailors and infected them.
The Bermuda Triangle - an area in the Atlantic Ocean bounded by Florida and Bermuda, Puerto Rico and the Bahamas - is famous for the mysterious, mystical disappearances of ships and aircraft. For many years, he has been bringing real horror to the population of the globe - after all, stories about inexplicable disasters and ghost ships are on everyone's lips.
Numerous researchers are trying to explain the anomaly of the Bermuda Triangle. Basically, these are theories of ship abductions by aliens from outer space or residents of Atlantis, moving through holes in time or rifts in space, and other paranormal causes. None of these hypotheses has yet been confirmed.
Opponents of the "otherworldly" versions argue that reports of mysterious events in the Bermuda Triangle are greatly exaggerated. Ships and aircraft also disappear in other parts of the world, sometimes without a trace. A radio malfunction or the suddenness of a disaster can prevent the crew from transmitting a distress call.
In addition, searching for debris at sea is a very difficult task. Also, the area of the Bermuda Triangle is very difficult to navigate: there are a large number of shoals, cyclones and storms often arise.
A hypothesis has been proposed to explain the sudden death of ships and aircraft by gas emissions - for example, as a result of the decay of methane hydrate on the seabed, when the density is lowered so much that the ships cannot stay afloat. Some speculate that once airborne, the methane could also cause plane crashes, for example, by lowering the density of the air.
It has been suggested that the cause of the death of some ships, including those in the Bermuda Triangle, may be the so-called wandering waves, which can reach a height of 30 meters. It is also assumed that infrasound can be generated at sea, which affects the crew of a ship or aircraft, causing panic, as a result of which people leave the ship.
Consider the natural features of this region - really extremely interesting and unusual.
The area of the Bermuda Triangle is just over a million square kilometers. There are huge shallow waters and deep-water depressions, a shelf with shallow banks, a continental slope, marginal and median plateaus, deep straits, abyssal plains, deep-sea trenches, a complex system of sea currents and intricate atmospheric circulation.
The Bermuda Triangle has several seamounts and hills. The mountains are covered with powerful coral reefs. Some seamounts rise to the bottom of the ocean alone, others form groups. In the Atlantic Ocean, by the way, they are much smaller than in the Pacific.
Here is the Puerto Rico Trench - the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. Its depth is 8742 meters.
Under the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle are mainly sedimentary rocks - limestone, sandstone, clay. The thickness of their layer ranges from 1-2 to 5-6 kilometers.
The smaller (southern) part of the triangle belongs to the tropical seas, the larger (northern) - to the subtropical. The water temperature on the surface here ranges from 22 to 26 ° C, but in shallow water, as well as
in bays and lagoons it can be much higher. The salinity of the waters is only slightly above average - except, again, shallow waters, bays and lagoons, where salinity can increase. The waters here are noticeably warmer than in other parts of the ocean at the same geographical latitudes, since it is here that the warm Gulf Stream flows.
The current in the Bermuda Triangle is fast, impeding or slowing down the movement of ships sailing against it; it pulsates, changes speed and location, and changes are absolutely impossible to predict; it creates weather-affecting irregular eddies, some of which are quite powerful. Fog is frequent on the border of its warm waters with colder surrounding waters.
Trade winds blow over the triangle - constant winds blowing in the Northern Hemisphere in a southwesterly direction, at an altitude of up to 3 kilometers. At high altitudes, antitrade winds blow in the opposite direction.
In the southern part of the triangle, roughly between Florida and the Bahamas, there are approximately 60 storm days a year. In fact, every fifth or sixth day there is a storm. If you move north, towards Bermuda, then the number of stormy days per year increases, that is, a storm occurs every fourth day. Destructive cyclones, hurricanes, and tornadoes are very frequent.
All this contributes to the disappearance of many ships and aircraft in the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe the reason is not so mystical? But this cannot be said with certainty, since there are a lot of unexplained mysteries.
A LOT of ships and even planes disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, although the weather is almost always fine at the time of the disaster. Vessels and planes die suddenly, crews do not report problems, they do not send distress signals. The wreckage of aircraft and ships is usually not found, although the search is intensive, with the involvement of all relevant services.
Often, the Bermuda Triangle is credited with disasters that actually happened far beyond its borders. We have selected the most famous confirmed victims of the Bermuda Triangle among the ships.
"Rosalie"
In August 1840, near the capital of the Bahamas, Nassau, the French ship Rosalie was discovered, drifting with sails raised without a crew. The ship had no damage and was quite seaworthy. Everything looked as if the team had left the Rosalie a few hours ago.
Atalanta
On January 31, 1880, the British sailing training ship Atalanta departed Bermuda with 290 officers and cadets on board. On the way to England, it disappeared without leaving a trace. 
Atalanta
This case was in the center of public attention, The Times wrote about it daily, and even many months after the disappearance of the sailboat.
The Times (London), April 20, 1880, p. 12: The gunboat Avon arrived in Portsmouth yesterday. The captain reported that near the Azores he noticed a huge amount of floating debris ... The sea was literally teeming with them. The harbor of Faial Island was filled with ships that had lost their masts. And during all five days, while the Avon remained in the roadstead of Fayala, the wreckage became more and more.
However, there was no evidence that any ship sank or was wrecked by a storm ... Some Avon officers believe that the Atalanta may have hit an iceberg, but they categorically deny that the ship could capsize.
Lawrence D. Kusche published in his book excerpts from newspaper articles, official reports from the British Admiralty, and even the testimonies of two sailors, according to which the Atalanta was a very unstable ship and, with its 109 tons of water and 43 tons of ballast on board, could easily capsize and drown even during a mild storm.
It was rumored that there were only two more or less experienced officers in the crew, who were forced to stay in Barbados because they fell ill with yellow fever. Consequently, 288 inexperienced sailors sailed on the ship.
An analysis of meteorological data has confirmed that strong storms have been raging in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and Europe since early February. It is possible that the ship died somewhere very far from the Bermuda Triangle, since out of the 3,000 miles of travel that awaited it, only 500 passed through the “triangle”. And yet, Atalanta is considered one of the confirmed victims of the "triangle".
Unknown abandoned schooner
In 1881, the English ship "Ellen Austin" met an abandoned schooner in the open ocean, which completely preserved its seaworthiness and was only slightly damaged. Several sailors got on the schooner, and both ships headed for St. John's, located on the island of Newfoundland.
Soon the fog descended, and the ships lost sight of each other. A few days later they met again, and again there was not a single living soul on the schooner. The captain of the Ellen Austin wanted to land another small rescue crew on the schooner, but the sailors categorically refused, claiming that the schooner was cursed.
This story has two sequels with different versions. In the first version, the captain of the Ellen Austin tried to transfer another rescue crew to the schooner, but the sailors did not want to take any more risks, and the schooner was left in the ocean.
According to another version, the second rescue crew was nevertheless transferred to the schooner, but then a squall hit, the ships dispersed a considerable distance from each other, and no one has ever seen either the schooner or its second crew.
Joshua Slocum and his yacht
Joshua Slocum, who was the first in the history of mankind to sail alone around the globe, disappeared without a trace in November 1909, making a relatively short transition from the island of Martha's Vineyard to the shores of South America - through the Bermuda Triangle.
Sailing yacht "Spray" 
On November 14, 1909, he sailed away from Martha's Vineyard, and there has been no news of him since that day. To those who knew Captain Slocum, he was too good a sailor, and the Spray too good a boat, for them to fail any of the usual difficulties the ocean might bring.
No one knows for sure what happened to him, although there was no shortage of guesses and versions. There are "reliable" testimonies of some sailors who, even after the fateful date, saw Slocum alive and unharmed in various ports of the world.
Over the years, many hypotheses have been proposed to explain its disappearance. In the end, a hurricane of such force could fly in that it sank his yacht. "Spray" could burn out. He could go to the bottom, colliding with some ship at night.
In coastal waters, the collision of a small boat with a large ship is not so uncommon. The lights on a sailboat tend to be quite dim, sometimes obscured by her own sails. A large vessel could easily smash a 37-foot floor into chips, and no one would even feel the jolt.
Edward Rowe Snow, in his book Mysterious Events off the Coast of New England, assures that a mail steamer with a displacement of about 500 tons ran into the yacht. Slocum's "case" was even dealt with by the court, which examined a variety of testimonies. According to the testimony of the son of Victor Slocum, his father was in brilliant shape, and the yacht was practically unsinkable.
It has even been suggested, unreservedly accepted by some "experts," that Joshua Slocum was not happily married and therefore staged a disaster in order to hide and spend the rest of his days in seclusion.
March 1918 "Cyclops"
On March 4, 1918, the cargo ship "Cyclops" with a displacement of 19,600 tons departed from the island of Barbados, carrying 309 people and a cargo of manganese ore. The vessel was 180 meters long and was one of the largest in the US Navy.
Cyclops on the Hudson River, 1911 
It was bound for Baltimore but never arrived. It never sent an SOS signal and left no trace. At first it was thought that the ship might have been torpedoed by a German U-boat, but no German U-boats were present at the time. According to another version, the ship ran into a mine. However, there were no minefields either.
The US Department of the Navy, after a thorough investigation, issued a statement: “The disappearance of the Cyclops is one of the largest and most intractable cases in the annals of the Navy. Even the place of the disaster has not been precisely established, the causes of the misfortune are unknown, not the slightest trace of the ship has been found.
None of the proposed versions of the catastrophe gives a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances under which it disappeared. President Woodrow Wilson said that "only God and the sea know what happened to the ship." And one magazine wrote an article about how a huge squid emerged from the sea waters and dragged the ship into the depths of the sea.
In 1968, Navy diver Dean Hayves, who was part of a team searching for the missing nuclear submarine Scorpion, discovered a shipwreck at a depth of 60 meters, 100 kilometers east of Norfolk. Later, looking at the photograph of the Cyclops, he assured that it was this ship that lay at the bottom.
"Cyclops" still appears on the pages of the press and not only as one of the characters in the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle. It was the first large vessel equipped with a radio transmitter to vanish without sending an SOS, and the largest ship in the US Navy to vanish without leaving any trace.
Every year, in March, when the next anniversary of his disappearance is celebrated, articles are again written about this mysterious event, old theories are updated and new theories are put forward, and, probably, the already famous photograph of the Cyclops is published for the hundredth time. His disappearance continues to this day, not without reason, to be called "the most unsolvable mystery in the annals of the navy."
"Carroll A. Dearing"
The five-masted schooner "Carroll A. Dearing" was discovered in January 1921 on the shallows of Diamond Shoals. She had no damage, the sails were raised, there was food on the tables, but there was not a single living soul on board, except for two cats. 
The crew of the "Deering" consisted of 12 people. None of them could be found, and it is still unknown what happened to them. On June 21, 1921, a bottle with a note was caught in the sea, which, presumably, could have been thrown by one of the crew members:
“We are in captivity, we are in the hold and handcuffed. Report this to the company's management as soon as possible."
Passions flared up even more when the captain's wife allegedly recognized the handwriting of the ship's mechanic Henry Bates, and graphologists confirmed the identity of the handwriting on the note and on his papers. But after some time it turned out that the note was forged, and the author himself even admitted this.
The judicial investigation, however, revealed important circumstances: on January 29, the schooner passed the lighthouse at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and gave signals that she was in a dangerous position, as she had lost both ship's anchors.
Then the schooner was seen to the north of the lighthouse from another ship, while she behaved rather strangely. Weather reports for early February contain indications of a severe storm off the coast of North Carolina with winds reaching 130 kilometers per hour.
"Cotopaxi"
On November 29, 1925, the Cotopaxi left Charleston with a cargo of coal and headed for Havana. Passing through the center of the Bermuda Triangle, it disappeared without leaving the slightest trace and without having time to send an SOS signal. Neither the wreckage nor the crew were found.
"Suduffco"
The freighter Suduffco left Port Newark, New Jersey, headed south and disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle without a trace. A spokesman for the company said it was gone, as if swallowed by a giant sea monster.
The ship sailed from Port Newark on March 13, 1926 and headed for the Panama Canal. His port of destination was Los Angeles. It had a crew of 29 and a cargo of about 4,000 tons, including a large batch of steel pipes.
The ship was moving along the coast, but on the second day after sailing, contact was lost with it. The search for the ship continued for a whole month, but not the slightest trace was found. True, meteorological reports and the testimony of the captain of the Aquitaine liner, which was heading the same course towards the Suduffco, confirm that a tropical cyclone passed through this area on March 14-15.
"John and Mary"
In April 1932, 50 miles south of Bermuda, the Greek schooner Embirkos discovered the two-masted John and Mary. The ship was abandoned, its crew mysteriously disappeared.
"Proteus" and "Nereus"
"Proteus" 
At the end of November 1941, the Proteus ship departed the Virgin Islands, and a few weeks later, the Nereus. Both ships were heading for Norfolk, but neither arrived at their destination, both disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The US was preoccupied with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war on Japan, so the disappearance of the ships did not evoke a response. A study of the archives of the German navy after the war showed that the Proteus and Nereus could not have been sunk by submarines.
"Rubicon"
On October 22, 1944, a ship without a crew was discovered off the coast of Florida. The only living creature on board was a dog. The ship was in excellent condition, except for the missing lifeboats and a torn towline that hung from the bow of the ship.
The personal belongings of the crew members also remained on board. The last entry in the ship's log was made on September 26, when the ship was still in the port of Havana. The Rubicon apparently sailed along the coast of Cuba.
"City Bell"
On December 5, 1946, a schooner without a crew was discovered at sea. She followed the course from the capital of the Bahamas Nassau to one of the islands of the archipelago - Grand Turk. Everything was in order on the ship, the lifeboats were in their places, only the crew disappeared without a trace.
"Sandra"
In June 1950, the 120-meter cargo ship "Sandra", loaded with 300 tons of insecticides, left Savannah (Georgia) for Puerto Cabello (Venezuela) and disappeared without a trace. The search operation began only after it was established that he was six days late for the place of arrival.
By the way, an article about this case, written by journalist E. Jones and published on September 16, 1950, aroused great interest in the Bermuda Triangle. Jones noted that the Sandra is not the only ship that has disappeared here. The legend of the deadly triangle began to spread with incredible speed.
"Southern District"
In December 1954, the tank landing ship Southern District, converted into a sulfur cargo ship, disappeared in the Strait of Florida. Distress signals were not recorded either by ships at sea or by coast stations. Only a lifeline was found.
The vessel "Southern District" with a displacement of 3337 tons was sailing from Port Sulfur (Louisiana) with a cargo of sulfur to Bucksport (Maine). The destination was Portland.
The captain got in touch on the 3rd, and then on December 5th, while already off the coast of Florida. Everything was in order on the ship. On December 7, he was seen in storm surges off Charleston.
The commission of inquiry found that the ship apparently sank in a northeasterly wind. In the area dominated by the Gulf Stream, this wind has a bad reputation, because it blows directly against the current, turning the Gulf Stream into a turbulent gurgling current, and even large ships hasten to get out of its way as soon as possible.
"Snow Boy"
In July 1963, a 20-meter fishing boat disappeared while sailing in clear weather from Kingston, Jamaica to the Pedro Keys. There were forty people on the ship, no one else heard anything about them. It was reported that the wreckage of the ship and items belonging to the crew members were found.
"Witchcraft"
The mysterious disappearance happened during the Christmas holidays of 1967. Two people on a small yacht left Miami Beach for a walk along the coast. They say they wanted to admire the festive illumination of the city from the sea.
Soon they reported on the radio that they had hit a reef and damaged the propeller, they were not in danger, but they asked to be towed to the pier, and indicated their coordinates: at buoy No. 7.
The rescue boat arrived at the site 15 minutes later, but did not find anyone. An alarm was announced, but the search did not give any result, no people, no yacht, no wreckage were found - everything disappeared without a trace.
"El Carib"
On October 15, 1971, the captain of the El Carib cargo ship sailing from Colombia to the Dominican Republic announced that they would arrive at their destination port at 7 am the next day. After that, the ship disappeared. It was a rather large cargo ship, the flagship of the Dominican merchant fleet, its length was 113 meters.
The ship was sailing to the port of Santo Domingo with a crew of thirty. It was equipped with an automatic signaling system, which automatically sends a distress signal on the air in the event of an accident. Judging by the latest report, the ship at the time of the disappearance was in the Caribbean Sea, at a considerable distance from Santo Domingo.
The Flying Dutchman - De Vliegende Hollander - is a ghost sailing ship living in legends, which fell under the oath curse of its own captain, which is why the crew has not been able to return home for 300 years, doomed to wander forever among the waves.
Often, sailors see the appearance of the "Flying Dutchman" on the border of the horizon, surrounded by the splendor of a luminous halo - to see a ghost ship is an extremely bad omen.
According to long-established mythology, if the Flying Dutchman meets with another ship, then its timeless crew tries to send a message through the sailors to their loved ones, who, of course, are no longer in the world of the living.
Maritime superstitions recognize that meeting with the "Flying Dutchman" is an extremely dangerous omen.
However, today we will not stir up the well-known legends of the sea, now we will look at the fate of other mysteriously disappeared ships. These will not be stories about the “Flying Dutchman”, or “Mary Celeste” (“Mary Celeste”, Mary Celeste, “Mary of Heaven”) - which was found without a single person on board (and even the remains of people) in December 1872, 400 miles away from Gibraltar.
We probably will never know why people left an absolutely serviceable ship. Now this is a classic example of an unknown marine anomaly, showing a prime example of a live ghost ship.
A lot of no less interesting stories were born about the terrible fate of ships that disappeared in the depths of the sea for no apparent reason. After all, the sea is an element leading its own chronicle of history, building sometimes mysterious zigzags of fate.
Lost Ship Stories: Ghost Ships.
Year 1823. The story of the schooner Jenny tells of a lost ship frozen in ice in the Drake Passage in Antarctica. Seventeen years later, the vanished schooner, already overgrown with legends by this time, was found by a whaling ship.
The whaler's crew even found the remains of the captain, preserved and frozen in the captain's chair with a pen in his hand. The ship's log kept the last words of the captain about the chronology of the disaster: “May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days, I'm the only one left alive."
The bodies of the captain and 6 other crew members were buried at sea. Later, the Admiralty told about the death of the ship. King George Island in Antarctica was named after Captain Jenny in the 1960s. This is somewhat strange, but in relation to the ship there are no tales that could tell about its wanderings in the ocean as a ghost.Year 1909. The Waratah passenger steamer, considered the most powerful ship, on its third voyage between Australia and England made a scheduled stop in Durban, South Africa. Only one passenger disembarked at this port.
Later, he explained his act by the incredibly heavy atmosphere on the ship. He also claimed to have an anomalous vision of “a man with a long sword in strange clothes. The "ghost" held a sword in his hand, and his hand was covered in blood.
Naturally, then no one paid much attention to these words, except that he grinned. Waratah continued on and sailed for Cape Town with 211 passengers and crew on board. The ship was seen twice by other ships in the area, but the ship itself never reached its destination.
A huge disadvantage was that there was no ship's radio on board the Waratah, and a distress call could not be transmitted in the event of a crash. Despite numerous attempts to find the ship (even as recently as 2004), no trace of the ship has ever been found.
At first, experts believed that the cause of the sinking could be the movement of a cargo of lead ore in the hold. But then there would be the wreckage of the ship, or the surviving passengers. But not a single hint of a crash, not a single clue to uncover the mysterious disappearance of the Waratah was found.The only thing that can be said about this disappearance is the occasional sounding beeps from the fog when it forms on the Cape Town roadstead - while the locators show a clear path.
Year 1928. The five-masted Copenhagen barque was used as a naval training ship, and was the world's largest sailing ship of those years. Its shipping history dates back to 1913. On its last voyage, the barque left Buenos Aires for Melbourne, without any cargo on board.
The ship exchanged a “all is well” signal with another ship 8 days after sailing, but after that there was complete silence, the connection was cut off. Two years after the disappearance, a ghostly five-masted ship was seen in the Pacific Ocean, very similar to the missing ship.
Assuming that the ship might still be afloat, a thorough search for the vessel began. Wreckage has even been found with the inscription ‘Köbenhavn’ on the west coast of Australia. And later, in the South Atlantic, fragments of the alleged diary of a sailor (preserved in a bottle) were discovered.
Judging by the record, the ship collided with a large iceberg and sank. No other wreckage of the ship was found. Although in 1935 a boat with human remains was discovered on the coast of South West Africa, which were buried there.
True, they did not fully figure out whether they were related to the missing ship.
It is said that sometimes off the coast of Australia, in Port Phillip Bay, from a foggy haze, a five-match handsome military man looms ... still working out the last task.
Year 1955. Merchant ship Joyita put to sea on a short 48-hour voyage between Samoa and Tokelau. From the point of departure of Samoa, 16 crew members and 9 passengers left on the ship. The cargo on board was medicine, timber, and food.
Alas, the ship never reached its final destination without giving any distress signal. After an unsuccessful search, they were about to give up on the ship, when suddenly Joyita was spotted five weeks later, more than 600 miles deviated from the intended route.Rescuers found a strange picture on board the ship: the radio was tuned to the international distress signal frequency, the ship's engines were working, and among the medical supplies there was a mass of bandages soaked in blood. Worse, more than four tons of cargo was missing, there were no people or their remains on the ship.
Given the missing cargo, most likely the ship was attacked by pirates, one version of the incident suggested. Probably the crew decided to abandon the ship, since all the life rafts were missing. For a long time in the ocean, the ship was able to hold out thanks to the design of the vessel, its hull was equipped with a cork.
Joyita was rescued and sold to new owners, but after that she acquired a sinister reputation as a cursed ship: her new owners went bankrupt or died, went to prison. As a result, the ship was abandoned, and later completely dismantled.
Year 1978. The cargo ship MS München left the port of Bremerhaven in Germany on December 7, 1978, bound for Savannah, Georgia. On board was a cargo of steel products, as well as part of a nuclear reactor for Combustion Engineering, Inc.
For Munich, this was the 62nd transatlantic flight, with an experienced crew on board. The weather in those days was not the most favorable, but the ship, according to its characteristics, was considered unsinkable.On the morning of December 13, a German cruise ship received a radio message from MS München about extremely bad weather conditions and minor damage to the ship. Three hours later, distress calls from Munich were picked up by other ships, reporting significant yaw.
Scattered Morse code signals were recorded in Belgium, Spain, which gave rise to an international search. The search operation lasted until December 20. In the end, several empty lifeboats were found, with signs of serious damage.
The remains of neither the ship nor the people were ever found. One version of the disappearance of the ship suggested that MS München was broken and then sunk by the huge force of the "killer wave".
There are few rumors about the missing ship, but they say: sometimes sailors in these places receive strange radio signals from a ship that does not respond to requests “has gone off course ... dense fog around” ...
Most often, ghost ships are found in the North Atlantic. However, it is impossible to name the exact number of wanderers - it varies from year to year. According to statistics, in some years the number of "Dutchmen" who drift in the North Atlantic reached three hundred. A lot of ghost ships drift in sea areas remote from shipping lanes and rarely visited by merchant ships.
At times, the "Flying Dutchmen" remind of themselves. Either their current takes them to coastal shoals, or they are thrown by the wind onto rocks or underwater reefs. It happens that the "Dutch", which do not carry navigation lights at night, become the cause of collisions with oncoming ships, sometimes with serious consequences.
"Flying Dutchman"
That was the name of the ghost ship, controlled by the dead. It is believed that this is either a ship that was supposed to sink, but for some reason did not sink, or a victim of a giant squid or octopus.
To meet the "Flying Dutchman" at sea is considered a bad omen - such a meeting portends death.
"Marlboro"
1913, October - in one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, a storm brought the schooner "Marlboro". The assistant captain with several members of the crew boarded and were shocked by a terrible sight: the dead bodies of the crew members, dried up like mummies, were scattered all over the sailboat. The masts of the sailboat were completely intact, and the whole schooner was covered with mold. In the hold it was the same: dead crew members everywhere, dried up like mummies.
An incredible fact was established by the investigation: a three-masted sailing ship left the port of Littleton in early January 1890, he was heading for Scotland, his home port of Glasgow, but for unknown reasons never arrived at the port.
But what could happen to the crew of the sailboat? Could it be that the calm had deprived him of the sail of the wind and forced him to drift aimlessly until all the supplies of drinking water were exhausted? How could it happen that a sailboat with a dead crew did not crash on reefs in 24 years of drifting?
"Orung Medan"
1947, June (according to other sources - the beginning of February 1948) - British and Dutch listening stations, as well as two American ships in the Malacca Strait, received a distress signal with the following content: “The captain and all officers lie dead in the cockpit and on the bridge. Maybe the whole team is dead." This message was followed by an illegible Morse code and a short phrase: "I'm dying." No further signals were received, but the place of sending the message was determined by triangulation, and one of the American ships mentioned above was immediately sent to it.
When the ship was discovered, they found out that its entire crew was really dead, including even the dog. No visible injuries were found on the bodies of the dead, although it was obvious from the expression on their faces that they were dying in horror and great agony. The ship itself was also not damaged, but members of the rescue team noted an unusual cold in the depths of the hold. Shortly after the start of the inspection, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold, and the rescuers were forced to hastily return to their ship. Some time after that, the Orung Medan exploded and sank, making further investigation of the incident impossible.
Seabird
On a July morning in 1850, the inhabitants of the village of Eastons Beach on the coast of Rhode Island were surprised to see a sailing ship coming from the sea under full sail to the shore. He stopped in shallow water. People climbing on board found that coffee was boiling on the galley stove, plates were placed on the table in the saloon. But the only living creature on board was a dog trembling with fear, huddled in a corner of one of the cabins. Not a single person was on the ship.
Cargo, navigational instruments, maps, sailing directions and ship's documents, everything was in perfect order. The last entry in the logbook said: "Beamed Brenton Reef" (this reef is located just a few miles from Eastons Beach).
It was known that the Seabird was carrying timber and coffee from the island of Honduras. But even the most thorough investigation conducted by the Americans did not reveal the reasons for the disappearance of its crew from the sailboat.
"Abiy Ess Hart"
1894, September - in the Indian Ocean, a three-masted barque "Ebiy Ess Hart" was seen on board the German steamer "Pikkuben". A distress signal fluttered from its mast. When the German sailors landed on the deck of the sailboat, they saw that all 38 crew members were dead, and the captain went crazy.
Unknown frigate
1908, October - not far from one of the major Mexican ports, a half-flooded frigate was discovered, with a strong roll to the port side. The topmasts of the sailboat's masts were broken, it was impossible to establish the name, the crew was absent. There were no storms or hurricanes in this region of the ocean at that time. The search was unsuccessful, and the reasons for the disappearance of the crew remained a mystery, although many different hypotheses were put forward.
"Cholchu"
1953, February - the sailors of the English ship "Rani", being 200 miles from the Nicobar Islands, discovered a small cargo ship "Kholchu" in the ocean. The ship was damaged, the mast was broken. Although the lifeboats were in place, there was no command. In the holds there was a cargo of rice, in the bunkers - a full supply of fuel and water. Where 5 crew members could have disappeared is still a mystery.
"Kobenhavn"
December 4, 1928 - The Danish sailing training ship Kobenhavn left Buenos Aires to continue its circumnavigation. On board the sailboat was a crew and 80 pupils of the maritime school. A week later, when the Kobenhavn had already traveled about 400 miles, a radiogram was received from the ship. It reported that the voyage was going well and that everything was safe on the ship. The further fate of the sailboat and the people on it remains a mystery. The ship did not arrive at its home port, Copenhagen. They say that later he was repeatedly met in different parts of the Atlantic. The sailboat allegedly went under full sail, but there were no people on it.
"Mary Celeste"
1872 - one of the most famous ghost ships "Mary Celeste" was found abandoned by her crew for no apparent reason. The ship was quite good, strong, without damage, but throughout its existence it often got into unpleasant situations, which is why it was attached to a bad name. The captain with his team of seven people, as well as his wife and daughter, who were also on board at the time of the transportation of the cargo - alcohol, disappeared without a trace. The ship, when discovered, was in good condition with sails up and ample supplies of food. No signs of a struggle were found. You can also exclude the version of the pirates, because the things of the team and alcohol remained untouched.
"Joyta"
To this day, the history of the ship "Joyta" remains a mystery. The ship, thought to be lost, was found in the ocean. The ship was without a crew or passengers. "Joyta" is called the second "Maria Celeste", about which A. Conan Doyle wrote: "The mystery of this ship will never be solved." But if the events that took place on the Mayor's Office Celeste took place in the century before last, then the disappearance of people from the board of the Joyta dates back to the second half of the 20th century.
"Joyta" had excellent seaworthiness. 1955, October 3 - a ship under the command of Captain Miller, an experienced and knowledgeable sailor, left the port of Apia on the island of Upolu (Western Samoa) and headed for the shores of the Tokelau archipelago. It did not arrive at the port of destination.
Searches were organized. Rescue ships, helicopters and planes surveyed the vast ocean area. But all efforts were in vain. The ship and 25 people on board were listed as missing. More than a month passed, and on November 10, Joyta was accidentally discovered 187 miles north of the Fiji Islands. The ship was in a semi-submerged state and had a large roll. There were no people or cargo on it.
Schooner Jenny
“May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive. “The captain who wrote this message was still sitting in his chair, pen in hand, when this message was found in his journal 17 years later. His body, and those of six other people aboard the British schooner Jenny, were well preserved thanks to the cold weather of Antarctica, where the ship was frozen in ice and caused deaths. The crew of the whaling ship that discovered Jenny after the disaster buried the people, including the dog, at sea.
"Angosh"
1971 - under mysterious circumstances, the Portuguese ship Angosh was abandoned by the crew. It happened off the eastern coast of Africa. The Angosh transport, with a gross tonnage of 1,684 registered tons and a carrying capacity of 1,236 tons, left the port of Nacala (Mozambique) on April 23, 1971 for another Mozambican port, Porto Amelia. Three days later, Angosh discovered the Panamanian tanker Esso Port Dickson.
The ship drifted without a crew, 10 miles from the coast. The newly-minted "Flying Dutchman" was taken in tow and brought to the port. After inspection, it turned out that the transport suffered a collision. This was evidenced by the serious injuries he received. The bridge bore obvious signs of a recent fire. The experts found that it could be the result of a small explosion that occurred here. But it was not possible to explain the disappearance of 24 crew members and one passenger of the Angosh.
Submarine
1956 - an unusual ghost ship appeared before the inhabitants of the island of New Georgia (from the archipelago of the Solomon Islands) gathered on the shore. It was a submarine drifting in the ocean. A skeleton, dried by the tropical sun, protruded from the cabin. The team was nowhere to be seen. The wind and waves of the sea wanderer washed ashore. It was determined that it was an American submarine from World War II. However, the fate of the crew remained a mystery.
