Ghost ships, or phantom ships that appear on the horizon and quickly disappear, according to sailors' belief, portend trouble (and early gray hair). The same name is given to the ships left by the crew under various, often mysterious, circumstances.
The second most popular after the "Flying Dutchman" is a ghost ship - though, unlike it, it really existed. "Amazon" (as the ship was first called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship was thrown aground during a storm, and finally, it was bought by an enterprising American. He renamed "Amazon" to "Mary Celeste", believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.
In 1872, a ship en route from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the ship Dei Grazia without a single person on board. All the personal belongings of the crew were in their places, in the captain's cabin there was a box with his wife's jewelry and her own sewing machine with unfinished sewing. True, the sextant and one of the boats disappeared, which suggests that the crew left the ship.
Lady Lovibond
According to legend, the captain of the ship Simon Reed, contrary to maritime beliefs, took a woman, his young wife, on the ship. According to one of the versions, his assistant was secretly in love with young Mrs. Reid and at night he sent the ship to the sandbank. According to the other, the crew members desired the charms of the captain's wife and, having hung him himself, raped the woman and drank for three days. As a result, the ship crashed. One way or another, the woman was to blame.
Exactly fifty years after Lady Lovibond crashed, several merchant ship crews claimed to have seen Lady at the crash site. Lifeboats were sent there, but rescuers were unable to find anyone.
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Octavius
One of the first ghost ships. The Octavius became such because its crew froze to death in 1762 (at least the last entry in the logbook is dated this year), and the ship drifted for another 13 years and finished sailing with the dead on board. The captain tried to find a shortcut from China to England through the Northwest Passage (sea route through the Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered with ice.
Baichimo
The freighter was built in 1911 and transported the skins to northwest Canada. In 1931, the ship got stuck in the ice during the next voyage. Only a week later, the ice broke under the weight of the ship, and the voyage was continued. However, after 8 days, history repeated itself. The crew went ashore, planning to wait for the thaw. But the next day, the ship disappeared. The crew thought the ship had sunk, but the Coast Guard said they saw the Baichimo 60 kilometers offshore in ice. The owner company decided to leave the ship, as it was badly damaged, but it escaped from the ice captivity again and plowed the Bering Strait for another 38 years. In 2006, the Alaskan government launched a campaign to capture the Baichimo, but the search was unsuccessful.
Carroll A. Deerring
An American five-mast freighter schooner was abandoned by the crew under unknown circumstances off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina (USA). The ship was returning from Rio de Janeiro, where it was transporting coal.
On January 9, 1921, the schooner left Barbados, where she made an intermediate stop. After that, a few days later she was seen in the Bahamas, then Cape Canaveral, and on January 31 she was found grounded at Cape Hatteral. There was not a single person on the ship. There were no lifeboats either, but food was prepared in the galley. The rescuers also found a gray cat on the deck, which they took with them.
Urang Medan
In June 1947, the Silver Star received a distress signal from the Dutch ship Ourang Medan in the Gulf of Malacca. Along with the signal, the message “Everyone is dead. It will come for me soon. Inspired by this life-affirming message, Silver Star set out on a quest. The ship was found, but the entire crew, including the ship's dog, were dead. Despite the fact that death occurred about 8 hours ago, the corpses were still warm. There were no signs of violence on the bodies, but the arms of all the victims were extended forward as if they were defending themselves.
It was decided to tow the ship to the port, but a fire started on it, and then it exploded. As it turned out later, Ourang Medan was not assigned to any port. According to one of the versions, the smuggling of nitroglycerin or nerve gas left over from the Second World War became the cause of the death of the crew and the ship itself.
Valencia
the passenger liner "Valencia" sank off the coast of Vancouver in 1906. There were not enough rescue boats for everyone (it feels like we not only heard something like this, but even watched a film with Leonardo DiCaprio …), and most of the passengers died. This, of course, led to the fact that the tragic story was overgrown with myths, and "Valencia" is regularly seen before the storm by local sailors. And in 1970, an absolutely empty lifeboat from Valencia washed ashore in excellent condition.
Masha Pimenova