A strange thing: in the middle of the sea to meet a drifting ship with no signs of life on board. Empty. Nobody here. 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 - they 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 in 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 ship 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 baby 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 in 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 the ship, himself, and 30 other crew members, whose unidentified remains lie today in the Anglican cemetery in Mahone Bay.
Shortly after the tragic events, locals claimed to have seen 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 estimated at 34 million rubles, managed to avoid the scrutiny of the search crews of the owner company 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, losing 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 town 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.
Coastguards of Great Britain and Ireland peer anxiously into the sea distance. The British Isles are wary of the ghost ship Lyubov Orlova, a former Soviet Arctic-cruising steamship that has been drifting in the north Atlantic since January last year.
The panic arose because, according to the latest information, a 90-meter vessel weighing 4250 tons, built in 1976 at a shipyard in Yugoslavia, may well be heading towards the British Isles and may soon be dumped somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, Scotland or Cornwall .
Lyubov Orlova is a ghost ship. This is the name given to ships abandoned for various reasons by the crew and passengers, which then sail the seas and oceans and frighten oncoming ships with their sinister appearance.
There are no people on board the Lyubov Orlova. There is no one there, except for hordes of rats, who, in order not to die of hunger, probably devour each other.
The Arctic liner changed several owners. The last owner decided to scrap it and tow it from Newfoundland, where it has been for the past two years, to the Dominican Republic. During a severe storm, the crew was forced to take a tow. Then the cable burst, and "Lyubov Orlova" disappeared into the fog.
At first, the Canadian Coast Guard tried to follow the ghost ship, on which there are no transponders. Then he was carried into international waters, and the Canadians calmed down.
After a few weeks of wandering around the Atlantic, Lyubov Orlova seemed to show up about 1,700 km from the Irish island of Valentia. However, the search was unsuccessful due to bad weather.
At the end of February last year, 1,300 km from the county of Kerrin, located in the south-west of Ireland, an emergency beacon went off on a ghost ship. The buoys start transmitting signals when they hit the water. New searches for the Irish Coast Guard again failed.
In March, a satellite spotted an object large enough to be a ship off the northwest coast of Scotland, but the planes didn't find it. The search for rescuers was also unsuccessful. Rescuers are interested in the premium - the ship's metal costs approx. 1 million dollars.
Experts believe that the ship "Lyubov Orlova" continues to drift in the northern part of the Atlantic. As for the beacon signals, most likely, during a storm, the life raft on which it is located was carried overboard.
Of course, "Lyubov Orlova" is far from the first and, one must think, far from the last ghost ship plowing the waters of the seas and oceans.
1. Flying Dutchman
Ghost ships are often also called "Flying Dutchmen" in honor of perhaps the most famous of them. The legend is based on facts. In 1680, a ship under the command Hendrick Vanderdecken left Amsterdam and headed for Batavia, a port in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the ship got into a strong storm and went to the bottom along with the crew. It is said that as a punishment for stubbornness, Vanderdeken, who decided to continue sailing despite warnings of an impending storm, and his ship was ordered to forever plow the expanses of the ocean near the Cape of Good Hope.
One of the first encounters with the mysterious ship took place in 1835. The sailors of a British frigate caught in a storm suddenly saw an old ship rushing towards them at full sail. At the very last moment, when it seemed that a collision could not be avoided, the ship disappeared.
In 1881, the Flying Dutchman was seen by two sailors of the merchant ship Bachchant. The next day, one of them fell off the mast and crashed to death.
In March 1939, a ghost ship appeared off the coast of South Africa. Dozens of vacationers clearly described the mysterious ship, although most of them had not seen the ships of the 17th century, even in pictures.
The last meeting with the Flying Dutchman took place in 1942 near Cape Town. In front of four people, the sailboat entered the harbor of Table Bay and ... disappeared into the air.
2. "Mary Celeste"
In 1861, the most "pr O cursed" ship in the history of navigation - "Amazon". After 48 hours, the captain died for an unknown reason. The very first voyage of the two-masted brigantine ended with a hole in the hull, and during repairs a fire broke out on board. While crossing the Atlantic, the Amazon collided with another ship.
In 1872, the “spellbound” brigantine had a new owner and a name - “Mary Celeste”. November 7 Benjamin Briggs went to sea and headed for Genoa. On board were 1701 barrels of wine and spirits.
In addition to Captain Briggs, an experienced sailor, who, by the way, did not take a drop of alcohol in his mouth, there was an equally experienced assistant, a cook and four sailors on board. The captain's wife and two-year-old daughter also set sail.
On December 4, 1872, from the Dei Graces, which left New York a week later and followed almost the same course, 600 miles from Gibraltar, about halfway between the Azores and Portugal, they saw a two-masted brigantine without signs of life.
Two hours later, the sailors from the Dei boarded the Celeste. All things, with the exception of some documents and a chronometer, remained in place. The last entry in the ship's log was made on 24 November. From it it followed that the swimming was proceeding normally.
The ocean in the Azores region was stormy for a whole week. The pump turned out to be faulty, there was knee-deep water in the hold. The boat was missing.
A few days later, the Dea Gracia entered the port of Gibraltar, dragging the Celeste in tow. The investigation concluded that the crew left the ship for some unknown reason. Briggs, the investigator decided, seeing that the pump was not working, and fearing that the Celeste would sink or the cargo would explode in the hold, he boarded the boat and tied it to the brigantine (a piece of rope was found on board). A sudden gust of wind broke the rope, and the boat was carried away from the ship. She could sink immediately or still float in the stormy ocean for some time. There was no chance for people to survive in such a storm.
Since that strange incident, the Mary Celeste has changed hands frequently. She sank off the coast of Haiti in 1884. The captain colluded with the first mate and the owners. He loaded the ship with cheap rubber boots and cat food and deliberately landed her on a reef. Then he said that he was carrying a very valuable cargo, and demanded damages from the insurance company. Unfortunately for him, "Mary Celeste" did not immediately go to the bottom. Representatives of the insurance company managed to visit her on board and saw that the cargo cost much less than what the sailor demanded. The captain and assistant were sent to prison.
Most likely, the "Mary Celeste" would have remained a little-known ship, if not for ... Arthur Conan Doyle. The hero of his story "Statement of J. Habakuk Jepson", a fictional ship's doctor Jepson, was the only one who survived after the attack of African bandits who declared jihad on Christians. The doctor was saved by the sacred stone he had.
The story was written so vividly and convincingly that the British and American authorities began an official investigation. Conan Doyle published the story anonymously, so it was attributed to the pen for some time. Robert Stevenson and compared in style with Edgar Poe. With the light hand of a literary father Sherlock Holmes since then, the brigantine has been called not “Mary”, but “Maria”.
After the release of the story, for which Conan Doyle received about 30 guineas, decent money in 1883, a huge interest flared up in Celeste, which did not fade for more than a hundred years.
It is no longer possible to establish where the stories came from that bloodied weapons and blood on the sails were found on board. There were really quite a few pirates in those parts in the second half of the 19th century, but this does not explain the fact that they did not touch the safe with money and the cargo, which, by the way, cost 35 thousand dollars, almost three times more than the brigantine itself.
It was also said that on the Celeste they allegedly found cups with still steaming coffee and plates with leftover food. This was not true, if only because people from the Dei climbed the brigantine only two hours after its discovery.
Of course, theories and abductions by aliens were put forward, and meetings with a giant octopus and a huge wave that washed all people off the board. Some of the lovers of sensations even agreed to the point that they accused people from the Celeste of the disappearance Morenhaus, captain of the Dei. He allegedly, while still in New York, persuaded three sailors for big money to seize the ship, which he then “found” and received a good bonus for it. But this theory, like dozens of others, is not supported by facts. The true reason that caused Captain Briggs and his men to leave the ship will probably forever remain a mystery.
3. "Urang Medan"
Two American ships in the Strait of Malacca in June 1947 received a distress signal. He came from the Dutch cargo ship "Urang Medan". The man, in a voice weakening every second, managed to tell that the captain and all his teammates seemed to have died. His last words were, "I'm dying too," followed by silence.
When the Silver Star approached the Dutch ship, it turned out to be completely intact. The radio operator was right: there were no living people on board. The rescuers noticed that the faces of all the sailors were distorted with terrible grimaces, as if they were either afraid of something or were dying in terrible agony.
The sailors from the "Silver Star" wanted to go down into the hold, from where it blew cold, but they were prevented by smoke that suddenly fell from below and a fire broke out.
He was so strong that the Americans had to urgently return to their ship. As soon as they managed to sail to a safe distance, the Urang Medan was blown into the air by a strong explosion.
There are quite a few theories about the death of the Urang Medan crew and the ship itself. The most common one says that the nitroglycerin and potassium cyanide that the ship was carrying somehow leaked out and, in contact with sea water, formed hydrogen cyanide, which poisoned people. As for the explosion, it could well have come from nitroglycerin.
4. "Carroll A. Dearing"
This five-masted schooner, named by its owner in honor of his son, was built in 1911 and served to transport goods. On December 2, 1920, the ship departed Rio de Janeiro for the United States. There were 12 crew members on board.
Passing by the lighthouse at Cape Laukat on January 28, 1921, the schooner signaled that all her anchors had been torn off. The caretaker was the last person to see the Carroll A. Dearing. According to him, he was asked to report from the side into the mouthpiece to Norfolk that a tug should be prepared.
Three days later, the Carroll A. Dearing was found aground near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. There were no people on board. Also missing were two lifeboats, a logbook and navigational equipment. Judging by the state of the personal belongings of the team members, they were in a great hurry.
The Carroll A. Dearing was in perfect working order. The fact that at about the same time several other ships mysteriously disappeared in those parts led the authorities to conclude that the schooner and other ships were victims of pirate attacks or a riot had taken place on board.
5. "Beychimo"
The cargo ship Beychimo was built in 1914 to trade in leathers and furs and to supply the Inuit settlements in northwest Canada. During the next voyage in October 1931, the ship got stuck in the ice. Unable to free the Beychimo, 36 members of the team abandoned it.
During a storm, the ship escaped from the ice captivity, but, according to the sailors, it received serious damage that did not allow it to be operated. "Beychimo" was thrown in full confidence that he would go down very quickly. However, the ship not only did not sink, but drifted along the coast of Alaska for almost four decades.
The last time he was seen in 1969, when he was again stuck in the ice. In 2006, the Alaskan authorities tried to find "Beychimo", but all searches were unsuccessful. The “Ghost Ship of the Arctic”, as it is called, either sank or continues to drift in Arctic waters.
Ghost ships or phantoms that appear on the horizon and disappear, according to sailors, portend trouble. The same with the ships left by the crews. Mysterious circumstances and an unusual veil of eerie romance accompany these stories. The ocean hides its secrets, and we decided to recall all these legends - from the "Flying Dutchman" and "Mary Celeste", to lesser-known ghost ships. You may not have known about many of them.
The ocean is one of the largest and most unexplored regions of the Earth. In fact, the ocean covers up to 70% of the earth's surface. The ocean is so little known that, according to Scientific American, less than 0.05% of the ocean floor has been mapped.
In this scenario, all these stories do not seem so incredible. And there are a great many of them - stories about ships that are lost in the seas, and all these empty ships drifting without a purpose and a team on board ... They are called ghost ships. A crew that died in its entirety, or disappeared for unknown reasons ... there were many such finds. The mysterious circumstances of the death or disappearance of these teams, even today, with all the technological advances and research methods, remain mysterious. And the disappearance of people from the board still no one can explain. Why did the entire crew leave the ship, which is left to drift, and where did they all go? Storms, pirates, diseases...maybe sailed away on boats...somehow, many crews mysteriously disappeared without explanation. The sea knows how to keep secrets, and is reluctant to part with them. Many catastrophes that occurred in the open spaces of the sea will remain a mystery to everyone.
15. "Ourang Medan" (Orang Medan, or Orange Medan)
This Dutch merchant ship became known as a ghost ship in the late 1940s. In 1947, the Orang Medan was shipwrecked in the Dutch East Indies, as an SOS signal was received by two American ships, the City of Baltimore and the Silver Star, sailing through the Strait of Malacca.
And the sailors of the two American ships received the SOS signal from the Orang Medan cargo ship. The signal was transmitted by a crew member who was extremely frightened and reported that the rest of his crew were dead. After that, the connection was interrupted. Arriving on the ship, the entire crew was found dead - the bodies of the sailors froze, as if in an attempt to defend themselves, but the source of the threat was never found.
An article written in the late 1960s by the US Coast Guard stated that no visible signs of damage were found on the bodies. The cargo ship was reportedly transporting sulfuric acid, which was packaged improperly. After the crew of the "Silver Star" quickly evacuated and the Americans left the ship, they expected to tow it to the shore. But a fire suddenly broke out on the ship, an explosion followed and the ship sank, which led to the final death of the merchant ship. The widow of one of the sailors who died on Ourang Medan has a photograph of the ship and crew.
14. "Copenhagen"
One of the maritime mysteries is the disappearance of one of the newest and most reliable ships of the 20th century, the five-masted Copenhagen, without a trace. In the entire history of the sailing fleet, only six ships similar to the Copenhagen were built, and she was the third largest in the world in the year of construction - in 1921. She was built for the Danish East Asiatic Company in Scotland - at the shipyard of Romaij and Fergusson in small town of Leith near Aberdeen. The hull was made of high-quality steel, there was a ship's own power station on board, all deck winches were equipped with electric drives, which significantly saved time on sailing, and even a ship's radio station. The double-deck steel "Copenhagen" was a training and production vessel that made regular voyages and carried cargo. The last radio communication session with Copenhagen took place on December 21, 1928. There was no reliable information about the fate of the huge sailboat and 61 people on board.
A reward was announced for anyone who could point to the location of the missing ship. Requests were sent to all ports: to report possible contacts with Copenhagen. But the captains of only two ships responded to this call - the Norwegian and English ships. Both said that, while passing the southern part of the Atlantic, they got in touch with the Danes, and that everything was in order. The East Asian Company sent out the Ducalien ship to search for the missing ship (but it returned empty-handed), and then the Mexico, which also found nothing. In 1929, in Copenhagen, a commission investigating the disappearance of the ship concluded that “a training sailing ship, the five-masted barque Copenhagen, with 61 people on board, died due to the action of irresistible forces of nature ... the ship was in distress so quickly that its crew was unable to broadcast the SOS distress signal or launch any lifeboats or rafts.”
At the end of 1932, in southwestern Africa, in the Namib Desert, one of the British expeditions discovered seven withered skeletons dressed in torn sea jackets. According to the structure of the skulls, the researchers determined that they were Europeans. According to the pattern on the copper buttons of the pea jackets, experts have established that they belong to the uniform of the cadets of the Danish merchant fleet. However, this time the owners of the East Asian Company had no doubts, because until 1932 only one Danish training ship, the Copenhagen, had crashed. And 25 years later, on October 8, 1959, the captain of the Straat Magelhes cargo ship from the Netherlands, Pete Agler, while near the southern coast of Africa, saw a sailing ship with five masts. It appeared out of nowhere, as if it had surfaced from the abyss of the ocean, and went straight at the Dutch with full sail... The crew managed to prevent a collision, after which the sailboat disappeared, but the crew managed to read the inscription on board the ghost ship - "København".
13. "Baychimo" ("Baychimo")
Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After the First World War, it was taken over by Great Britain and transported furs for the next fourteen years. In early October 1931, the weather deteriorated sharply, and a few miles from the coast near the town 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. Baychimo was last seen 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 made an attempt to locate the "Ghost Ship of the Arctic", but in vain. Where is Baychimo now - whether it lies at the bottom or is unrecognizably overgrown with ice - a mystery.
12. Valencia
Valencia was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons. The steamboat was most often used on the California-Alaska route. In 1906, the Valencia sailed from San Francisco to Seattle. A terrible disaster occurred on the night of January 21-22, 1906, when the Valencia was near Vancouver. The ship ran into reefs and received large holes through which water began to flow. The captain decided to run the ship aground. 6 out of 7 boats were launched, but they became victims of a powerful storm; only a few people managed to get to the shore and report the catastrophe. The rescue operation was unsuccessful and most of the crew and passengers died. According to official information, 136 people became victims of the shipwreck, according to unofficial information, even more - 181. 37 people survived.
In 1933 boat #5 was found near Barkley. Her condition was good, the boat retained most of its original paint. The lifeboat was found 27 years after the disaster! After that, local fishermen began to talk about the appearance of a ghost ship, which resembled the Valencia in outline.
11. Yacht SAYO; Manfred Fritz Bayorath
Drifting 40 miles from Barobo, the 12-meter yacht SAYO, which disappeared seven years ago, was discovered by Filipino fishermen. The boat's mast was broken, most of the saloon was filled with water. Climbing aboard, they saw a mummified body at the radiotelephone. From the photographs and documents found on board, it was quickly possible to establish the identity of the deceased. It turned out to be the owner of the yacht, a yachtsman from Germany, Manfred Fritz Bayorat. The mummification of Bayorat's body occurred under the influence of salt and high temperatures.
A drifting ship with the mummy of the captain, discovered off the coast of the Philippines, surprised many. German traveler Manfred Fritz Bayorath was an experienced sailor who traveled on this yacht for 20 years. Judging by the position in which the captain's mummy froze, in the last hours of his life he tried to contact the rescuers. The cause of his death is still a mystery.
10. Sleepwalker
In 2007, 70-year-old Jure Sterk from Slovenia went on a trip around the world in his Lunatic. To communicate with the shore, he used a radio assembled by himself, but on January 1, 2009, he stopped communicating. A month later, his boat washed up on the coast of Australia, but there was no one on board.
Those who have seen the ship believe that it was about 1,000 nautical miles from the coast.
The sailboat was in excellent shape and appeared undamaged. There was no sign of Sterk being there. No note, no journal entry about the reasons for his disappearance. Although the last entry in the log is dated January 2, 2009. And at the end of April 2019, the Lunatic was spotted at sea by the crew of the Roger Revelle research vessel. It drifted about 500 miles off the coast of Australia. Its exact coordinates at that time were Latitude 32-18.0S, Longitude 091-07.0E.
9. "Flying Dutchman"
"Flying Dutchmen" refers to several different ghost ships from different centuries. One of them is the real owner of the brand. The one with whom trouble happened at the Cape of Good Hope.
This is a legendary sailing ghost ship that cannot land on the shore and is doomed to sail the seas forever. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a luminous halo. According to legend, when the Flying Dutchman meets with another ship, its crew tries to send messages to the shore for people who are no longer alive. In maritime beliefs, meeting with the "Flying Dutchman" was considered a bad omen.
Legend has it that in the 1700s, the Dutch captain Philip van Straaten was returning from the East Indies carrying a young couple on board. The captain liked the girl; he killed her betrothed, and made her an offer to become his wife, but the girl jumped overboard. When trying to go around the Cape of Good Hope, the ship got into a strong storm. The navigator offered to wait out the bad weather in some bay, but the captain shot him and several disgruntled ones, and then swore to his mother that none of the team would go ashore until they rounded the cape, even if it took forever. The captain, a foul-mouthed and blasphemer, brought a curse upon his ship. Now he, immortal, invulnerable, but unable to go ashore, is doomed to plow the waves of the oceans until the second coming.
The first printed mention of the "Flying Dutchman" appeared in 1795 in the book "Journey to Botany Bay".
8. "HiM 6"
This ghost ship was reported to have left a port in southern Taiwan on October 31, 2002. Subsequently, on January 8, 2003, this Indonesian fishing schooner Hi AM 6 was found drifting without a crew near New Zealand. Despite extensive searches, no trace of the 14 team members could be found. The captain reportedly last contacted the shipowner, Cai Huan Chue-er, in late 2002.
Oddly enough, the only crew member who showed up later reported that the captain had been killed. Whether there was a rebellion and its causes is unclear. Initially, the entire crew went missing, and when the ship was located, no one was found. According to the results of the investigation, there were no signs of distress or fire on the ship. However, it was said that this ship could carry illegal immigrants. Which doesn't explain anything either...
7 Ghost Galleon
The legends about this ship began in the late 1800s when it was built. The ship was going to be built from wood. Once at sea, among the ice, the wooden ship was frozen into part of the iceberg. In the end, the water began to warm up, the weather changed, it got warmer, and the iceberg sank the ship. The White Fleet searched for their ship throughout the winter, each time returning to port with nothing, under cover of fog. At some point, it got so warm that the ship thawed and separated from the iceberg, and rose to the surface, where it was discovered by the crew of the White Fleet. Unfortunately, the crew of the galleon died; the remains of the ship were towed to port.
One of the first ghost ships, the Octavius became one because its crew froze to death in 1762, and the ship drifted for another 13 years with the dead on board. The captain tried to find a short way from China to England through the Northwest Passage (sea route through the Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered with ice. 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 in the open sea with a dead crew. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
The English merchant ship Octavius was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A crew from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded and found the entire crew frozen to death. The captain's body was in his cabin, death caught at the time of writing in the logbook, he remained 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. The whaler's 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 with the dead on board for 13 years.
5. Corsair "Duc de Dantzig" (Duc de Dantzig)
This ship was launched in the early 1800s in Nantes, France, and soon became a corsair. Corsairs are private individuals who, with the permission of the supreme authority of the belligerent state, used an armed vessel to capture enemy merchant ships, and sometimes even neutral powers. The same title is applied to the members of their teams. The concept of "corsair" in the narrow sense is used to characterize French and Ottoman captains and ships.
The corsair captured several ships, some were plundered, some were set free. After the capture of small ships, most often the corsair left the captured ships, sometimes setting fire to them. This ship mysteriously disappeared in 1812. Since then, he has become a legend. It is believed that shortly after the mysterious disappearance, this corsair could have been a cruiser in the Atlantic Ocean or possibly in the Caribbean. Rumor has it that a British frigate may have taken it. The Napoleonic "Gallego" reported the discovery of this ship, drifting at sea completely aimlessly, with the deck covered in blood and strewn with the corpses of the crew. However, there were no outward signs of damage to the vessel. The crew of the frigate allegedly found and took away the logbook, covered in the blood of the captain, and then set fire to this ship.
4. Schooner "Jenny"
The schooner Jenny, originally an English schooner, is said to have left port on the Isle of Wight in 1822 for the Antarctic regatta. The voyage was supposed to pass along the ice barrier in 1823, then it was planned to enter the ice in the southern waters, and reach the Drake Passage.
But a British schooner got stuck in the ice of the Drake Passage in 1823. And they discovered it only after 17 years: in 1840, a whaling ship called Hope stumbled upon it. The bodies of the members of the "Jenny" team were well preserved due to the low temperatures. The ship took its place in the history of ghost ships, and in 1862 was included in the list of Globus, a popular German geographical magazine of those times.
3. "Sea Bird" (Sea Bird)
Most of the "encounters" with ghost ships are pure fiction, but there were also quite real stories. Losing a ship or a ship in the infinity of the oceans is not so difficult. And it's even easier to lose people.
In the 1750s Sea Bird was a trading brig commanded by John Huxham. A merchant ship ran aground in the Rhode Island area of Easton Beach. The crew disappeared to no one knows where - the ship was abandoned by them without any explanation, and the lifeboats were missing. It was reported that the ship was returning from a voyage from Honduras, carrying goods from the southern hemisphere to the northern, and was expected to arrive in the city of Newport. Upon further investigation, coffee was found boiling on the stove on the derelict ship... The only living creatures that were found on board were a cat and a dog. The crew mysteriously disappeared. A recount of the ship's history was recorded in Wilmington, Delaware and made the news of the Sunday Morning Star in 1885.
2. "Mary Celeste" (or Celeste)
The second most popular ghost ship after the Flying Dutchman is, however, unlike it, it really existed. "Amazon" (as the ship was first called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship was thrown aground during a storm, and, finally, an enterprising American bought it. He renamed the "Amazon" to "Mary Celeste", believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.
When the ship left the port of New York on November 7, 1872, there were 13 people on board: Captain Briggs, his wife, their daughter and 10 sailors. In 1872, a ship en route from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the ship "Dei Grazia" without a single person on board. All personal belongings of the crew were in their places, in the captain's cabin was his wife's jewelry box and her own sewing machine with unfinished sewing. True, the sextant and one of the boats disappeared, which suggests that the crew left the ship. The ship was in good condition, the holds were full of food, the cargo (the ship was carrying alcohol) was intact, but no trace of the crew was found. The fate of all crew members and passengers is completely shrouded in darkness. Subsequently, several impostors appeared and were exposed, posing as crew members and trying to cash in on the tragedy. Most often, the impostor pretended to be the cook of the ship.
The British Admiralty conducted a thorough investigation with a detailed examination of the ship (including below the waterline, by divers) and a thorough interview of eyewitnesses. It is the materials of this investigation that are the main and most reliable source of information. Plausible explanations for what happened boil down to the fact that the crew and passengers left the ship of their own free will, differing only in the interpretation of the reasons that prompted them to such a decision. There are many hypotheses, but they are all just assumptions.
1. Cruiser USS Salem (CA-139)
The cruiser USS Salem was laid down in July 1945 at Bethlehem Steel Company's Quincy Yard, launched in March 1947, and entered service on May 14, 1949. For ten years, the ship served as the flagship of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and the Second Fleet in The USS Salem was decommissioned in 1959. She was retired from the fleet in 1990 and opened as a museum in 1995. The USS Salem is now docked in Boston, Massachusetts at Quincy Harbor.
In Boston, one of the oldest cities in the United States, several frightening historic ships and buildings are on display. This ship, being an old warship, is a bunch of stories - from the dark sights of the war to the loss of life, if you get the opportunity to get there on a tour, you can experience the thrill and chills from all the ghosts of this ship. He's been nicknamed the "Sea Witch" and rumor has it that he's so creepy that you can feel the cold just by looking at pictures of him online.
Sea remains the keeper of many dark secrets. Despite the fact that navigational safety standards have risen sharply over the past century, every year there are mysterious disappearances of five to ten large ships, from which there are no traces, and no one finds the reasons for their disappearance. Among the thousands of mysteries of the sea, only a few cause such a huge amount of gossip among sailors as the unexpected disappearance of the American cargo ship Cyclops with a displacement of 20 thousand tons, which mysteriously disappeared along with a cargo of manganese ore at the end of March 1918
Three hundred on board
The loss of the Cyclops, aggravated by the loss of three hundred and four people on board, was a heavy blow to the American fleet, which was then participating in the World War. Moreover, it was not at all like that the ship fell victim to enemy mines or torpedoes. With a length of five hundred feet, this powerful freighter was quite capable of withstanding any Atlantic storm. And he disappeared in calm weather. Very few of the facts of the last voyage of the Cyclops can claim to clarify the mystery of the strange disappearance of the ship. Twenty-four hours after leaving Barbados, where the ship was loaded with 10,000 tons of manganese ore used in the manufacture of shells, the Cyclops passed the Vestris liner, which was making a voyage from Buenos Aires to New York, and transmitted a message. The message from the cargo ship said that the ship was in perfect order in everything. However, no one else met either the ship or any of the people sailing on it ... The sea vessel mysteriously disappeared.
Only God knows
When the ship was reported missing, a belated order was received to survey the area of the proposed route. The wreckage was not found, and the command of the US Navy could not offer a satisfactory explanation of why, in fact, the ship sank. There were no mines in that part of the Atlantic, and the activity of German submarines at that time was limited to more northerly waters.
Over the years that have passed since the tragedy, a whole bunch of scenarios for the death of the ship have been proposed: a sudden local hurricane, a bomb planted by saboteurs, and even a riot among the crew. But no confirmation of these theories appeared, and the investigation of this strange disappearance, conducted by the commission of the fleet after the conclusion of peace, established that during the last voyage of the Cyclops, there were no enemy ships or submarines near its route. The fact that the ship was swallowed up by the agitated sea seemed the most improbable option, for it had already managed to show itself as strong in resisting the Atlantic storms.
In any case, as the investigation found out, during March - early April there were no reports of storms in the sea off the east coast of Central America. Joseph Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, wrote of the tragedy: “In the annals of the US Navy, there is no more disconcerting mystery than the mysterious disappearance of the Cyclops. President Woodrow Wilson, who himself had gone to great lengths to find any facts that might suggest a solution to the mystery, finally backed down, saying, "Only the sea and God know what happened to that ship."
Disappearance of the Carrier
On June 17, 1984, the Panamanian "Arctic Carrier" (cargo ship, 17 thousand tons displacement) left Brazil with holds full of various goods. The last time the ship made itself known was three hundred miles northeast of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic. The ship then disappeared without a trace. It is difficult to say what fate befell him, although it is known for sure that no SOS signal was sent from him, and no bodies or wreckage were ever found. The ship disappeared without a trace.
Everything looked as if the ship had never existed. The following wording in Lloyd's registry brings the mystery to its logical conclusion: "The true reasons for his so strange disappearance will probably forever remain a mystery."
At the crossroads
At the end of October 1979, a ship four times the size of the Arctic Carrier, the Norwegian ore carrier Berge Vanya, also mysteriously disappeared, six hundred miles east of Cape Town, in fine weather, at the intersection of the busiest highways on the planet. It's hard to imagine how the sea could swallow up the Berge Vanya so soon that people didn't have time to give an SOS or even fire a flare gun. But even if this happened, then why did no one see how this floating giant went to the bottom, despite the fact that there were practically no opportunities to cause him any harm.
Lost "Treasure"
The disappearance of the “Treasures of the East” (28 thousand tons displacement), a cargo ship under the Panamanian flag, is another maritime story of the strange disappearance of the ship. Picking up a cargo of chromium from Mazinlok in the Philippines on January 12, 1982, the Oriental Treasure successfully made its way to Port Said before disappearing forever.
Surprisingly, members of the commission of inquiry concluded that the ship must have been a victim of pirates, although they had not been heard of in these waters for more than a century. How such a brilliant conclusion without the slightest hint of evidence arose in the minds of respectable experts, one can only guess. One journalist put it this way: “They just clutched at straws” ...
Twice as big as the Titanic
Meanwhile, the list of mysteriously missing ships is updated annually, and now each maritime power can provide its own national registry of disappearances.
One of the most impressive losses that hit the English merchant fleet is associated with the last voyage of the cargo ship Derbyshire (170 thousand tons). Built in British shipyards in 1980, it sailed from the American port of San Lawrence to Kawasaki (Japan). Its mass was twice that of the Titanic, and in length it contained three football fields. The Derbyshire was generally one of the largest ships that ever sailed under the flag of English merchants. Designed specifically for the transport of oil and iron ore, on that voyage, before its last journey, it was loaded very thoroughly - 157 thousand tons. The huge ship was operated by a crew of 42 under the command of an experienced captain Joffrey Underhill, so in terms of navigation problems could not arise. However, some problems still arose, and why - we will never know. The ship has mysteriously disappeared.
Last session
The last radio contact with the Derbyshire was on September 8, when she was seven hundred miles southwest of Tokyo. The ship was supposed to arrive in Kawasaki in the early evening of the 11th. And this optimistic message turned out to be final. As one English newspaperman wrote, "There was an everyday radio message - and eternal rest." Why such giant ships disappear in clear weather, without sending calls for help and leaving no traces, is beyond the understanding of maritime specialists.
The current ships are built better than their predecessors. It was in the era of early shipping that most of the disasters happened only because of design flaws. The current ones are dressed in metal, built with the strictest observance of all safety standards. Before going to sea, ships go through a lot of checks.
There are no more filibuster flotillas plying the oceans, and the possibility of a sudden change in the weather has been greatly reduced with the introduction of satellite weather tracking systems and reliable radio communication equipment. And yet ships of all sizes, including the most massive ships, continue to disappear for no reason and without a trace.
Of course, you have heard of the Flying Dutchman - a ghost ship that appears on the horizon to scare sailors and disappear just as quickly. Phantom ships have been part of maritime legends for hundreds of years. But are there real prototypes for such legends? Today we will talk about ships abandoned under strange circumstances.
Kaleuche
A ghost ship that appears every night near the coast of the island of Chiloe. This is of course a legend according to her, the ship carries the souls of people who died at sea. Those who have seen him say that he is very bright, beautiful and is always accompanied by the sounds of music and the laughter of people. There are others who believe that with his music he lures fishermen to then turn them into slave crew members who will be cursed for all eternity and wear their leg curved around their backs.
Urang Medan
in 1947, 2 American ships received a distress signal off the coast of Malaysia. The caller introduced himself as a member of the crew of the Dutch ship Urang Medan, and said that the captain and the rest of the crew were dead. His speech became more and more unintelligible, until it disappeared completely, with the words I die.
When help arrived, the ship itself was found to be intact, but the entire crew, including the dog, were dead, their bodies and faces frozen in horrific poses and expressions, and many pointing their fingers at something invisible to the eye. Before rescuers could figure out what had happened, the ship caught fire.
Carroll A. Deering
in 1921, the ship was returning from a trading trip to South Africa, but near Cape Hatteras, it ran aground. When help arrived in time, it turned out that the ship was empty. There was no navigational equipment, no logbook, no boats.
Beychimo
In 1931, this cargo ship was trapped in the ice near Alaska. After several attempts to break through the ice, the crew abandoned the ship. After some time, in a strong storm, the ship managed to escape, but it was badly damaged, and the company owner of the ship decided to leave it. Surprisingly, Beychimo did not sink, but continued to swim for another 38 years near Alaska, becoming something of a local legend. He was last seen in 1969.
Octavius
In 1775, the whaling ship Herald came across a ship floating aimlessly along the coast of Greenland. When members of Herald's team boarded the Octavius, they found the bodies of the crew and passengers frozen from the cold. The last entry in the logbook was made 13 years ago. According to legend, the captain bet that he would quickly return to England via the East Route, but the ship got stuck in the ice.
Joita
In 1955, this ship was heading for the Tokelau Islands, but something happened. After 5 weeks, the ship was found completely empty in the South Pacific. The ship had no passengers, no crew, no cargo, no lifeboats, and one side of the ship was severely damaged. Joyta's radio wave was tuned to a distress signal, and a doctor's bag and several bloody bandages were found on deck.
The mystery of the disappearance of the team was never solved.
Lyubov Orlova.
The Soviet cruise ship, until 1999, belonged to the Far Eastern Shipping Company, and then was sold to an American cruise company. After 13 years, they decided to get rid of the ship. On January 23, 2013, she was towed for scrapping to the Dominican Republic, but the towing cable broke and the ship drifted. Attempts to take him in tow again proved fruitless. Since January 24, 2013 Lyubov Orlova has been in free drift in the Atlantic Ocean without a crew and identification lights.
In January 2014, notes appeared in the Western yellow press that a ship inhabited by cannibal rats was heading for the coast of Ireland or Great Britain.
Lady Lavibond
1748. The captain of the ship, Simon Peel, had just married, and to celebrate the occasion, he went on a cruise with his wife, despite the old sailor's signs that a woman on a ship was unfortunate.
Rock was pleased that the first mate was also in love with the same woman and, out of jealousy and anger, drove the ship straight to the sandbar. Lady Lavibond sank, pulling everyone on board with her. According to legend, since the shipwreck, the ship appeared near Kent every 50 years.
Mary Celeste
It was discovered completely empty on December 4, 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was in suitable conditions with sails raised and a full supply of food. But all of his boats, the captain's journal and crew have mysteriously disappeared. There were no signs of a struggle, and all the alcohol and belongings of the crew remained intact, which ruled out the pirates.
