The Flying Dutchman is a legendary sailing ghost ship that cannot land and is doomed to sail the seas forever. Usually people observe such a ship from afar, sometimes surrounded by a glowing halo.
According to legend, when the "Flying Dutchman" meets another ship, his crew tries to send messages to the shore to people who have long been dead. In nautical beliefs, meeting the Flying Dutchman was considered a bad omen.
Ships that were found abandoned in the oceans, with a crew that died from unknown reasons or completely absent, also began to be called ghost ships. The most famous and classic of these is undoubtedly Mary Celeste.
In December 1872 this ship was found by the captain of the brig "Deya Grazia". He began to send signals, but the crew of the Maria Celeste did not respond to them, and the ship itself swayed limply on the waves. The captain and sailors landed on a mysterious brigantine, but the ship was empty.
The last entry in the logbook was made in November 1872. It seemed that the crew had only recently abandoned this ship. There was no damage on the ship, food was in the kitchen, and there were 1,700 barrels of alcohol in the hold. "Maria Celeste" a few days later was taken to the raid of Gibraltar.
The admiralty could not understand where the brigantine crew had gone, the captain of which was the sailor Briggs, who had been sailing sailing ships for more than twenty years. Since there was no news of the ship, and its crew did not appear, the investigation was terminated.
However, among the people, the news of the mystical disappearance of the team of "Mary Celeste" scattered 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, while others believed that the problem was a riot. But these were just guesses.
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Time passed and the mystery of "Maria Celeste" went beyond the local, because they started talking about her everywhere. It is worth noting that with the end of the investigation, the stories about the mysterious ship did not stop. Stories about the brigantine often appeared in the newspapers; journalists described the most diverse versions of the disappearance of the team.
So, they wrote that the entire crew died as a result of an attack by a huge octopus, that a plague epidemic broke out on the ship. And in the Times it was said that all the passengers on the ship were killed by Captain Briggs, who had gone mad. And he threw the corpses overboard. After that, he tried to sail away in the boat, but she sank with him. But all these stories were just fictions and assumptions.
From time to time charlatans came to the editorial office and pretended to be the surviving sailors of the Maria Celeste. They received royalties for the "real" stories and then went into hiding. After several incidents, the police were already on the alert. In 1884, the memoirs of Shebekuk Jephson, a sailor who was on that ill-fated ship, were written in the London almanac "Cornhill". However, it later turned out that the author of these "memories" was Arthur Conan Doyle.
Most of the 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 "Dutch" drifting in the North Atlantic reached three hundred.
Quite a few stray ships are found in sea areas far from shipping lanes and rarely visited by merchant ships. From time to time "The Flying Dutchmen" remind of themselves. Now they are carried by the current to coastal shoals, then they are thrown by the wind onto rocks or underwater reefs. It happens that the "Dutch", which do not carry navigation lights at night, become the cause of collisions with oncoming ships, which sometimes have grave consequences.
ANGOSH
In 1971, under mysterious circumstances, the team abandoned the Portuguese transport "Angos". It happened off the eastern coast of Africa. Transport "Angos" with a gross tonnage of 1,684 registered 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, the Angosh was discovered by the Panamanian tanker Esso Port Dixon. The transport was drifting without a crew, ten miles offshore. The newly-minted "Flying Dutchman" was taken in tow and brought to the port. Inspection showed that the ship had suffered a collision. This was evidenced by the serious injuries he received.
The bridge bore clear signs of a recent fire. Experts have established 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 Angosha.
MALBORO
In October 1913, a storm brought the schooner Marlboro to one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The mate and several of his crew climbed aboard and were shocked by the terrible sight: the dead, dry like mummies, the bodies of the crew were scattered throughout the sailing ship.
The masts of the sailboat were completely intact, and the whole schooner was covered with 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 sailboat? Did the calm have deprived him of the sail of the wind and made him drift aimlessly until all supplies of drinking water were exhausted? How could it happen that a sailing ship with a dead crew did not crash on the reefs in twenty-four years of drifting?
ORUNG MEDAN
In June 1947 (according to other sources - at the beginning of 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. Maybe the whole team is dead. " This message was followed by an illegible Morse code and a short phrase: "I'm dying."
There were no more signals, but the place where the message was sent was determined by the triangulation method, and one of the above American ships immediately headed for it.
When the ship was found, it was revealed 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 torment.
The vessel itself was also not damaged, but the members of the rescue team noted an unusual cold in the depths of the hold. Soon after the start of the inspection, suspicious smoke began to appear from the hold, and the rescuers had to hastily return to their ship.
Some time after this, the Orung Medan exploded and sank, which made further investigation of the incident impossible.
SIBERD
On a July morning in 1850, the residents of the Eastons Beach village on the coast of Rhode Island were surprised to see a sailing ship sailing towards the shore from the sea side under full sails. In shallow water it stopped.
When the people boarded, they found coffee boiling on the galley stove and plates on the table in the salon. But the only living thing on board was a dog trembling with fear, huddled in the corner of one of the cabins. Not a single person was on the ship.
Cargo, navigation instruments, maps, directions and ship documents were in place. The most recent logbook entry said: "We've reached Brenton Reef" (this reef is only a few miles from Eastons Beach).
The Seabird was known to have sailed with a load of wood and coffee from Honduras. However, even the most thorough investigation carried out by the Americans did not reveal the reasons for the disappearance of its crew from the sailing ship.
ABIY ESS HART
In September 1894, the three-masted barque Eby Ess Hart was spotted in the Indian Ocean from the German steamship Pikkuben. A distress signal fluttered from its mast. When the German sailors disembarked on the deck of the sailing ship, they saw that all 38 crew members were dead, and the captain went mad.
UNKNOWN FRIGATE
In October 1908, not far from one of the Mexican major ports, a half-submerged frigate was found, with a strong list to the left side. The sailboat's masts were broken, the name was impossible to establish, the crew was absent.
There were no storms or hurricanes 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 various hypotheses were put forward.
LIKE
In February 1953, the sailors of the British ship "Reni", being two hundred miles from the Nicobar Islands, discovered a small freighter "Holchu" in the ocean. The ship was damaged, the mast was broken.
Although the lifeboats were in place, the crew was absent. The holds contained a load of rice, and the bunkers contained a full supply of fuel and water. Where the five crew members disappeared is still a mystery.
KOBENHAVN
On December 4, 1928, the Danish training sailing ship Cobenhavn left Buenos Aires to continue sailing around the world. On board the sailing ship was a crew and 80 students of the naval school. A week later, when the Cobenhavn had already covered about 400 miles, a radiogram was received from the aircraft.
The command reported that the voyage was successful and that everything was fine on the ship. The further fate of the sailboat and the people who were on it remains a mystery. The ship did not arrive at the home port of Copenhagen.
It is said that he was subsequently met many times in various parts of the Atlantic. The sailboat allegedly went under full sail, but there were no people on it.
JOYTA
The history of the motor ship "Joyta" remains a mystery to this day. The presumed dead ship was found in the ocean. It sailed without a crew or passengers. "Joyta" is called the second "Maria Celeste", but if the events that took place on the "Maria Celeste" took place in the nineteenth century, then the disappearance of people on board the "Joyta" refers to the second half of the 20th century.
"Joyta" possessed 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. Searches were organized. Rescue ships, helicopters and airplanes surveyed the vast ocean area. However, all efforts were in vain. The ship and 25 people on board were included in the list of missing persons.
More than a month passed, and on November 10, Joyta was accidentally discovered 187 miles north of the Fiji Islands. The vessel was sailing in a semi-submerged state and had a large list. There were no people or cargo on it.
