GHOSTS

A Taxing Situation For The Ghost Ship Bel Amica

Public DomainThe Bel Amica was found abandoned and derelict near Sardinia, Italy in 2006.

In August 2006, the Italian Coast Guard discovered the unmanned schooner Bel Amica just off the coast of Sardinia, Italy. The vessel appeared to have been hastily abandoned by its crew, with only some food, maps, and clothes left on board, indicating that it had once been occupied.

The ship’s owner had apparently not registered it, and the vessel’s only identification was found on a plaque that bore the words Bel Amica, likely a misspelling of the phrase for “beautiful friend” in Italian.

Eventually, Italian authorities identified Franc Rouayrux, a man from Luxembourg, as the owner of the ghost ship. Rouayrux claimed that he’d anchored the vessel after learning about an “emergency” at home.

Though Rouayrux insisted that he’d intended to return to the empty vessel, authorities were skeptical of his story. The Italian media speculated that Rouayrux abandoned the ship because he wanted to avoid paying the steep taxes that came along with owning a luxury boat.

The Mystery Of The Carroll A. Deering

Bettmann/Getty ImagesThe crew of the Carroll A. Deering abandoned the vessel off the coast of North Carolina in 1921.

The American schooner Carroll A. Deering was built in 1919 as a commercial vessel. The ship was only in operation for a couple of years before a mysterious incident onboard forced it into early retirement.

In August 1920, Captain William Merritt set off on the schooner with a crew of 10 men to drop off coal in Brazil, but he soon fell seriously ill and needed to turn back. Merritt’s son, the first mate, left with his father.

The two men were soon replaced with Willis B. Wormell, who took on the role of the captain even though he was retired, and Charles B. McLellan, who became the first mate. They successfully delivered the cargo in Brazil, but it was clear that Wormell and McLellan hated each other.

Later, in early January 1921, when the crew made a stop in Barbados, McLellan became drunk and ominously said, “I’ll get the captain before we get to Norfolk, I will.” Reportedly, he’d already threatened to kill Wormell.

Around January 9, 1921, the crew started heading back to the U.S. and eventually traveled toward North Carolina, near the Cape Lookout Shoals.

On January 29th, Cape Lookout Shoals Lightship Vessel 80 spotted the Carroll A. Deering on the water. The lightship’s master, Thomas Jacobson, reported that a red-haired man with a Scandinavian accent hailed him. That alone wasn’t unusual, as most of the men in the crew were Danish.

Wikimedia CommonsOne of the last images of the Carroll A. Deering on the water, before the crew vanished.

But Jacobson said that this Scandinavian man didn’t “look or act or speak like either the master or an officer.” The man also claimed to Jacobson that the Carroll A. Deering lost its anchors and chains, and that the owners of the vessel needed to be contacted. In addition, Jacobson noted that the crew was standing on the quarterdeck, an area usually occupied by the captain.

This was the last sighting of the vessel on the water.

On January 31st, a Coast Guard beach patrol saw the Carroll A. Deering run aground off Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks. Because of bad weather, rescue boats could not inspect the vessel until February 4th. It was clear that the crew had abandoned the vessel and that it was in bad shape.

The ship’s lifeboats, navigational equipment, and chronometer were all missing. The kitchen showed signs of recent cooking. Strangely, there was also a six-toed cat — the only living thing found aboard the vessel.

The federal government opened an investigation, but its results were inconclusive. Several theories have emerged over the years, including hurricanes, piracy, communists, and even the Bermuda Triangle.

However, the most likely explanation may be mutiny — as the captain and first mate despised each other — followed by the crew making an ill-fated escape after the ship ran aground. Still, the full truth of what really happened on the Carroll A. Deering is up to speculation.

The Haunting Story Of The Kaz II

Queensland Police Service/Getty ImagesThe Kaz II was a yacht that was found empty near the Australian coast in 2007.

On April 15, 2007, three middle-aged men boarded the catamaran Kaz II in Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia. The men, Des Batten and brothers Peter and John Tunstead, had an eight-week-long journey ahead of them to get back to the city of Perth, where they lived.

But just three days later, the yacht was found adrift near the Whitsunday Islands. The next day, Emergency Management Queensland crewman Corrie Benson was able to board the ship — and found it unoccupied.

Strangely, the engine was still running, nothing seemed to be missing from the vessel, and a table even appeared to be set for dinner. There was a ripped sail, and there were some stray items on the floor. However, authorities who searched the ghost ship found no signs of foul play.

Search and rescue operations immediately began looking for the men, but they could find no sign of them anywhere near the vessel.

Though theories soon emerged that the men had been attacked by pirates or drug smugglers, or that they had even faked their own deaths for insurance purposes, a coroner in Townsville, Queensland who investigated the case believes that the men died in a tragic freak accident.

According to The Guardian, coroner Michael Barnes’ theory proposes that one man, perhaps one of the Tunstead brothers, accidentally fell overboard and the other brother tried to save him. As the other man, Batten, tried to maneuver the boat and rescue his friends, he accidentally fell overboard too.

“Once the three men were in the water there was very little chance they could get back on the boat,” Barnes said. “It would be beyond their reach in seconds. From that point, the end would have been swift.”

The Perpetually Sailing SS Baychimo

Wikimedia CommonsThe SS Baychimo became trapped in pack ice in 1931, forcing its crew to abandon it.

First launched in 1914, the SS Baychimo was initially used as a German trading vessel, serving Germany’s Baltic posts during World War I.

After the war ended, the ship was given to the British government as part of Germany’s war reparations. The British fitted the SS Baychimo to journey to northern Canada for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The ship’s main role included collecting furs to bring back to Europe.

But in late September 1931, the vessel became trapped in pack ice on its way back to Europe. In early October, the crew began disassembling parts of the ship, convinced that the vessel would need to stay put for the rest of the winter. Most of the crew members were soon picked up by an aircraft, while a few others found shelter for the winter and planned to stay near the ship.

However, in November, a blizzard struck the area and the SS Baychimo disappeared. The remaining crew members all assumed it sank.

But just a week later, local trappers spotted the vessel about 70 miles from the crew’s shelter. The crew found the ship, but were unable to board because of broken ice in the area, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

When the crew tried to board it at a later time, they found that the ship had disappeared once again. This was not the last time that something like this would happen. Fortunately, the remaining crew members were picked up by February 1932, so the ghost ship was no longer their concern.

Strangely enough, over the next few decades, several eyewitness reports of the SS Baychimo came to light. The last of these reports came in 1969, from a group of Inupiat people, about 38 years after the ship’s abandonment.

In 2006, the Alaskan government organized efforts to identify the whereabouts of the ghost ship, but the vessel still has yet to be found.

The Ghost Ship SS Ourang Medan And Its Terror-Stricken Crew

Twitter/Haunted History BCA recreation of what the SS Ourang Medan may have looked like.

The tale of the SS Ourang Medan is unlike those of other ghost ships.

For one, historians are unsure if it ever existed.

The legend of the vessel first emerged in the 1940s, when stories circulated in various newspapers around the world about a mysterious ship that had been discovered in the Strait of Malacca, near modern-day Indonesia.

The specific details of the story vary depending on the source, but a popular version claims that another nearby ship picked up a disturbing SOS message from the Ourang Medan: “We float. All officers, including the captain, dead in chartroom and on the bridge. Probably whole of crew dead… I die.”

An American vessel called the Silver Star investigated the distress call, and when the rescuers happened upon the Ourang Medan, they found the entire crew dead on the ship under bizarre circumstances. Chillingly, everyone’s faces were reportedly frozen in terror — even the dog’s face.

Even more shocking, when the Silver Star tried to tow the Ourang Medan to port, the vessel allegedly caught fire and then exploded before the rescuers’ eyes. Stunned, they watched in horror as the destroyed ship sank.

But as bone-chilling as this story is, no official record of the Ourang Medan has ever been found. Furthermore, no evidence of a shipwreck like that one has been located in the Strait of Malacca, or anywhere else.

It’s possible that this story is nothing more than a myth. However, it’s a legend that’s endured for decades, and it’s inspired countless theories as to what happened to the doomed sailors (if they really existed).

Some accounts suggest that if the ship was real, it may have been carrying dangerous materials like potassium cyanide and nitroglycerine during or right after World War II, which led to both the deaths and the explosion.

The SS Valencia And Its Path Toward Collision

Wikimedia CommonsThe SS Valencia was an iron-hulled passenger steamer that collided with a reef in 1906.

Originally constructed in 1882, the SS Valencia was a passenger steamer vessel built to travel between New York City and Venezuela.

But in January 1906, the vessel was journeying between San Francisco and Seattle, taking over the route for another ship that was undergoing repairs.

On January 21st, the SS Valencia was traveling with 108 passengers and 65 crew members when it hit a patch of bad weather near Cape Mendocino. The ship’s crewmen were unable to accurately pinpoint their location, causing the ship to drift into a reef on the night of January 22nd.

The impact ripped through its hull, filling it with water.

The captain ordered the crew members to lower six lifeboats, but didn’t give the order to abandon ship. Amidst the panic and confusion on board, however, people began boarding the lifeboats anyway. Three were improperly manned, and the people in them ended up drowning. Of the three that were properly launched, one disappeared and the other two capsized.

A number of crew members were able to safely evacuate and successfully abandon ship. They later found their way to the Cape Beale Light Station, where they told the keeper what happened.

Tragically, most aboard the ship died, and only 37 people survived. Media outlets reported it as the worst maritime disaster in the “Graveyard of the Pacific,” the area of Vancouver Island where the vessel hit the reef.

Curiously, in 1933, about 27 years after the disaster, authorities discovered the missing lifeboat in Barkley Sound, in surprisingly good condition. However, there was no sign of the passengers who had used it to escape.

According to legend, local fishermen reported seeing the SS Valencia’s missing lifeboat being rowed by skeletons in the years following the disaster.

Similar stories came from sailors on other vessels, reporting that they saw the ghost ship of the SS Valencia with its deck manned by skeletons.

A Mysterious Wartime Disappearance On The Ghost Ship SV Zebrina

YouTubeThe ship SV Zebrina was found without its crew in 1917.

It’s no secret that sailing during wartime comes with dangers. During World War I, German U-boats sank about 5,000 ships that belonged to the Allies.

In the case of the SV Zebrina, a British schooner originally built to travel to South America and transport products there, German U-boats may have been responsible for the incident that occurred in October 1917.

At that point in time, the Zebrina had been repurposed for shorter trade trips around Europe. The ship’s captain and his crew of five were supposed to journey from Falmouth, England to Cherbourg, France to drop off some coal. But two days after the vessel took off, it was discovered to have run aground in Rozel Point, which was south of Cherbourg.

Surprisingly, the ship itself was in good condition. But the crew was missing.

Puzzled by the scene, authorities in France initially believed that a German U-boat had attacked the vessel. After all, Europe was embroiled in a deadly conflict, and all ships on the water were potential targets.

Theories emerged that the crew members had abandoned the Zebrina after being fired upon by a U-boat and then later went missing in their lifeboat, leaving the Zebrina a ghost ship. But other theories suggested that the crew members had actually been kidnapped by the Germans.

However, after the war was over, German officials stated that there was no record of an attack on the boat. Furthermore, it was unlikely that the Zebrina would be in such good condition following an attack, and there was also valuable cargo left on board. Germans maintained that the Zebrina case was just as mysterious to them as it was to the Allies.

A later theory suggested that the crew on the Zebrina was not attacked by an enemy ship at all, but that they instead accidentally fell overboard during a squall, leaving their ship to drift and eventually run aground.

A Mental Breakdown At Sea And The End Of The Teignmouth Electron

Wikimedia CommonsThe Teignmouth Electron was a trimaran sailing vessel designed specifically for British businessman Donald Crowhurst.

The tragic story of the Teignmouth Electron begins and ends with Donald Crowhurst, a British businessman and amateur sailor.

In 1968, Crowhurst decided to compete in the Golden Globe Race, a non-stop solitary yacht race across the globe. His vessel Teignmouth Electron was specifically designed for this purpose, and he hoped to win.

Unfortunately, Crowhurst’s voyage was plagued with problems from the start. His vessel even started taking on water. But instead of returning home to admit defeat — and face financial ruin, as he had staked nearly everything on the race — Crowhurst began fabricating data on how far he’d traveled.

Crowhurst likely assumed that he would “finish” the race in last place, meaning that no one would take a close look at his phony data. But as the months went on, he learned that other sailors had dropped out of the race, or that their vessels had begun to sink and they had to be rescued.

According to The Guardian, Crowhurst seemed poised to take the prize for the fastest circumnavigation, meaning that his data would be analyzed closely and that his deception would likely be revealed.

By the spring of 1969, Crowhurst’s mental health had begun to deteriorate, partly due to being alone on the waters for so long and partly due to the fact that his fabrications were about to come to light. In June 1969, he had a complete mental breakdown and penned a 25,000-word manifesto about transcendence and the nature of the cosmos.

Then, on July 10, 1969, the Royal Mail ship Picardy discovered the Teignmouth Electron drifting in the mid-Atlantic. The vessel was unmanned, and it appeared that it had been abandoned several days before.

Crowhurst’s log books, his falsified data, and his bizarre manifesto were soon discovered, painting a chilling picture of his final days.

It’s assumed that he died by suicide, but his body was never recovered.

The Ghost Ship Jenny’s Frozen Voyage Through The Drake Passage

The story of the alleged English schooner Jenny is shrouded in mystery. According to legend, this ship departed from the Isle of Wight in 1822 and later became frozen in the Drake Passage, a notoriously dangerous body of water between Argentina and Antarctica, in 1823.

In 1840, the whaling ship Hope allegedly discovered the ghost ship Jenny, as well as the preserved remains of the vessel’s crew. Some accounts state that the Hope crew found the passengers frozen in place.

According to the Hope’s captain, the Jenny’s last log entry was made on January 17, 1823, and the ship’s last port of call was near Lima, Peru.

The earliest accounts of this haunting story appeared in the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung in 1841, but historians have never been able to substantiate the original claims about the vessel.

Some historians suspect that this tale may have been part of newspapers’ attempts to increase readership. After all, the Arctic and Antarctic were considered to be mysterious regions to most people, and a ghost ship found near one of those areas would certainly make for a gripping tale.

An Ill-Fated Atlantic Crossing In The Ocean Wave

The Artist Rights Society Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader disappeared while on his vessel Ocean Wave in 1975.

A conceptual artist from the Netherlands, Bas Jan Ader created a number of notable pieces in the 1960s and early 1970s. Often times, these would be photos and films showcasing various forms of performance art — and many of them were showcased in museums and galleries around the world.

But after 1975, Ader arguably became better known for his mysterious disappearance at sea — and the ghost ship that he left behind.

Along with being a respected artist, Ader was also a talented sailor, and he set out on an ambitious journey on July 9, 1975. His plan was to sail solo from Chatham, Massachusetts across the North Atlantic to Falmouth, England. From there, he’d travel to his home country, the Netherlands, to exhibit some of his artwork at a museum there.

He chose a very small vessel, a 12-and-a-half-foot pocket cruiser named Ocean Wave, to make the voyage. According to Hyperallergic, Ader’s goal was to complete his journey in about two or three months in what would have been the smallest boat to successfully cross the Atlantic.

But after his departure, Ader was never seen again.

On April 18, 1976, a Spanish fishing boat, the Eduardo Pondal, spotted a small vessel about 150 nautical miles away from Ireland. The empty ship was floating vertically and was obviously damaged.

The crew of the fishing boat lugged the vessel onto their ship and thoroughly searched it, finding Ader’s identification cards. By that point, the ghost ship had been adrift for six months, judging by the barnacles attached to it.

The fishing boat took the vessel to Spain, where an unknown thief stole it.

In the Netherlands and the United States, several theories about Ader’s fate emerged. Some observers believed that Ader’s intention for the trip was to die by suicide as a macabre form of artistic expression.

However, his wife strongly disagreed with this theory, stating, “I’m absolutely convinced that was nowhere in his consciousness. We talked about it, and he assured me repeatedly these were not his intentions.”

Both Ader’s wife and his brother believed his death was a tragic accident, and that he likely had been knocked overboard during bad weather.

A Case Of Mutiny On The Ghost Ship High Aim 6

YouTubeThe High Aim 6 was a Taiwanese ship that was discovered without its crew in 2003.

In early January 2003, the Taiwanese fishing ship High Aim 6 was found without its crew, floating in Australian waters.

Australian authorities were puzzled as to why the vessel had been abandoned. The ghost ship, which had departed Taiwan with a mostly Indonesian crew back in October 2002, was still in good condition, stocked with plenty of provisions, and it didn’t appear to be smuggling anything.

A search was conducted over an area of thousands of nautical miles, but no trace of the crew was found. However, later that same month, Indonesian authorities discovered that local calls were still being made from the ship’s engineer’s phone. This led them to suspect that mutiny may have occurred.

Amazingly, police were able to track down one surviving member of the High Aim 6 crew. The unnamed man admitted that not only had he been part of the crew, but he also knew why the vessel had been abandoned: The ship’s captain, Chen Tai-cheng, and the chief engineer, Lin Chung-li, had been murdered by other crew members.

According to the man, the crew then decided to abandon ship, return to their home country, and go on the run. He did not give a motive for the crimes, nor did he go into detail about how the murders took place.

As for the High Aim 6 itself, the former ghost ship soon fell into Australian hands and was eventually disassembled in 2004.

After reading about these ghost ships, read about history’s most famous shipwrecks. Then, check out 55 stunning images of the Titanic in color.