"Flying Dutchman"- a legendary ghost sailing ship that cannot land on the shore and is doomed to forever roam the seas. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a luminous halo.
According to legend, when the Flying Dutchman encounters another ship, its crew tries to send messages ashore to people who have long been dead. In maritime beliefs, an encounter with the Flying Dutchman was considered a bad omen.
Ships that were found abandoned in the oceans, with the crew dead from unknown causes or completely absent, also began to be called ghost ships. The most famous and classic of these is certainly "Mary Celeste"(Mary Celeste).
In December 1872, this ship was found by the captain of the brig Deia Grazia. He began to send signals, but the crew of the Mary Celeste did not respond to them, and the ship itself swayed limply on the waves. The captain and sailors landed on the mysterious brigantine, but the ship was empty.
The last entry in the ship's log was made in November 1872. It seemed that the crew had only recently abandoned this ship. There was no damage to the ship, there was food in the kitchen, and there were 1,700 barrels of alcohol in the hold. The Mary Celeste was delivered to the Gibraltar roadstead a few days later.
The Admiralty could not understand where the crew of the brigantine had gone, the captain of which was the sailor Briggs, who had been driving sailing ships for more than twenty years. Since there was no news of the ship, and its crew never appeared, the investigation ceased.
However, the news of the mystical disappearance of the Mary Celeste crew spread among the people with incredible speed. People began to wonder what happened to Briggs and his sailors? Some were inclined to believe that the ship was attacked by pirates, others believed that the problem was a riot. But these were just guesses.
Time passed and the mystery of “Mary Celeste” went beyond the local one, because... people started talking about her everywhere. It is worth noting that with the end of the investigation, stories about the mysterious ship did not stop. Stories about the brigantine often appeared in newspapers; journalists described a wide variety of versions of the disappearance of the crew.
Thus, they wrote that the entire crew died as a result of an attack by a huge octopus, and that a plague epidemic broke out on the ship. And the Times said that all the passengers on the ship were killed by Captain Briggs, who went crazy. And he threw the corpses overboard. After that, he tried to sail away on a boat, but it sank with him. But all these stories were just fiction and speculation.
From time to time, charlatans came to the editorial office and pretended to be the surviving sailors of the Mary Celeste. They received fees for “real” stories and then went into hiding. After several incidents, the police were already on alert. In 1884, the London almanac Cornhill wrote the memoirs of Shebekuk Jephson, a sailor who was on that ill-fated ship. However, it later turned out that the author of these “memoirs” was Arthur Conan Doyle.
Most ghost ships drift in the North Atlantic. True, no one can say for sure the number of wanderers - it changes from year to year. Statistics show that in some years the number of “Dutchmen” drifting in the North Atlantic reached three hundred.
Quite a lot of stray ships are found in sea areas far from shipping routes and rarely visited by merchant ships. From time to time the Flying Dutchmen remind themselves. Either the current carries them to coastal shallows, or they find themselves thrown by the wind onto rocks or underwater reefs. It happens that “Dutch” boats, which do not carry running lights at night, become the cause of collisions with oncoming ships, which sometimes have grave consequences.
"ANGOSH"
In 1971, under mysterious circumstances, the Portuguese transport Angos was abandoned by the team. This happened off the eastern coast of Africa. The transport "Angos" with a gross tonnage of 1684 register tons and a carrying capacity of 1236 tons left on April 23, 1971 from the port of Nacala (Mozambique) to another Mozambican port, Porto Amelia.
Three days later, the Angos was discovered by the Panamanian tanker Esso Port Dickson. The transport was drifting without a crew, ten miles from the coast. The newly-minted “Flying Dutchman” was taken in tow and brought to the port. An examination showed that the ship had suffered a collision. This was evidenced by the serious injuries he received.
The bridge bore obvious signs of a recent fire. Experts determined that it could have been the result of a small explosion that occurred here. However, it was not possible to explain the disappearance of 24 crew members and one passenger of the Angosh.
"MARLBORO"
In October 1913, a storm brought the schooner Marlborough to one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The captain's assistant and several members of his crew boarded and were shocked by the terrible sight: dead bodies of crew members, dried up like mummies, were scattered throughout the sailing ship.
The sailboat's masts were completely intact, and the entire schooner was covered in mold. The same thing was happening in the hold: dead crew members everywhere, dried up like mummies.
As a result of the investigation, an incredible fact was established: a three-masted sailing ship left the port of Littleton in early January 1890, heading to Scotland, to its home port of Glasgow, but for some reason never arrived at the port.
However, what happened to the crew of the sailing ship? Did the calm deprive him of the wind and force him to drift aimlessly until all supplies of drinking water were exhausted? How could it be that a sailing ship with a dead crew did not crash on the reefs after twenty-four years of drifting?
"ORUNG MEDAN"
In June 1947 (according to other sources - in early February 1948), British and Dutch listening stations, as well as two American ships in the Strait of Malacca, received a distress signal with the following content: “The captain and all the officers lie dead in the cockpit and on the bridge. Perhaps the whole team is dead." This message was followed by unintelligible Morse code and the short phrase: “I’m dying.”
No more signals were received, but the place where the message was sent was determined by triangulation, and one of the American ships mentioned above immediately headed towards it.
When the ship was found, it turned out that its entire crew was indeed dead, including even the dog. No visible injuries were found on the bodies of the victims, although it was obvious from the expressions 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. Soon after the inspection began, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold, and the rescuers had to quickly return to their ship.
Some time after this, the Orung Medan exploded and sank, making further investigation into the incident impossible.
"SEABIRD"
On a July morning in 1850, residents of the village of Easton's Beach on the coast of Rhode Island were surprised to see a sailing ship heading towards the shore from the sea under full sail. It stopped in shallow water.
When the men boarded the ship, they found coffee boiling on the galley stove and plates laid out on the table in the salon. But the only living creature on board was a dog, trembling with fear, huddled in the corner of one of the cabins. There was not a single person on the ship.
The cargo, navigational instruments, maps, sailing directions and ship's documents were in place. The last entry in the logbook stated: "Abeam Brenton Reef" (this reef is only a few miles from Easton's Beach).
It was known that the Seabird was sailing with a cargo of timber and coffee from the island of Honduras. However, even the most thorough investigation conducted by the Americans did not reveal the reasons for the disappearance of its crew from the sailing ship.
"ABY ASS HART"
In September 1894, the three-masted barque Ebiy Ess Hart was spotted in the Indian Ocean from the German steamer Pikkuben. A distress signal fluttered from its mast. When the German sailors landed on the deck of the sailing ship, they saw that all 38 crew members were dead, and the captain had gone crazy.
UNKNOWN FRIGATE
In October 1908, not far from one of the major Mexican ports, a half-submerged frigate was discovered, with a strong list to port. The sailboat's mast topmasts were broken, the name was impossible to establish, and the crew was absent.
No storms or hurricanes were recorded in this area of the ocean at this time. The searches were unsuccessful, and the reasons for the disappearance of the crew remained unclear, although many different hypotheses were put forward.
"I WANT"
In February 1953, the sailors of the English ship "Rani", being two hundred miles from the Nicobar Islands, discovered a small cargo ship "Holchu" in the ocean. The ship was damaged and the mast was broken.
Although the lifeboats were in place, the crew was missing. The holds contained a cargo of rice, and the bunkers contained a full supply of fuel and water. Where the five crew members disappeared to remains a mystery.
"KOBENKHAVN"
On December 4, 1928, the Danish training sailing ship Kobenhavn left Buenos Aires to continue its circumnavigation. On board the sailing ship there was a crew and 80 students from the maritime school. A week later, when the Kobenhavn had already covered about 400 miles, a radiogram was received from the ship.
The command reported that the voyage was successful and that everything was fine on the ship. The further fate of the sailing ship and the people on it remains a mystery. The ship did not arrive at its home port, Copenhagen.
It is said that he was subsequently encountered many times in various parts of the Atlantic. The sailboat was supposedly sailing under full sail, but there were no people on it.
"JOYTA"
The history of the motor ship "Joita" remains a mystery to this day. The ship, which was thought to be lost, was found in the ocean. It sailed without a crew or passengers. "Joita" is called the second "Mary Celeste", but if the events that took place on the "Mary Celeste" took place in the century before last, then the disappearance of people from board the "Joita" dates back to the second half of the 20th century.
"Joita" had excellent seaworthiness. On October 3, 1955, the 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 destination port. A search was organized. Rescue ships, helicopters and planes searched the vast ocean area. However, 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, the Joyta was accidentally discovered 187 miles north of the Fiji Islands. The ship floated in a half-submerged state and had a large list. There were no people or cargo on it.
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Legends about mysterious ghost ships have been passed on from one sailor to another for many hundreds of years. They say that phantom ships appear on the horizon only to disappear just as quickly. Many of them are described as abandoned ships under strange circumstances.
Flying Dutchman
There is probably no person who has not heard of the Flying Dutchman. This is the most famous ghost ship that can be found in maritime folklore. The first information about the ship is found in the 1700s in George Barrington's book "A Voyage to Botany Harbour". The story tells of a ship from Amsterdam, captained by a certain Van der Decken. The ship was heading to the East Indies when it was overtaken by a strong storm near the Cape of Good Hope. Determined to continue his journey, Van der Decken went mad, killed his first mate and vowed to cross the cape. Despite all his efforts, the ship sank. Since then, as legend has it, the captain and his ghostly ship are doomed to wander the seas for eternity.
Octavius
Perhaps the most famous after the Flying Dutchman is the story of Octavius. In 1775, the whaling ship Herald encountered the ship Octavius, which was sailing aimlessly along the coast of Greenland. Herald's crew members boarded the Octavius, only to find the bodies of the crew and passengers frozen from the cold. The ship's captain was found in his cabin, next to him was a journal with the date 1762 on it. According to legend, the captain bet that he would quickly return to England along the Eastern Route, but the ship got stuck in the ice.
Joyta
This ship was empty when it was found in the South Pacific in 1955. It was heading towards the Tokelau Islands when something happened to it. A rescue team was equipped a few hours later, but the ship was discovered only 5 weeks later. The ship had no passengers, no crew, no cargo, no lifeboats, and one side was seriously damaged. After closer examination, it turned out that Joyta's radio wave was tuned to a distress signal, and a doctor's bag and several bloody bandages were found on the deck. None of the team was ever seen again, and the mystery has not been solved to this day.
People who have never traveled across the seas and oceans, and have seen ghost ships only in horror and science fiction films, cannot understand ordinary sailors who go on voyages for 3-6 months and sometimes observe this, something that cannot be believed without evidence. Sailors get used to storms and strong storms faster than to the realization that phantoms of ships that sank long ago can appear in the depths of the ocean. History knows a lot of examples of tragically sunken liners, which in our time have become overgrown with legends and cause horror in the eyes of listeners. And the horror is that such ships are periodically seen alive, and our article will describe exactly 10 ghost ships that seriously excite the blood.
1 "Kaleuche"
The southern coast of Chile is famous for the island of Chiloe, to which, according to local inhabitants, a ghostly ship sails from time to time. Its name is “Kaleuche” and it is neither commercial, nor military, nor even pirate... according to legend, the souls of dead sailors are transported on it to another world. Eyewitnesses claim that there is fun on the ship and cheerful music is playing. And although the schooner is ghostly, it looks quite real, bright and beautiful. For just a couple of minutes, the Kaleuche can be observed near this island, and then, as if in a film, the ship literally dissolves into the depths of the sea.
2
In 1947, a real event happened that still gives goosebumps even to those who were not involved in it. One of the crew members of Ourang Medan sent a distress signal to the nearest seaport. Judging by his voice, something terrible was happening on board the ship, since the last words the sailor said over the radio were “I’m dying.” The rescuers responded quickly, but once on board the Ourang Medan, they found a strange and creepy picture: the entire crew was dead, but the strange thing was that the bodies of the dead were recorded in strange poses and with their eyes wide open.
3 Joyita
Merchant ships often disappear under mysterious circumstances, but are still found over time (even after decades). But a ship called Joyita, whose crew consisted of 25 sailors and transported wood and medical supplies, disappeared without a trace! There were no distress signals from the ship, and the weather was calm those days, but Joyita, which was supposed to be loaded with copra on the way back, never returned to its destination.
4 Bel Amica
It also happens when ships appear from the distance of the sea without any special signs by which they can be identified. This happened in 2006, when guards noticed a drifting ship called Bel Amica near a port in Italy. Rescuers found no one on board, although remnants of recent food and playing cards indicated that the ship had been abandoned recently and in a hurry. It would seem that what is strange here? According to the database, based on the name of the ship, Bel Amica could not be identified to this day!
5 "Beichimo"
At the beginning of the last century, off the coast of Alaska, the ship Beichimo sailed on the water. But the ship did not last long, as it soon became trapped in pack ice. The crew of the ship was evacuated, but the marine unit itself drifted for 40 years and sank, although, according to eyewitnesses, it occasionally appeared on the horizon.
6 "Mary Celeste"
The ship "Mary Celeste" is a real example of the lack of logic and mystery. In 1972, in the waters of the Atlantic, near Portugal, a ship was drifting in impeccable condition. After examining it, the rescuers were very surprised by the fact that the passengers’ personal belongings, a six-month supply of provisions and, in general, all kinds of valuables on board the mysterious liner remained untouched, but the people disappeared without a trace.
7 "Octavius"
This story “stands out” from a number of similar ones, since it is fictional. However, the story of “Octavius” turned out to be so fascinating that it became surrounded by legends. So, at the end of the 18th century, a ghost ship was discovered drifting in the Arctic Ocean. The Octavius was discovered near Greenland, the crew of which was long dead, but the bodies were preserved in very good condition. This phenomenon was explained simply: low air temperature. The most terrible sight awaited the rescue team in the captain's cabin, where the captain's frozen corpse was discovered at the table with the logbook.
8 "Carroll A. Deering"
This story can be associated, although there is no evidence, with the Bermuda Triangle. The Carroll A. Deering, launched in 1919, was discovered 2 years later near the North. Carolina. The crew was not found on board the ghost ship, and the details of their disappearance could not be accurately established. There was also a version that the ship was plundered by pirates.
9 "Flying Dutchman"
It’s impossible to count how many films have been made about this ghost ship! “Pirates of the Caribbean” is one of these films, where Davy Jones, whose head consisted of tentacles (if you watched it, remember), acted as the maddened captain of the “Flying Dutchman”. In fact, the captain's name was Philip Van der Decken (although this is a fictional character) and he was crazy about the idea of sailing around the Cape of Good Hope during a storm. This led to the ship sinking, and its phantom roamed the open ocean and scared away merchant ships.
10
Another fairy tale that has become a legend. Simon Peel, the captain of this schooner, went on a cruise with his betrothed, not paying attention to the fact that with a woman on the ship you can expect trouble! As a result, his jealous assistant sank the ship along with all the members of Lady Lovebond. According to legend, a schooner can be seen off the coast of South-East England once every half century.
Most often, ghost ships are found in the North Atlantic. However, it is impossible to name the exact number of wanderers - it changes from year to year. According to statistics, in some years the number of “Dutch” ships drifting in the North Atlantic reached three hundred. Quite a lot of ghost ships drift in sea areas far from shipping routes and rarely visited by merchant ships.
At times, The Flying Dutchmen remind us of themselves. Either the current carries them to coastal shallows, or they are thrown by the wind onto rocks or underwater reefs. It happens that the “Dutch” ships, which do not carry running lights at night, become the cause of collisions with oncoming ships, which sometimes have grave consequences.
"Flying Dutchman"
This 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, or the victim of a giant squid or octopus.
Meeting the “flying Dutchman” at sea is considered a bad omen - such a meeting foreshadows death.
"Marlboro"
1913, October - the schooner Marlboro was brought by a storm to one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The captain's assistant and several crew members boarded and were shocked by the terrible sight: dead bodies of crew members, dried up like mummies, were scattered throughout the sailing ship. The sailboat's masts were completely intact, but the entire schooner was covered in mold. In the hold it was the same: dead crew members everywhere, dried up like mummies.
The investigation established an incredible fact: a three-masted sailing ship left the port of Littleton in early January 1890, it was heading to Scotland, its home port of Glasgow, but for unknown reasons it never arrived at the port.
But what could have happened to the crew of the sailing ship? Did the calm deprive him of the wind and force him to drift aimlessly until all supplies of drinking water were exhausted? How could it happen that a sailboat with a dead crew did not crash on the reefs after 24 years of drifting?
"Orung Medan"
1947, June (according to other sources - early February 1948) - British and Dutch listening stations, as well as two American ships in the Strait of Malacca received a distress signal with the following content: “The captain and all the officers are lying dead in the cockpit and on the bridge. Perhaps the whole team is dead." This message was followed by unintelligible Morse code and a short phrase: “I’m dying.” No more signals were received, but the place where the message was sent 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 indeed dead, including even the dog. No visible injuries were found on the bodies of the victims, although it was obvious from the expressions on their faces that they were dying in horror and severe agony. The ship itself was also not damaged, but members of the rescue team noted an unusual cold in the depths of the hold. Soon after the inspection began, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold, and the rescuers were forced to hastily return to their ship. Some time after this, the Orung Medan exploded and sank, making further investigation of the incident impossible.
"Seabird"
On a July morning in 1850, residents of the village of Easton's Beach on the coast of Rhode Island were surprised to see a sailing ship heading towards the shore from the sea under full sail. He stopped in shallow water. People came on board to find coffee boiling on the galley stove and plates laid out on the table in the cabin. But the only living creature on board was a dog, trembling with fear, huddled in the corner of one of the cabins. There was not a single person on the ship.
The cargo, navigation instruments, maps, sailing directions and ship's documents were all in perfect order. The last entry in the logbook stated: "Abeam Brenton Reef" (this reef is located only a few miles from Easton's Beach).
It was known that the Seabird was carrying a cargo of 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 sailing ship.
"Ebiy Ess Hart"
1894, September - the three-masted barque Ebiy Ess Hart was spotted in the Indian Ocean from the German steamer Pikkuben. A distress signal fluttered from its mast. When the German sailors landed on the deck of the sailing ship, they saw that all 38 crew members were dead, and the captain had gone crazy.
Unknown frigate
1908, October - not far from one of the major Mexican ports, a half-submerged frigate was discovered, with a strong list to the left side. The sailboat's mast topmasts were broken, the name was impossible to establish, and the crew was absent. There were no storms or hurricanes in this area of the ocean at that time. The search was fruitless, and the reasons for the disappearance of the crew remained a mystery, although many different hypotheses were put forward.
"I want"
1953, February - the sailors of the English ship "Rani", being 200 miles from the Nicobar Islands, discovered a small cargo ship "Holchu" in the ocean. The ship was damaged and the mast was broken. Although the lifeboats were in place, there was no crew. The holds contained a cargo of rice, and the bunkers contained a full supply of fuel and water. Where the 5 crew members could have disappeared is still a mystery.
"Kobenhavn"
1928, December 4 - the Danish training sailing ship "Cobenhavn" left Buenos Aires to continue its circumnavigation. On board the sailing ship there was a crew and 80 students from the maritime school. A week later, when the Kobenhavn had already covered about 400 miles, a radiogram was received from the ship. It reported that the voyage was successful and that everything was fine on the ship. The further fate of the sailing ship and the people on it remains a mystery. The ship did not arrive at its home port, Copenhagen. They claim that he was subsequently encountered several times in different parts of the Atlantic. The sailboat was supposedly sailing under full sail, but there were no people on it.
"Mary Celeste"
1872 - one of the most famous ghost ships, the Mary Celeste, was found abandoned by its 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 a bad reputation was attached to it. The captain and his crew of seven people, as well as his wife and daughter, who were also on board at the time of transportation of the cargo - alcohol, disappeared without a trace. The ship, when discovered, was in good condition with sails set and sufficient supplies of food. There were no signs of a struggle. You can also exclude the version of pirates, because the crew's belongings and alcohol remained untouched.
"Joita"
To this day, the history of the motor ship “Joita” remains a mystery. The ship, which was considered lost, was discovered in the ocean. The ship was without crew or passengers. “Joita” is called the second “Mary 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 “Celeste City Hall” took place in the century before last, then the disappearance of people on board the “Joyta” dates back to the second half of the twentieth century.
"Joita" had excellent seaworthiness. 1955, October 3 - the 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. He did not arrive at his destination port.
A search was organized. Rescue ships, helicopters and planes searched 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, the Joyta was accidentally discovered 187 miles north of the Fiji Islands. The ship was half-submerged and had a large list. There were no people or cargo on it.
Schooner Jenny
“May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I'm the only one left alive. “The captain who wrote this message was still sitting in his chair with a pen in his hand when this message was discovered in his journal 17 years later. His body, and the bodies of the other six people aboard the British schooner Jenny, were well preserved thanks to the cold weather of Antarctica, where the ship was frozen in ice and killed. 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 Angos was abandoned by its crew. This happened off the eastern coast of Africa. The transport "Angos" with a gross tonnage of 1,684 register tons and a carrying capacity of 1,236 tons left on April 23, 1971 from the port of Nacala (Mozambique) to another Mozambican port, Porto Amelia. Three days later, Angos discovered the Panamanian tanker Esso Port Dickson.
The ship was drifting 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 vehicle had suffered a collision. This was evidenced by the serious injuries he received. There were obvious signs of a recent fire on the bridge. Experts found that it could have been the result of a small explosion that occurred here. But it was never possible to explain the disappearance of 24 crew members and one passenger of the Angosh.
Submarine
1956 - an extraordinary ghost ship appeared in front of the residents of the island of New Georgia (from the Solomon Islands archipelago) 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 sea hulk was washed ashore by the wind and waves. It was determined to be an American World War II submarine. However, the fate of the crew remained a mystery.
The concept of the “Ghost Ship” appeared a long time ago; according to one version, this was facilitated by the legend of the “Flying Dutchman”.
The Dutch captain Van Der Decken was a tough and cruel man. A drunkard, a blasphemer and a foul-mouthed man, he feared neither God nor the devil and kept his crew in constant fear.
But what could not be taken away from him was that he was an excellent sailor: experienced, brave and stern. In the late autumn of 1641, his fast vessel, in full sail, rushed from the East Indies to Amsterdam, carrying a cargo of spices and two passengers - a beautiful girl and her groom. The beauty fell into Van Der Decken's heart and he decided to win her in his usual way. Approaching the couple on deck, he shot the young man, threw the corpse overboard and turned to the girl with an insistent offer to share all the hardships and joys of family life. But the beauty chose to commit suicide by throwing herself into the abyss. This spoiled the captain's mood and he took another portion of rum. At that time the schooner was approaching the Cape of Storms. This place on the southern tip of the African continent, where the waters of two oceans converge - the warm Indian and cold Atlantic, generating strong winds and rapid currents, is now called the Cape of Good Hope (what else can sailors hope for in this inhospitable place?). A storm was beginning that promised to be terrible, even for these places where the sea is never calm. Decken orders the team to move forward. The sailors, seeing that this is madness, refuse, and the navigator, an old friend of the captain who has sailed with him for many years, offers to take refuge in a quiet bay and wait out the rampant elements, for which he receives a bullet in the forehead from the captain and is sent off to feed the fish. Following him, Van Der Decken sends several more crew members to their forefathers and the remaining sailors obey him. After repeated attempts to break through, Decken, shaking his fist at the heavens, shouts that he will pass this cape, even if it takes forever, decorating his speech with strong words and blasphemies. According to an old sea legend, the heavens did not forgive Captain Van Der Decken and cursed him, his ship and crew. From then until the Second Coming, a rotten schooner with rotten sails and a crew of the dead rushes across the seas and oceans, instilling fear in the sailors. And God forbid that you meet this old schooner at sea on the stern of which is written “The Flying Dutchman.” Home port "Eternity". This is just one version of the legend about the “Messenger of Death,” as the sailors also dubbed this ghost ship. According to other sources, the captain's name was Van Der Straaten, and according to others, Bernard Focke. In German maritime folklore, Captain von Falkenberg appears, who sailed in the North Sea and loved to play dice with the devil, and in the end lost his soul. And besides, there is a legend about the “Flying Spaniard,” the ship of the repentant pirate Pepe the Mallorcan, but meeting him, unlike meeting the Dutchman, brings good luck to the sailors. But the essence of all these legends is the same - ghost ships.
Do they exist? Where do they come from and where do they go? Let's try to figure it out. The very first documentary mention of a ghost ship with the dead on board can be considered a place in the Old Testament, where on the fortieth day of the voyage, when the rain stopped, Noah went out onto the deck of the ark “And Noah saw how dead trees were floating on the waters and there were people on them. People were dead. And Noah saw how one of the dead people and rivers rose up: Why did you save your own, and leave us to die? And Noah answered: For you are the kingdom of sin." March 15, 59, the picturesque town of Bahia. The bloodthirsty emperor Nero orders the prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus to execute the sailor Anicetus for not following the emperor's orders and not killing Nero's mother Agrippa in the seas. Aniket's yacht was burned, the crew was thrown to the lions, and Aniket himself was killed by the Praetorians. Here is what Seneca wrote about this: “That same night, the inhabitants of Bahia saw a strange ship at sea, rushing with all sails in complete calm. The sailors of the trireme, the one that had brought Agrippa to the bay days earlier, swore that they could see the captain standing at the helm in a bloody cloak. They recognized him as Aniket. And the residents of Bahia said that the team was all dead.”
In subsequent centuries, sailors undoubtedly encountered ghost ships (just look at the legend about the ghost pirate ship “Kenara”, which robbed everyone on its way and disappeared without a trace), but I couldn’t find more or less clear data, so let’s move to more recent times loved ones. During the period of active geographical discoveries, legends about ghost ships became widely known. The superstitious fear of sailors gave rise to unimaginable stories; in particular, in those days, sailors believed that a ship crossing the equator would inevitably fall into a fire hyena or be torn to pieces by sea monsters. This fear was dispelled by a certain Bartolomeu Dias, who in 1487 rounded the ferocious Cape of Storms and entered the Indian Ocean. But Dias never made it to India - the exhausted team insisted on returning. According to the chronicle, in 1500 Barthalomeu went missing along with his ship at the same bloodthirsty Cape of Storms. The sailors of Dias who reached Lisbon, talking about the difficulties and hardships of this voyage, all unanimously argued that the captain was cursed by providence and doomed to wander the seas disembodied. There were also those who saw this ghostly ship with Captain Dias at the helm. In 1770, a ship approached the island of Malta, the name of which has not been preserved by history. An epidemic of an unknown disease broke out on board. The Chief Master of the Order of Malta, without remembering sympathy, ordered the ill-fated ship to be towed further out to sea and not allowed to be fired by a cannon. Then the unfortunate team went to Tunisia (Tunisia on the world map), but the local ruler was warned and he refused shelter to the wanderers, handing over a supply of fresh water, food and some medicines. With the last of their strength, the sailors made it to Italy, but even there they were refused. Both in France and in England. And so the entire crew of the damned ship died out, turning the vessel into a floating crypt.
On August 11, 1775, the crew of the whaling ship Herald, located off the coast of Greenland, saw a strange shining ship directly ahead, on the deck of which there was no movement. The masts and sides of this ship were covered with ice, which created an ominous glow. The ship did not respond to any signals, so the captain decided to land on the Octavius (the sailors had difficulty reading the name on board the ship). What was found on the ship left everyone in a depressed state. In the cockpit, the frozen corpses of sailors lay on hammocks; the captain was sitting in his cabin at the table, forever bent over the logbook; the corpse of a woman rested on a cot nearby; An officer was sitting on the floor, and chips and flint were lying next to him, and next to him, under a sailor’s jacket, lay the corpse of a ten-year-old boy. The captain of the Herald wanted to examine the hold, but the sailors refused to continue to be on board this, which had become a funeral ship. The logbook became fragile from many years of frost and, dropped by someone in the bustle, crumbled into pages, almost all of which were immediately picked up by the wind and carried out to sea. We managed to save only the first three and one last pages. From this meager information it became known that the Octavius left England on September 10, 1761 and headed for China. Probably on the way back, the captain decided to take the Northern Passage in order to significantly shorten the journey home and not pass through the Cape of Good Hope (he again!), but the ship was trapped in ice and all the people died a cruel death. Thus, it is likely that the first to pass through the most difficult Northern Passage was a ghost ship with a frozen crew, and it spent 13 years sailing... As soon as the Herald unmoored from the Octavius, the floating cemetery was caught by the current and quickly disappeared into the fog.
The early morning of one day in 1850 for residents of the city of Newport, on the coast of the American state of Rhode Island, was marked by an unusual event. First, they noticed a small sailboat heading towards the shore with all sails. Straight to the most dangerous reefs. People tried to signal the crew, to warn of danger, but the schooner did not react. Right in front of the rocks, a large wave lifted the ship and, throwing it over the reefs, gently lowered it onto the sandy beach. When the people got to the vessel, another surprise awaited them. Perfect order reigned on board the Sea Bird (that was the name of the ship). A kettle was boiling on the stove, the smell of expensive tobacco was felt in the wardroom, the table was set for breakfast. All navigational instruments, life-saving equipment and lifeboats were all in place. There was only one thing missing - people. The last entry in the logbook read: “Abeam Brenton Reef.” This cape is only three miles from Newport. A thorough police investigation did not yield any results: neither people, nor their bodies, nor any traces could be found.
Another ship, the Brigantine Amazon, left the docks at Spencer's Island in New Scotland in 1862. On the first voyage, the captain died and the sailors began to talk about the evil fate weighing on this ship. Owners and captains changed several times. After a series of adversities that plagued the brigantine, a storm washed it ashore in Nova Scotia in 1869, and the then owner managed to sell the ship inexpensively to an American industrialist. He gave the brigantine the name “Mary Celeste”, under which she became famous, but sadly. The fateful voyage began on November 7, 1872, when Captain Benjamin Briggs, 38 years old, loaded 1,701 barrels of cognac spirit into the hold, left the port of Staten Island, New York and headed to the port of Genoa. But the ship never reached Italy. It was discovered 600 kilometers from Gibraltar two months later, on December 5th, by the ship Dei Grazia under the command of Captain David Reed Morehouse. At the moment of discovery, all sails on the Mary Celeste were raised and the ship was moving quickly forward. When the Dei Grazia reached the brigantine, the captain and chief mate descended onto its deck, they found only a echoing emptiness. The Mary Celeste's hold was 3.5 feet full of water, the hatch covers were removed, and the aft windows leading from the captain's cabin were covered with tarpaulin and boarded up. In the cockpit, everything was turned upside down, but the chests with the personal belongings of the sailors were not touched, the main navigational instruments, as well as the ship’s documentation, were not found, the only lifeboat was missing, the compass was destroyed. Everything indicated that the crew was urgently evacuated, if not for some circumstances - in the captain’s cabin, the jewelry of his wife Sarah Elizabeth Cobb-Briggs (who was also on board with her two-year-old daughter Sophia Matilda) was found in the captain’s cabin for a fairly large amount and two weighty wads of money, an outstretched accordion stood on the bed, and a music book lay next to it. An untouched supply of food for six months was found in the storerooms; nothing significant was taken from the galley either. This greatly puzzled the investigators: what made people leave the ship without taking food and water with them, if the Mary Celeste did not sink, and moreover, was sailing under full sail? If the crew, captain and his family did not leave the ship, then where did they go? There are still no answers to these questions. The investigation, which lasted 11 years, did not come to any conclusions and was finally closed, and the verdict was: “In the complete absence of any data that can shed light on this case, it is to be feared that the fate of the crew of the Mary Celeste will increase the number of secrets of the ocean, which will be revealed only on that great day when the sea abandons its dead. If a crime has been committed, as there is much to suspect, then there is little hope that the criminals will fall into the hands of justice.” The Mary Celeste brought misfortune to many people, but not to Captain Morehouse. Spitting on prejudices and superstitions, he took the ship in tow and delivered it to the port of Gibraltar, receiving 20% of the cost of the ship with cargo, which made him a very, very wealthy man. After this sensational case, the “Mary Celeste” plowed the world’s oceans for another 12 years, until in 1884 she ran into a reef off the coast of Haiti and sank, dragging several more people and an unsolved mystery with her to the bottom.
On July 11, 1881, the British frigate Bacchae, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, met a ghost ship. Here is an entry from the logbook: “During the night watch, our beam crossed the Flying Dutchman.” First, a strange reddish light appeared, emanating from the ghost ship, and against the background of this glow, the masts, rigging and sails of the brig were clearly visible.” The consequences of this meeting did not have to wait long. The next day, the Martian sailor who was the first to notice the ghost ship fell from the mast and fell to his death. A few days later the squadron commander suddenly died. The future English monarch George V, who served as a midshipman cadet on this frigate, later did not regret that he slept through this meeting.
The American schooner White was abandoned by her crew in 1888 due to a severe leak. But the ship did not sink, but rather, drawn by the winds and currents, drifted across the Atlantic for another year and during that time traveled more than five thousand miles! In early 1889, the White ran aground near the Hybrid Islands.
Another American schooner, the Fanny Walsten, abandoned by its crew in 1891, also due to a strong leak, was drawn by the Gulf Stream and traveled 8,000 miles in three years. During this time she was seen more than forty times. “Fanny Walsten” came to rest only in the fall of 1894. On January 11, 1890, the brig Marlborough left Lyttelton (New Zealand) for London with a cargo of wool and frozen meat. The crew consisted of 29 people. The ship was commanded by the experienced captain J. Hurd. This data was recovered with great difficulty many years later. In 1913, the crew of the English steamship Johnson, not far from the shores of Tierra del Fuego, discovered a sailing ship at full speed heading in the opposite direction. The captain was surprised by the lack of movement on the deck and the rather strange general appearance of the sailboat. He ordered a group of rescuers to be disembarked on board the ship. Here are the lines from his report: “the sails and masts are covered with green mold, the deck boards are rotten. The pages of the logbook were stuck together, the ink had smeared, and not a single entry could be read. All crew members are in their places: one is at the helm, three are on the deck near the hatch, ten watchmen are at their posts, six are in the cockpit. There are still rags of clothing on the skeletons.” For 23 years, the restless brig hung around the sea, unnoticed by anyone; what happened to the crew, who died in their places, could not be established.
In general, during these years the number of encounters with abandoned ships increases sharply. Historians associate this dynamic with the massive transition of humanity from sailing ships to steamships. Sailboats that have become a burden, requiring expensive repairs and modernization, are simply abandoned by their owners to the waves. Thus, the insurance company Lloyd calculated that during the period from 1891 to 1893, 1828 reports of captains about a meeting with the “Flying Dutchmen” were registered. But inexplicable encounters also occurred.
On September 14, 1894, the three-masted Ebiy Ess Hart was spotted from the German ship Pikkuben. A distress signal was raised on it, the rescue team discovered 38 corpses on the ship, whose faces were disfigured with a stamp of horror. These were the corpses of all the crew members, except for the captain, who miraculously survived, but could not tell anything, as he was hopelessly distraught. The 20th century is extremely rich in such events. So as not to bore you, I will cite only the most unusual ones. On January 26, 1923, from aboard a ship sailing from Australia to England, in the waters near the Cape of Good Hope, two assistant captain N.K. Stone and two sailors observed a ghost ship.
Here is an excerpt from Ernest Bennett's book Ghosts and Haunted Houses. Eyewitness accounts" (1934): "About 0.15 at night we saw a strange glow ahead of us on the port side. It was pitch dark, completely cloudy, and the moon was not shining. We looked through binoculars and the ship's telescope and discerned the luminous outlines of a floating ship, two-masted, the empty yards were also glowing, there were no sails visible, but a light luminous haze was observed between the masts. Those weren't navigation lights. The ship seemed to be moving straight towards us, and its speed was the same as ours. When we first noticed it, it was about two or three miles away from us, and when it was half a mile away from us, it suddenly disappeared. This spectacle was observed by four people: the second mate, the trainee, the helmsman and myself. I can’t forget the second mate’s frightened cry: “Oh my God, it’s a ghost ship!” This story was exactly confirmed to Bennett by the second assistant; the other two witnesses could not be found. On December 4, 1928, the Danish training four-masted sailing ship Kobenhavn left Buenos Aires. His goal was to continue traveling around the world. On board were the crew and 80 cadets from elite maritime schools. A week later, when the sailing ship had traveled more than 400 miles, a radiogram was received from its board in which the captain reported on the successful voyage and complete order on board. This message is the last that is known about the people on the Kobenhavn. Subsequently, sailors repeatedly encountered a graceful four-masted ship with a white stripe along the side (the international designation of a training ship), sailing under full sail with no signs of life on the deck or yards. A number of search expeditions were launched, but they did not bring any results. The parents of the cadets, influential and wealthy people, without much hope for the state, organized a search on their own, but, alas, also to no avail.
The logbook of the Dutch cargo ship Straat Magelhaes, under the command of Captain Piet Alger, contains an entry reporting that in the early morning of October 8, 1959, off the southern tip of the African continent, a sailing ship suddenly appeared out of the fog, heading in the opposite direction. The captain and crew managed to avoid a collision with great difficulty. Before they had time to come to their senses, the sailboat disappeared into the fog. In his report, the captain indicated that the ship was very similar to the Kobenhavn.
According to reports from American naval sailors in 1930, the US Navy destroyed 267 abandoned stray ships. 1933 The lifeboat of the passenger steamer SS Valencia was discovered near the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. There would be nothing surprising in this story if the Valencia had not sank in 1906. That is, the boat was at sea for 27 (!) years and at the same time was quite well preserved. The sailors also said that they often see a phantom of the ship itself walking along the coastline. During World War II, German submarine crews sighted the Flying Dutchman east of Suez on numerous occasions. Admiral Karl Doenitz wrote in his reports to Berlin: “The sailors said that they would prefer to meet the forces of the Allied Fleet in the North Atlantic than to experience the horror of meeting the phantom again.”
February 1948. Dutch radio stations detected a distress signal from the Strait of Malacca. The radio operator of the steamship Urang Medan called out to humanity. First, multiple SOS, then suddenly: “The captain and all the officers were killed. I’m probably the only one left alive…”, a series of illegible dots and dashes, then: “I’m dying” and the air was empty. The arriving rescue team found only corpses on the ship: the captain on the navigation bridge, officers in the navigation and wheelhouses, sailors throughout the ship, and a radio operator in the radio room near the station. Everyone's faces are distorted with horror. Even the ship's dog died. There are no signs of violence on any of the corpses. There is no damage to the ship.
1956 Residents of the island of New Georgia (from the Solomon Islands archipelago) observed a submarine dangling helplessly in the coastal waters with a sun-dried human corpse hanging from the wheelhouse. When the boat washed ashore, it was possible to establish that it was an American submarine from the Second World War. What happened to the crew remains a mystery. At the beginning of 1970, the American transport Badger State, which was considered sunken, was accidentally discovered, loaded to the brim with aerial bombs. At the end of December 1969, the transport was caught in a strong storm and the movement of the deadly cargo began due to the motion. As a result, one of the bombs fell off its mounts and exploded, leaving a hole in the side with an area of 10 square meters. The load of bombs did not detonate and the crew tried to abandon the ship, but two life rafts were washed off the deck by the waves, and the third was lowered, 35 sailors fit into it, but it was overturned by a 2000 pound bomb that fell out of the hole, and people found themselves in water whose temperature did not exceed 9oC. Only 14 people were saved. But the Badger State, contrary to expectations and logic, did not sink, but drifted for several more months, threatening the inevitable death of passing ships. In 1970, the transport was sunk by an American gunboat. In 1986, in the Philadelphia area, passengers on a pleasure boat spotted an old sailboat with torn sails. On its deck were crowded people in cocked hats and doublets of the 16th century, with muskets, sabers and boarding axes. They shouted something and waved their arms and weapons. As it turned out later, the crew of the phantom turned out to be... Hollywood extras who took part in the filming of the film about “The Flying Dutchman”! a gust of wind broke the cable holding the ship and the would-be pirates were carried towards the open sea. The list of encounters with mystery ships in the seas and oceans is endless.
