Underwater marine explorers have the most interesting job in the world. Sometimes things open up before them that they don’t even know about - they start with researching a submarine, and find themselves involved in two more incidents.
So in 2005, a team of marine researchers began to investigate the history of the disappearance of expensive cargo that was on board the Alexander Macomb, which sank in the waters of the North Atlantic.
The discovery of military transport was broadcast in publications around the world. The sunken submarine U-215 rests 300 km off the coast of Nova Scotia at a depth of 82 meters. There, during World War II, the Alexander Macomb, one of hundreds of Liberty-class transport ships that supplied cargo to Europe, sank.
On board were not only planes, tanks and other military equipment, but also valuable copper and aluminum. Today this cargo would be worth millions of dollars. However, by the will of fate, the balance of power changed even after the death of the military transport Alexander Macomb. Suddenly, the hunter became the hunted when Allied transport ships sought out the submarine U-215 and destroyed it with depth charges. By noon that day, July 3, 1942, there were already two sunken ships lying at the bottom of the sea.
For the first time, marine researchers discovered the remains of the submarine U-215 off the coast of Nova Scotia, but soon archaeologists learned about the death of the military transport Alexander Macomb. The two ships sank together in the same area.
The valuable cargo on the Alexander Macomb cargo ship was destined for Russia, but ownership of the cargo soon passed to a private individual. In addition, the results of the profitable operation of the cargo ship were kept a great secret. By the end of 1966, the military transport Alexander Macomb had recovered about 2,000 tons of metal, mostly copper and aluminum, as well as a lot of zinc.
The story of the recovery of valuable cargo does not end with the recovery of copper in 1988; another group visited the wreck of the Alexander Macomb. They were not interested in the copper, but in the old airplanes left on board the ship. As it turned out, they are very rare. On the modern market, their parts cost at least 400 thousand dollars. This goal fully justified their laborious work. However, this expedition was unable to lift a single aircraft. In addition, they lost expensive equipment, which was left lying in the rubble.
Thanks to the coordinated work of people and machines, the crash site was examined. The place resembled a huge pile of crumpled metal. Found on the ship great amount mines and shells practically survived. Everything had detonators.
As it turned out, the ship hit an underwater obstacle and began to sink. The crew abandoned the ship. However, the ship did not sink immediately. At 06.00 German time, the submarine U-109 found him afloat and fired 5 torpedoes. The boat moved away, and the ship itself sank to the bottom. A few years later, Risdow Beasley found him and lifted the load from him.
The ship's fate ended off the coast of Canada during World War II. Caravans of ships, making their way through naval battles, delivered necessary supplies and food to Europe. Military transport ships did not always reach their destination safely. They often became victims of German submarines. This is what happened to the cargo ship Alexander Macomb. And the mysterious Mr. Beasley made a good fortune for himself by lifting cargo, but only thanks to him, we learned information about sunken ships that seemed lost forever.
Have you ever heard about mysterious cases during which passengers on planes and ships went missing? In the best case, people were found within a few days, and in the worst, news about their fate never appeared again. No remains, no debris...
Sometimes a long-awaited vacation seems like a real fairy tale, from which you really don’t want to return home and to work, but be careful what you wish for, because sometimes they turn into real disasters. Here is a list of the 10 most mysterious cases of mass disappearance of people.
10. Amelia Earhart's plane
Our first paragraph is dedicated to one of the most notorious disappearance cases in the history of American aviation. In 1937, brave Amelia Earhart set out to do something unimaginable - fly around the globe in her Lockheed Electra, starting the journey from sunny Florida and planning to follow the equator. In such a long and dangerous journey the girl went with her partner, Fred Noonan. The ship disappeared while flying somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. All searches for the plane were unsuccessful, which gave rise to many different theories about what exactly happened to the brave couple of pilots.
In 2017, a version emerged that Amelia and Fred actually survived, but were captured by the Japanese military in the Marshall Islands. This assumption appeared thanks to an old photograph taken in 1937. The photograph showed a barge towing an unidentified aircraft. The frame also included a man of European appearance, resembling Fred, and someone’s female figure from the back. This version has not been confirmed in any way, but the most amazing thing is that even almost 80 years later, people are still trying to find an answer to the question of the fate of the travelers who disappeared so long ago and completely without a trace.
9. The ship "Madagascar"
In 1853, "Madagascar" set off on its next voyage along the route Melbourne - London. It was an ordinary ship carrying passengers and cargo. The ship disappeared without a trace, was never seen again, and not even the wreckage was found! Like any other missing ship, the Madagascar also attracted public attention. There are many theories about what exactly happened to this ship, but there is something special in this story - the events that occurred right before the voyage departed from the Australian port are of interest.
Before the ship disappeared, 110 passengers boarded the ship and loaded containers of rice and wool. However, the most valuable cargo turned out to be as much as 2 tons of gold. Three passengers were arrested just before departure, an incident that led experts to believe there may have been more criminals on board the ship than police realized. Perhaps, at sea, the attackers decided to rob the Madagascar and killed all the passengers so as not to leave witnesses. However, this does not explain why investigators were never able to find the ship itself.
8. Airplane "Stardust"
In 1947, British South American Airways' Stardust took off on schedule and took off through the famous Argentine Andes. A few minutes before disappearing from radar, the pilot of the aircraft sent a strange message encrypted in Morse code. The message read: "STENDEC". The disappearance of the plane and the mysterious code have greatly puzzled experts. Rumors even spread among the people about abduction by aliens. After a full 53 years, the mystery of the missing Stardust flight was finally solved.
In 2000, climbers discovered the remains of a plane and the bodies of several passengers on a remote peak in the frozen Andes at an altitude of almost 6,565 meters. Investigators believe that the plane crash could have triggered a powerful avalanche that covered the body of the aircraft and hid the traces of the remaining victims, which is why they were never found. As for the mysterious word STENDEC, the most likely version is considered to be an error in the typing of the STR DEC code, meaning a common abbreviation for the phrase “starting descent”.
7. Steam yacht “SY Aurora”
The history of the ship "SY Aurora" clearly demonstrates the power of such ships, but its ending still turned out to be quite tragic. A steam yacht is generally considered to be a sailboat with an additional primary or secondary steam engine. This yacht was originally built for whaling, but later it began to be used for scientific trips to Antarctica. There were a total of 5 such expeditions, and each time the ship proved itself to be a reliable vehicle, capable of withstanding the harshest weather and successfully protecting crew members from northern frosts. Nothing could break his power.
In 1917, the SY Aurora disappeared while en route to the coast of Chile. The ship was carrying coal to South America, but it never managed to complete its mission and deliver the cargo to its destination. Historians believe that the yacht could have become a casualty of the First World War. The wreckage of the ship was never found, so experts can only guess about the true reasons for the disappearance of the ship.
6. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
Unlike several previous stories, this plane did not just crash and disappear into oblivion... Several crew members survived and went through a real nightmare until they were found by rescuers. In 1972, Flight 571 was en route from Argentina to Chile with 40 passengers and 5 crew members on board. The charter was supposed to bring a team of athletes, their relatives and sponsors to the city of Santiago. The aircraft disappeared from radar somewhere in the Argentine Andes. During the crash, 12 passengers died immediately, and the rest had to fight for survival for another 72 days in the harshest conditions, which without special equipment are practically incompatible with life. Although it would be more accurate to say that 72 days turned out to be too long for most of them...
It is impossible to imagine how scared all these people were. In the first days of the disaster, another 5 people died from cold and severe injuries. One of the following days, a powerful avalanche covered the group of survivors, killing another 8 people. The freezing passengers had a faulty radio with them. It made it possible to listen to rescuers' conversations, but could not transmit messages from victims. So the people who survived the plane crash learned that their search had been stopped, and the victims themselves were declared dead in absentia. This deprived them practically last hope, although the thirst for life is almost impossible to kill. Desperate and exhausted athletes and pilots were forced to eat the frozen bodies of their friends, and in the end, out of 45 people, only 16 survived. For 2 and a half months, these people were in a real ice hell!
5. USS Capelin
This time we'll talk not about an airplane or a ship, but about a submarine. The submarine "USS Capelin" was on the account American army During the Second World War. On its first military voyage, the submarine sank a Japanese cargo ship, after which it was sent to the Australian shores for repairs and repairs. Maintenance before the second mission. On November 17, 1943, the submarine set off on its second mission and has not been seen since.
As far as experts know, the ship’s route ran through a real sea minefield, so the most likely version is associated with the explosion of a submarine. However, the wreckage of the USS Capelin was never found, so the version with mines will remain just a guess. When the warship set off on its final mission, there were 76 crew members on board, whose fate their families never learned anything about.
4. Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
In 1963, Flight 739 was a Lockheed Constellation passenger aircraft. There were 96 passengers and 11 crew members on board, all of whom were heading to the Philippines. Flying Tiger Line was the first American cargo and passenger airline to operate scheduled flights. After 2 hours of flight, communication with the pilots of the ship was interrupted, and nothing more was heard from them. Probably, the crew did not have time to transmit any message, because the incident was too sudden, and the pilots simply did not have time to send a distress signal.
A tanker from an American oil corporation was sailing in the same area that day. The crew of this ship claimed that their members saw a flash in the sky, and they immediately decided that it was an explosion. According to one theory, there was sabotage on board the missing plane, or they tried to hijack it, which led to the most tragic consequences. However, the plane's wreckage was never found, leaving investigators left to wonder what really happened to Flying Tiger Line Flight 739.
3. The ship "SS Arctic"
In 1854, the American ship SS Arctic collided with a French steamship. After the strike, both ships remained afloat, but the incident still ended rather sadly. Almost 350 people died during this accident, and for some reason only men survived on board the American ship, while all the women and children died during the collision. In addition, the stricken SS Arctic continued on its way to shore, but never made it.
As it turned out, the American ship was still too damaged to continue safely, and it was because of this that it sank on the way to land. A monument was subsequently erected in Brooklyn in honor of those killed that day.
2. Malaysian Airlines Flight 370
In 2014, a Malaysian Airlines plane took off for Beijing with 239 people on board. An hour after takeoff, contact with this aircraft was lost, but no distress signal had been received before. Before Flight 370 disappeared, radar showed that the plane had lost its course - for some reason it was heading west instead of northeast.
After the disappearance of the airliner, numerous rescue teams were sent to search for it, which carefully combed the suspected crash site in the Indian Ocean. Only a small fragment was found. The search was also resumed in 2018, but again to no avail, despite all the efforts and resources expended. What exactly happened with this flight is still a big mystery.
1. SS Waratah
Since November 2008, the SS Waratah began operating regular voyages from England to Australia via South Africa. The ship could carry up to 700 passengers and had hundreds of first class cabins. In July 2009, on the way back to Europe, the liner disappeared without a trace and was never seen again.
The last port the ship was in was Durban, South Africa. After this stop, the ship was supposed to sail to Cape Town, but it never appeared there. Experts have established that the weather turned very bad during the voyage from Durban to Cape Town, and they believe that it was a storm that caused the supposed sinking and mysterious disappearance of the SS Waratah.
It’s a strange thing: in the middle of the sea, to come across a drifting ship with no signs of life on board. Empty. Nobody here. Silence. And he rocks on the waves - calmly, calmly, as if this is how it should be, as if he doesn’t need anyone else. It’s as if he had already swam 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... Creepy.
Sailors say that in the ocean - especially in the Atlantic - this happens often: you come across empty fishing boats, small yachts, sometimes even liners - "", for example, are still looking for their last refuge. In most cases, by appearance ship it is immediately clear what happened to it, and main reason maritime disasters, of course, there will always be nature - the storm is not easy to defeat even for experienced sailors. But sometimes the disappearance of a crew simply cannot be explained.
Imagine: a boat that is completely intact, without any damage, its engines and generators are working, the radio and all emergency systems are in order, there is untouched food on the dining table and a working laptop, as if the crew a minute ago hid from you somewhere in the bilge compartment, but you They searched everything and did not find a single soul on board. You may think that this is just another sea story, but in fact it is an excerpt from the police report about the disappearance of three crew members of the KZ-II catamaran yacht in April 2007.
We think we've got you intrigued now? In this material we have collected the most famous and mysterious stories about the ships that are in different time were found at sea 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 tragic events of the past.
MV Joyita, 1955
It was a luxury yacht built in 1931 in Los Angeles for film director Roland West. During World War II, the MV Joyita was outfitted and operated as a patrol vessel off the coast of Hawaii until the end of the war.
On October 3, 1955, the MV Joyita set sail from Samoa to the island of Tokelau, a distance of approximately 270 nautical miles. Just before the voyage, 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, among them a government official, two children and a surgeon who was 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 destination port. The ship did not send any distress signals, even though its course was along a fairly busy route, where coast guard vessels often sail and which is well covered by relay stations. The search for the yacht was carried out on an area of 100,000 square meters. miles by air force, 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 missing. The VHF radio was tuned to the international distress frequency. One auxiliary engine and bilge pump were still running, and the cabin lights 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. What was intriguing was the fact that MV Joyita, with interior decoration made of balsa wood, was practically unsinkable, and the crew knew this very well. The missing cargo also remained a mystery.
Theories were put forward in a variety of ways, ranging from the most bizarre, like the Japanese Navy, which still had not stopped fighting after the end of World War II, was located at some isolated base on one of the islands. Insurance fraud, piracy, and rebellion were also considered as possibilities.
MV Joyita was recovered but, perhaps confirming her curse, 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. They searched for the ship in distress for several hours, and the British Silver Star was the first to discover it. After unsuccessful attempts to greet Ourang Medan with signal lights and whistles, they decided to land a small team. Rescuers immediately went to the control room, where the sounds of a working radio could be heard, and found several crew members there.
All of them, including the captain, were dead. More corpses were found on the cargo deck. All the Ourang Medan sailors were said to be lying in protective positions with a look of horror on their faces. Many were covered in frost, and along with one of the crew groups a dead dog was found, frozen, stiff as a statue, on all fours, growling at someone into the void.
Suddenly, somewhere in the depths of the cargo deck, an explosion was heard and a fire started. The rescuers did not fight the fire and hastened to leave the ship full of dead people. Over the next hour, several more explosions were heard on Ourang Medan, and it sank.
It is quite reasonable to believe that the story of Ourang Medan, if it was a disaster, is largely a fiction. Some argue that such a ship did not exist - at least, the name Ourang Medan was not found in Lloyd's lists. But conspiracy theorists believe that the name of the ship was fictitious, since the crew was transporting contraband, and this same contraband - you never know what kind of cargo was on board - became the cause of the tragedy.
Octavius (Octavius), 1762-1775
The English merchant ship Octavius was discovered drifting west of Greenland on October 11, 1775. A boarding party from the whaler Whaler Herald boarded the ship and found the entire crew dead and 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 frozen bodies in the cabin: a woman, a child wrapped in a blanket, and a sailor holding a tinderbox.
The boarding crew left Octavius in a hurry, taking with them only the logbook. 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 from 1762. This meant that the ship drifted dead for 13 years.
Octavius left England and headed for America in 1761. Trying to save time, the captain decided to follow the then-unexplored Northwest Passage, which was first successfully completed only in 1906. The ship got stuck in the Arctic ice, the unprepared crew froze to death - the discovered remains indicate that this happened quite quickly. It is assumed that some time later Octavius was freed from the ice and, with its dead crew, drifted on the open sea. After an encounter with whalers in 1775, the ship was never seen again.
KZ-II, 2007
The crew of the Australian catamaran yacht KZ-II went missing in April 2007 under unclear circumstances. The story received wide public attention because it resembles a similar incident with the crew of the brigantine Mary Celeste.
On 15 April 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 KZ-II and did not find any 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 brought no results.
The official version of what happened was a series of events, partially reconstructed from the recordings of a video camera found on board the KZ-II. It is believed that first one of the sailors for some reason dived into the sea. Perhaps he wanted to free a tangled fishing line. At the same moment, the yacht began to be blown to the side by the wind, something happened to the first sailor in the water, and the second sailor rushed to his aid. The third sailor remaining on board tried to steer the yacht closer to his friends by turning 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 found himself overboard. The yacht began to go out into the open ocean on its own, and the sailors were no longer able to catch up with it and eventually drowned.
Young Teazer, 1813
The privateer schooner Young Teazer was built in early 1813. It was an amazingly fast and promising ship, which already in the first months of the hunt showed itself very well on the trade 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 was soon followed by the 74-gun battleship HMS La Hogue and trapped Teazer in Mahone Bay off the Nova Scotia Peninsula. At dusk HMS La Hogue was joined by HMS Orpheus and they began preparing to attack the privateer, who now had nowhere to go. HMS La Hogue dispatched five boarding parties to Young Teazer, but as soon as they approached, the schooner exploded. The 7 surviving crew members of the Young Teazer 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 rest today in the Anglican Cemetery at Mahone Bay.
Soon after the tragic events local residents they began to claim that they saw the flaming Young Teazer rising from the depths. On June 27, 1814, people in Mahone Bay were amazed to see the ghost of a schooner on the same spot where it had been destroyed. The ghost appeared and then disappeared silently in a flash of flame and smoke. This story spread so quickly across the country that the following June, onlookers began to flock to Mahone Bay. Young Teazer is said to have appeared again that time, and has appeared every year since, and locals still claim that the schooner is periodically visible on foggy nights - especially on the first 24 hours after the full moon.
Mary Celeste (Marie Celeste), 1872
This ship can easily lay claim to the title of the biggest maritime secret of all time. Until now, the investigation into the disappearance of his crew has not advanced one step, and even after 143 years it is the topic of numerous debates.
On November 7, 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste left New York and headed 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 sails raised, had no damage and, as it later turned out, even the hold with valuable cargo was untouched.
The brigantine was discovered and identified by Captain Morehouse from another merchant ship sailing on a parallel course. He, as it turned out, knew the owner of the Mary Celeste, Captain Briggs, very well and respected him as a talented sailor, which is why Morehouse was very surprised when he realized that the brigantine he encountered was completely absurdly deviating from the known course. Morehouse tried to signal and, receiving no response, began to pursue the brigantine. Two hours later, his team landed on Mary Celeste.
The ship seemed to have been abandoned in haste. Personal belongings were untouched, including jewelry, clothing, food supplies, and all cargo. The boats were missing, as well as all the papers in the captain's cabin except for the diary, where the last entry is dated November 25 and reports that Mary Celeste left the Azores.
There were no signs of violence on board. The only visible damage was heavy traces of water on the deck, leading to the belief that the crew had abandoned ship due to inclement weather. However, this contradicted the personality of Captain Briggs, who was characterized by family, friends and partners as a skillful 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 December 13th. There, a comprehensive examination of the ship was carried out, during which inspectors discovered several stains in the captain's cabin that resembled dried blood. They also found several marks on the railings that could have been left by a blunt object or an axe, but there was no such weapon on board the Mary Celeste at the time of the study. The ship itself was declared undamaged.
Possibilities include piracy, insurance fraud, a tsunami, an explosion caused by cargo fumes, ergotism from contaminated flour that drove the crew mad, mutiny, and several supernatural explanations. There is also a version that the Mary Celeste crew reached the coast of Spain, where in 1873 they discovered several boats from an unknown ship and several unidentified corpses in them.
Over the next 17 years, the Mary Celeste changed hands 17 times, with tragic and fatal incidents said to have occurred frequently. The last owner of the brigantine sank it to set up an insurance claim.
Lyubov Orlova, 2013
One of the most famous ghost ships of recent years is the liner Lyubov Orlova, 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 Far Eastern Shipping Company fleet. In 1999, the ship was sold to a company from Malta and was hired for regular voyages to the Arctic. In 2010, the ship was arrested for debts and after two years of inactivity in Canada, it was sent by tug to the Dominican Republic for scrap. During towing, a severe storm occurred in the Caribbean and the towing cables failed. The tugboat crew tried to seize the ship out of control, but due to weather conditions this was not possible - the ship was abandoned in international waters.
The search for the vessel was unsuccessful. Its automatic identification system - a system that transmits the geographic position of ships - was offline, making it impossible to determine its location. Canadian authorities announced that since the ship in any case can now only be in international waters, Canada no longer bears responsibility for its fate - the search was stopped. The Lyubov Orlova was believed to be lost forever in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Unexpectedly, on February 1, 2013, the 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 it again. On February 4, Lyubov Orlova was 463 km from St. John's, Canada. The Canadian authorities again refused to take any measures and placed full responsibility for the ship on its owner. A few days later, “Lyubov Orlova” was lost again.
For a year, the 4,250-ton vessel, whose remains are valued at RUB 34 million, managed to avoid the scrutiny of its owner's search teams and scrap metal hunters. The popularity of the ghost ship increased until it appeared in in social networks fake users under the name “Lyubov Orlova” / “Lyubov Orlova” and the site whereisorlova.com, which, however, is dedicated to other ghost ships. The phrase “Where is Lyubov Orlova?” turned into a meme and is said to have been printed on T-shirts and mugs.
In January 2014, the ghost ship was again spotted drifting 2.4 thousand km. from the west coast of Ireland. Experts believed that the ship was moving towards the shores of Great Britain, where recent storms had pushed it. The British authorities were preparing for a meeting with the celebrity, especially fearing that the drifting ship might be inhabited by cannibal rats, but the Lyubov Orlova disappeared again.
Lady Lovibond, 1748
In the 18th century, sailors firmly believed in omens, and quite often their superstitions were fueled by situations that were understandable and even prosaic by today’s standards. Maybe this is why the “edifying” story of the sailing ship Lady Lovibond made it so popular and the legend so long-lasting.
On February 13, 1748, the newly married Simon Reed and Annette set off on their honeymoon from Great 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 lashed out at the helmsman and, losing his composure, killed him. Rivers then took control of the ship and steered it towards the Goodwin Sands, a notorious sandbar in the English Channel. The ship was wrecked, no one was saved.
In 1848, a hundred years after the tragic events described, local fishermen saw a sailboat crash on the Goodwin Sands. Rescue boats were sent to the crash site, but no vessel was found. In 1948, another hundred years later, the ghost of Lady Lovibond was again spotted on Goodwin Sands by Captain Ball Prestwick and was described by him as 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, Eliza Battle was a luxury wooden steamship for entertaining presidents and VIPs. On a cold night in February 1858 on the Tombigbee River, a fire started on the main deck of the steamship, and strong winds helped the fire spread throughout the ship. There were about 100 people on board that flight, of which 26 people could not escape. Today, locals say that during spring floods, during the big moon, Eliza Battle reappears on the Tombigbee River. She floats upstream with music and lights on the main deck. Sometimes they only see the silhouette of a steamship. Fishermen believe that the appearance of Eliza Battle promises disaster for other ships that still navigate 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, and two months later was found stranded and abandoned by her crew.
The investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the Carrol A Deering crew, which was conducted under the control of US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, made it possible to partially restore the chain of events preceding the disappearance of the schooner and to collect eyewitness accounts.
Thus, 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 the quarrel, McLellan sought work on other ships, claiming that Carrol A Deering's crew was not following orders and Captain Wormell would not allow him to discipline sailors. McLellan was turned down. Over the next few days in Barbados, he and the Carrol A Deering crew were often seen drunk; McLellan even ended up in prison for his rowdy behavior, from where Captain Wormell rescued him. On January 9, 1921, the schooner went to sea, and what happened to it next still remains a mystery.
On 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 going back on course. On January 18, she was spotted off Cape Canaveral, and on January 23, off Cape Fear Lighthouse. On January 25, in the same area, the cargo steamer SS Hewitt disappeared without a trace, which was following the same course as Carrol A Deering - this circumstance was also included in the materials on Carrol A Deering, but there was no direct connection between the incidents.
On January 29, the schooner, with full sail, passed the Cape Lookout lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper even filmed it. 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 keeper was unable to transmit the message because the lighthouse's radio was broken. He later noted that he was surprised that the schooner’s crew were crowded on the quarterdeck, where only the captain and his assistants have the right to be, and even from the ship it was a simple sailor speaking to him, and not the captain or mate.
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 sailing ship running aground in the same area. Its sails were raised, its boats were missing. Due to stormy weather, they were able to get to Carrol A Deering only on February 4 - no people were found on board. Personal belongings, documents, including the ship's logbook, navigation equipment and anchors were missing. Three pairs of shoes were found in the captain's cabin. different sizes. The last mark on the found map was dated January 23, and it was not made in the handwriting of Captain Wormell.
In 1922, the investigation into Carrol A Deering was closed without any official conclusion. The schooner, which was slowly disintegrating 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
The Baychimo was built in Sweden in 1911 by order of a German trading company. After the First World War it was transferred 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 off the coast near the town of Barrow, the ship became stuck in the ice. The team temporarily abandoned the ship and found shelter on the mainland. A week later the weather cleared, 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 there was a snowstorm that lasted for several days. And when the weather cleared on November 24, Baychimo was no longer in its original place. The sailors believed that the ship had been 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 its precious cargo and left it forever.
This is not the end of the Baychimo story. For the next 40 years, it 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 poor condition The hulls of the ship were 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 an ice massif. In 2006, the Alaska government attempted to locate the Arctic Ghost Ship, but all attempts to locate the ship were unsuccessful. Where Baychimo is now—whether it lies at the bottom or is covered with ice beyond recognition—remains a mystery.
Flying Dutchman, 1700s
This is probably the most famous ghost ship in the world, whose popularity was increased by “Pirates of the Caribbean” and even the cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants”, where one of the characters was called Frying Dutchman.
There are many legends associated with this vessel, forever wandering the ocean, and the main one concerns the Dutch captain Philip Van der Decken (sometimes called Van Straaten), who in the 1700s was returning from the East Indies and was carrying a young couple on board . The captain liked the girl so much that he arranged the death of her betrothed and proposed to her. The girl refused Van der Decken and threw herself overboard out of grief.
Immediately after this, the ship was caught in a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. The superstitious sailors began to grumble. In an attempt to prevent a mutiny, 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 people. One of the popular versions of the legend says that after the murder of the navigator, Van der Decken swore with the bones of his mother that no one would go ashore until the ship passed the cape; he has incurred a curse and is now doomed to sail forever.
Usually people watch the Flying Dutchman at sea from afar. According to legend, if you get close to it, the crew will try to convey a message to the shore to people who have long been dead. It is also believed that meeting a “Dutchman” promises illness and even death. The latter is explained yellow fever, which is transmitted by mosquitoes that breed in containers with food water. Such a disease could destroy the entire crew, and a meeting with such an infected ship could really be fatal: mosquitoes attacked living sailors and infected them.
Anyone who worked as a sea worker knows how romantic and... boring it is. How easy it is sometimes to earn an order of magnitude more in the ocean than on land, and how sometimes difficult it is to endure the whims of Neptune, from natural storms to unexpected arrests of ships in inhospitable ports of countries of the fifth and seventh world. It’s like nothing happens or changes on the endless horizon for weeks, and then suddenly you come across something that makes your eyes sparkle and your skin shiver. For example, in the middle of the Atlantic a catamaran is discovered with no signs of life on board, but with freshly caught fish. Or a buoy that was lost 100 years ago and has been floating somewhere for some reason since then.
Visiting a ghost ship is not an acquired taste. No matter how brave the sailor Sinbad was, when he stepped onto the deck of the Flying Dutchman, the old sea wolf could easily, excuse me, shit himself out of fear. In the age of GPS and genetic engineering most people, even the shamelessly brave ones, are still .
Most “meetings” with ghost ships are pure fantasy, but we can’t escape real encounters either. At the same time, everything is quite understandable and necessarily decorated with heart-warming stories and epithets. Without which our unusual world would be too boring.
Losing a vessel or ship in the infinity of the world's oceans is not so difficult. And it's even easier to lose people.
1. "Carroll A. Deering"
The five-masted schooner Carroll A. Deering was built in 1911. The vehicle was named after the shipowner's son. Deering carried out cargo flights, the last of which started on December 2, 1920 in the port of Rio de Janeiro. Captain William Merritt and his son, who served as chief mate, had a crew of 10 Scandinavians. Father and son Merritt suddenly fell ill, and a captain named W. B. Wormell had to be hired as a replacement.
Leaving Rio, the Deering reached Barbados, where it stopped to replenish provisions. Temporary XO McLennan got drunk and began to insult Captain Wormell in front of the sailors, provoking a riot. When McLennan shouted that he would soon take the captain's place, he was arrested. But Wormell forgave him and bought him out of jail. Soon the ship set sail and... last time he was seen "ghostly" on January 28, 1921, when a sailor from a lightship was hailed by a red-haired man standing on the forecastle of a passing schooner. Red reported that the Deering had lost its anchors. But the lighthouse worker was unable to contact the emergency service because... His radio was out of order.
Three days later, the Deering was found stranded near Cape Hatteras.
When rescuers arrived, it turned out that the ship was completely empty. Neither team nor logbook, no navigation equipment, no lifeboats. In the galley, undercooked naval borscht was cooling on the stove. Unfortunately, the schooner was blown up with dynamite out of harm's way, and there was nothing more to explore. The Deering crew is believed to have disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle.
2. "Baichimo"
The trading ship "Baichimo" was built in 1911 in Sweden for the Germans and was designed to transport the skins of northern animals. After the First World War, the German skin carrier came under the British flag and sailed along the polar coasts of Canada and the USA.
The last voyage of the Baychimo (with a live crew and a load of fur on board) took place in the fall of 1931. On October 1, off the coast, the ship fell into an ice trap. The crew left the ship and went to seek shelter from the cold. Not finding people, the sailors built a temporary shelter on the shore, hoping to wait out the cold and continue sailing when the ice thawed.
On November 24, a snowstorm broke out. And when it calmed down, the sailors were amazed to see that the ship had disappeared. At first it was decided that the transport with furs sank during a storm, but a couple of days later a walrus hunter said that he had seen “Baichimo” 45 miles from the camp. The sailors decided to save the precious cargo and abandon the ship - it still wouldn’t survive the winter. The crew and furs were transported deep into the mainland by plane, and the ghost ship "Baichimo" was encountered by sea workers here and there, in the waters of Alaska, repeatedly over the next 40 years. The last fact was documented in 1969, when Eskimos saw “Baichimo” frozen in arctic ice Beaufort Sea. In 2006, the Alaska government announced an official search for the legendary ghost ship, but the operation was unsuccessful. Unfortunately or fortunately?
3. "Eliza Battle"
The Eliza was launched in 1852 in Indiana. It was a luxury river steamer, on which only the rich and statesmen rode - with their wives and children. On a cold night in February 1858, bales of cotton caught fire on the deck of the ship, and a fire fanned by a strong frosty wind engulfed the wooden steamer. The Eliza Battle was sailing along the Tombigbee River. 100 people died in the smoke and fire, and another 26 were missing. The ship sank at a depth of 9 meters and rests at the wreck site to this day.
They say that during spring floods, when the moon is full at night, you can see a river steamer emerge from the bottom and move back and forth along the river. Music is playing on board and a fire is burning. The fire is so bright that the name of the ship is easily read - "Eliza Battle".
4. Yacht "Joita"
"Joita" was a luxurious "unsinkable" yacht that was owned by Hollywood film director Roland West from 1931 until the war, then was converted into a patrol boat and served off the coast of Hawaii until 1945.
On October 3, 1955, the Joita set sail for Samoa with 25 souls on board and a less-than-functional engine. The yacht was expected on the Tokelau Islands, 270 miles from Samoa. The voyage was supposed to last no more than two days, but even on the third day “Joita” did not arrive at the port. And no one gave an SOS signal. Airplanes were sent to search, but the pilots found nothing.
5 weeks passed, and on November 10 the yacht was found. She was still floating, but it was unclear where, with the engine running at half power and a strong list. 4 tons of cargo disappeared, as did the crew and passengers. All clocks stopped at 10-25. Despite the fact that the crust-covered yacht was unsinkable, all life rafts and vests disappeared from the Joita. The investigation established that the ship's hull was undamaged, but the fate of the crew and cargo remained unclear.
Someone put forward a charming version. They say that this is the work of the surviving Japanese militarists, who have dug in on a lonely island and are making pirate attacks.
“Joita” was repaired, the engine was replaced, but no one wanted to go out to sea on the ghost ship, and in the mid-1960s the unsinkable mystery was sawed into pieces.
The most famous of the ghostly sea vehicles is the Flying Dutchman, the eternal evil hulk that was promoted in Pirates of the Caribbean. Before the Hollywood fairy tale, “The Flying Dutchman” was encountered on the pages of books, in the music of Wagner and the songs of the Rammstein group. It's time to see each other face to face. We continue our nightmare cruise and right next to us it’s the most...
5. "VolatileDutchman»
Not everyone knows that the “flying Dutchman” is not the nickname of the ghost ship itself, but its captain.
The "Flying Dutchman" refers to several different ghost ships from different centuries. One of them is the real owner of the brand. The one with whom the trouble happened at the Cape of Good Hope.
The legend says: “The captain of the ship, Hendrik Van Der Decken, was rounding the Cape of Good Hope, heading to Amsterdam. It was difficult to go around the cape due to the monstrous winds, but Hendrick vowed to do it (yes-yes-yes!), even if it means fighting the elements until the Day of Judgment. The team asked to protect themselves from the storm and turn the ship back. Nightmarish waves bore the ship, and the brave captain sang obscene songs, drank and smoked some kind of weed. Realizing that it would be impossible to convince the captain, part of the crew rebelled. The captain shot the main rebel and threw his body overboard. Then the heavens opened, and the captain heard the voice “You are too stubborn a person,” to which he replied: “I never looked for easy ways and never asked for anything, so dry up before I shoot you too!” And he tried to shoot into the sky, but the pistol exploded in his hand.
The voice from heaven continued: “Curse you and sail across the oceans forever with a ghostly crew of the dead, bringing death to everyone who sees your ghost ship. You will not land in any port and not know peace for a moment. Bile will be your wine, and red-hot iron will be your meat.”
Among those who subsequently met the “Flying Dutchman” were such experienced and non-superstitious persons as Prince George of Wales and his brother, Prince Albert Victor.
In 1941, on a beach in Cape Town, a crowd of people saw a sailboat heading straight for the rocks, but disappeared into thin air just as it was about to crash.
6. "Young Teaser"
This nimble corsair schooner was built in 1813 with one purpose: to rob merchant ships. British Empire, which go to the port of Halifax (Nova Scotia). At that time, what we call Canada belonged to the British, with whom there was great resentment after the 1812 dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States.
From Nova Scotia, the fast "Teaser" brought back good trophies. In June 1813, the corsairs of the English administration were chasing the schooner, but the Young Teaser managed to hide in the magically thickened fog. A few days later, the schooner was cornered by the 74-gun British battleships La Hogue and Orpheus. It was decided to board the Young Teaser. As soon as the five boarding boats approached the ship, the Teaser exploded. Seven British survived and told how a corsair with the rank of lieutenant ran to the arsenal of a schooner with a burning piece of wood and looked crazy. Most of the dead privateers found rest in unmarked graves in the Anglican cemetery in Mahone Bay.
Soon, one after another, eyewitnesses of strange phenomena began to appear. They allegedly saw the Young Teaser afloat on fire. The following summer, curious locals organized a boat trip to the site of the schooner's sinking to get a closer look at the ghost. And a ghost the size of a ship, allowing itself to be admired, disappeared in a puff of fire and smoke. Since then, tourists from all over the country flock to Mahone Bay every year. And “Young Teaser” explodes in their eyes again and again. The ghost especially likes to appear on foggy nights with a full moon.
The ghost ship Octavius is believed to have been discovered by whalers off the west coast of Greenland in October 1775. The Octavius had a dead crew on board, each of the sailors seemingly frozen at the moment of death. The captain froze with a pencil in his hand over the magazine, next to him stood a frozen woman, a boy wrapped in a blanket and a sailor with a keg of gunpowder in his hands.
The horrified whalers grabbed the ghost ship's logbook and found out that the last entry dates back to 1762. That is, Octavius has been frozen for 13 years.
In 1761, the ship sailed from England to South Asia. To save time, the captain decided not to go around Africa, but to build a short but dangerous Arctic route along the northern coast of America. Let us remember that neither the Suez nor the Panama Canal existed in the project. Apparently, the ship was frozen in ice in the northern waters and was the first to dare to sail the northwestern route long before the advent of icebreakers.
No one else saw Octavius.
8. "Lady Lovibond"
In February 1748, Captain Simon Reid took his young wife Annetta aboard the Lady Lovibond for his honeymoon in Portugal. At that time, the presence of a woman on a ship was considered a bad omen.
The captain did not know that his first mate John Rivers was head over heels in love with Reed’s wife and was going crazy with jealousy. In a fit of rage, Rivers wandered up and down the deck, then grabbed the coffee pin and killed the helmsman. The bad first mate took the helm and led the schooner to Goodwin Sands, in the southeast of England, on the shores of Kent. The Lady Lovibond ran aground and the entire crew and passengers of the schooner were killed. The verdict of the investigation was “accident”.
50 years later, a phantom sailboat was seen from two different ships sailing along the shoals of Goodwin Sands. In February 1848, local fishermen observed the remains of a shipwreck and even sent lifeboats, but they returned empty-handed. In 1948, the ghost of "Lady Lovibond" in a green glow caught people's eyes again.
A ghost ship makes itself known every 50 years. So if you don't yet have specific plans for February 13, 2048, you might want to make a note on your calendar. Goodwin Sands almost destroyed more ships than the Bermuda Triangle. Next to the Lady, two warships rest at the bottom.
"Mary Celeste" is the greatest mystery in the entire history of navigation. To this day, there is debate about the reasons for the mysterious disappearance of 8 crew members and two passengers from the ship.
In November 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste sailed with a cargo of alcohol from New York to Genoa under the command of Captain Briggs. Four weeks later, the ship was discovered near Gibraltar by the captain of the Dei Grazia, who was friends with Briggs and was not averse to having a drink with him. Approaching the Mary Celeste and boarding the brigantine, Captain Morehouse found the ship abandoned. There were no living or dead people on it. The cargo of alcohol was intact and, apparently, the brigantine was not caught in a strong storm and was afloat. There were no traces of any crime or violence. What could have caused the gallant Captain Briggs to evacuate so hastily is unclear.
The ship was moved to Gibraltar and repaired. After repairs, the Mary Celeste worked for another 12 years and hit a reef in the Caribbean Sea.
Versions of the sudden devastation of the brigantine are different, and there are many of them. For example, an explosion of alcohol vapor in the aft hold. Or the collision of the Mary Celeste with a floating sand island. Or the conspiracy of captains Briggs and Morehouse. Someone even seriously talked about the machinations of aliens.
10. "Jian Sen"
The list of ghost ships continues to grow even today.
An Australian patrol aircraft spotted an 80-metre tanker of unknown origin in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 2006. The name of the ship, “Jian Sen,” was blacked out, but was quite readable on all the documents that customs officers managed to find on the empty tanker. There was no evidence that Jian Sen was illegally fishing or transporting illegal immigrants. There was quite a lot of rice.
It is assumed that the ship was being towed without a crew, but the cable broke. The drift of the ghost ship continued for more than one day, so the Jian Sen engines could not be started. The ship was sunk in deep water. There, in the depths, it is beautiful and peaceful. Politicians have said that on such tankers, Indonesians illegally transport drugs and migrants.
Navigation remains in the 21st century dangerous occupation. Even a person armed with technology is helpless in the face of the sea elements. History knows a lot of cases when ships and their crews disappeared into the sea without a trace. We have collected the 10 most mysterious shipwrecks, the causes of which remain a mystery today.
1. USS Wasp - missing escort
There were actually several ships called USS Wasp but the strangest was Wasp, which disappeared in 1814. Built in 1813 for the war with England, Wasp was a fast sloop with a square sail, 22 guns and a crew of 170 men. Wasp participated in 13 successful operations. On September 22, 1814, the ship captured the British merchant brig Atalanta. Typically, the Wasp's crew would simply burn enemy ships, but Atalanta was deemed too valuable to destroy. As a result, an order was received to escort Atalanta to the allied harbor, and Wasp set off towards the Caribbean Sea. He was never seen again.
2. SS Marine Sulfur Queen - a victim of the Bermuda Triangle
The ship was a 160-meter tanker that was originally used to transport oil during World War II. The ship was later rebuilt to carry molten sulfur. Marine Sulfur Queen was in excellent condition. In February 1963, two days after leaving Texas with a cargo of sulfur, a routine radio message was received from the ship saying that everything was in order. After that the ship disappeared. Many speculate that it simply exploded, while others blame the “magic” of the Bermuda Triangle for its disappearance. The bodies of 39 crew members were not found, although a life jacket and a piece of board with a piece of the inscription "arine SULPH" were recovered.
3. USS Porpoise - lost in typhoon
Built during the golden age of sailing ships, Porpoise was originally known as the "hermaphrodite brig" because its two masts used two various types sails She was later converted to a traditional brigantine with square sails on both masts. The ship was first used to chase pirates, and in 1838 it was sent on an exploration expedition. The team managed to travel around the world and confirm the existence of Antarctica. After exploring a number of islands in the southern part Pacific Ocean Porpoise sailed from China in September 1854, after which no one heard from her. It is likely that the crew encountered a typhoon, but there is no evidence of this.
4. FV Andrea Gail – victim of the “perfect storm”
The fishing trawler Andrea Gai was built in Florida in 1978 and was subsequently purchased by a company in Massachusetts. With a crew of six, Andrea Gail sailed successfully for 13 years and disappeared during a voyage to Newfoundland. The Coast Guard launched a search, but were only able to find the ship's distress beacon and some debris. After a week of searching, the ship and its crew were declared missing. It is believed that Andrea Gail was doomed when the front high pressure crashed into a massive area of low-pressure air, and then the incipient typhoon merged with the remnants of Hurricane Grace. This rare combination of three separate weather systems eventually became known as the "perfect storm." According to experts, Andrea Gail could have encountered waves more than 30 meters high
5. SS Poet - the ship that did not send a distress signal
At first, this ship was called Omar Bundy and was used to transport troops during the Second World War. It was later used to transport steel. In 1979, the ship was purchased by the Hawaiian corporation Eugenia Corporation of Hawai, which named it Poet. In 1979, the ship left Philadelphia for Port Said with a cargo of 13,500 tons of corn, but never reached its destination. The last communication with Poet occurred just six hours after leaving the port of Philadelphia, when one of the crew members spoke with his wife. After this, the ship did not make a scheduled 48-hour communication session, and the ship did not issue a distress signal. Eugenia Corporation did not report the ship's loss for six days, and the Coast Guard did not respond for another 5 days after that. No traces of the ship were ever found.
6. USS Conestoga - the missing minesweeper
USS Conestoga was built in 1917 and served as a minesweeper. After the end of the First World War it was converted into a tugboat. In 1921 she was transferred to American Samoa, where she was to become a floating station. On March 25, 1921, the ship set sail, and nothing more is known about it.
7. Witchcraft - a pleasure boat that disappeared on Christmas
In December 1967, Miami hotelier Dan Burak decided to admire the city's Christmas lights from his personal luxury Witchcraft boats. Accompanied by his father Patrick Hogan, he went about 1.5 km out to sea. It is known that the boat was in perfect order. Around 9 p.m., Burak radioed to request a tow back to the pier, reporting that his boat had been struck by an unknown object. He confirmed his coordinates to the coast guard and specified that he would launch a flare. Rescuers reached the scene within 20 minutes, but Witchcraft had disappeared. The Coast Guard combed more than 3,100 square kilometers of ocean, but neither Dan Burak, nor Patrick Hogan, nor Witchcraft were ever found.
8. USS Insurgent: the mysterious disappearance of a warship
US Navy frigate Insurgent The Americans captured it in battle with the French in 1799. The ship served in the Caribbean, where she had many glorious victories. But on August 8, 1800, the ship sailed from Virginia Hampton Roads and mysteriously disappeared.
9. SS Awahou: lifeboats didn't help
Built in 1912, 44-meter cargo steamer Awahou went through many owners before it was eventually purchased by the Australian Carr Shipping & Trading Company. On September 8, 1952, the ship sailed from Sydney with a crew of 18 people and set sail for the private island of Lord Howe. The ship was in good shape when it left Australia, but within 48 hours the ship received a faint, "crunchy" radio signal. The speech was almost impossible to understand, but it sounded like Awahou was caught in bad weather. Although the ship had enough lifeboats for the entire crew, no traces of the wreck or bodies were found.
10. SS Baychimo - Arctic ghost ship
Some call it a ghost ship, but in reality Baychimo was a real ship. Built in 1911, Baychimo was a huge steam cargo ship, owned by Hudson's Bay Company. It was primarily used to transport furs from northern Canada, and Baychimo's first nine voyages were relatively quiet. But during the ship's last voyage in 1931, winter came very early. Completely unprepared for bad weather, the ship became trapped in the ice. Most of the crew were rescued by plane, but the captain and several Baychimo crew members decided to wait out the bad weather by setting up camp on the ship. A severe snowstorm began, which completely hid the ship from sight. When the storm subsided, Baychimo disappeared. However, for several decades, Baychimo was allegedly seen drifting aimlessly in Arctic waters.
