When in October 1913 the mate and several of his crew boarded the schooner Marlboro in one of the bays of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, they were shocked by a terrible sight: the bodies of passengers and crew members, dried up like mummies, were scattered all over the deck.
- Yes, this is not a schooner, but a floating grave! - exclaimed one of the sailors in surprise, who, together with the mate, examined the lifeless ship.
The Marlboro's masts were completely intact, but the sails dangled in tatters, torn apart by the merciless elements of wind and sea water. The whole schooner was covered with mold.
“The same thing is happening downstairs,” the sailor said, desperately trying to contain the nausea in his throat. “There’s nothing in the hold but a pile of bodies that look like mummies.
The mate went to the captain's quarters, hoping to find a clue to this maritime secret in the logbook. The emaciated captain hunched over the leather-bound magazine, but the pages were completely rotten.
As a result of the investigation, an incredible fact was established: a three-masted sailing vessel left the New Zealand port of Littleton in early January 1890, heading for Scotland, to its home port of Glasgow. The ship carried many passengers, a full crew of experienced sailors, as well as a variety of cargo - and all this was commanded by the seasoned sailor Captain Hird. But for some unknown reason the schooner Marlboro did not come to Glasgow.
During an official investigation in April 1891, it became known that a ship sailing near the Strait of Magellan had spotted the schooner Marlborough shortly after she left the New Zealand port. From the story of the captain, who saw the missing ship, the Marlboro was in good condition by all indications and did not transmit any signals for help or requests for any information.
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The members of the commission who carried out the investigation were left with one question to which they could not find an answer: why did the Marlboro choose a path around South America, and not past Africa?
The missing ship was not reported until that October day in 1913, when it was discovered in a bay off the southern coast of Argentina. Rot and mildew made the Marlboro as rotten and porous as a sponge. The sailors who boarded it understood that the ship could not drift in the bay for 24 years. The fierce storms for which Tierra del Fuego is famous would have smashed the schooner to pieces long ago.
However, what happened to the passengers of the ship and its crew? Did the calm have deprived him of the sails of the wind and made him drift aimlessly until all supplies of drinking water were exhausted? Or maybe food poisoning or some kind of epidemic overnight hit all life on the schooner?
By all indications, the ship arrived in this bay shortly before it was discovered by the crew of a sailing ship passing by. How could it have happened that the schooner did not sink and crash on the reefs if all of its passengers and crew died 24 years ago?