Mary Celeste (/səˈlɛst/; often erroneously referred to as Marie Celeste) was an American-registered merchant brigantine, best known for being discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872.
The Mary Celeste, a Nova Scotia-built brigantine, became the world's most famous ghost ship when it was found drifting without any crew on board in 1872. Today the ship and its Nova Scotia connections are fading from memory.
The British brig Dei Gratia was about 400 miles east of the Azores on December 5, 1872, when crew members spotted a ship adrift in the choppy seas.
As for the Mary Celeste, her end was far less mysterious. In November of 1884, she was sailed right into a reef just off the coast of Haiti; wrecked by a crooked captain who was trying to scam his insurance company. He was charged with fraud and died soon after.
Apparently, the Mary Celeste had been drifting toward Genoa on her intended course for 11 days with no one at the wheel to guide her. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the Mary Celeste has never been determined.
Mary Celeste (/səˈlɛst/; often erroneously referred to as Marie Celeste) was an American-registered merchant brigantine, best known for being discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872.
Images were taken of the wreck which match the size, shape and location, all pointing strongly to this being the remains of the White Ship after 900 years underwater. Never before has modern digital technology be used to search for the wreck of the White ship, so the site remained relatively undisturbed.
After 1939, she was seen floating alone and without crew numerous times, but had always eluded capture. March 1962, she was seen sailing along the Beaufort Sea coast by a group of Inuit. She was found frozen in an ice pack in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned. This is the last recorded sighting of the Baychimo.
In 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) database listed 438 ships worldwide, with 5,767 crew members, abandoned since 2004; not all cases are referred to the IMO, so the actual number is larger, but unknown. In 2020, by August 470 seafarers on 31 vessels had been abandoned.
Perhaps the best-known missing Navy ship, the steel-hulled Cyclops vanished with 306 men onboard en route to Baltimore from Brazil in March 1918. Theories abound on what happened to the 542-foot-long steamship, which was carrying manganese to make munitions. Some think the Germans sank it.
January 13, 2012: Captain Francesco Schettino abandoned his ship before hundreds of passengers had been evacuated during the Costa Concordia disaster. 32 people died in the accident. Schettino was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the disaster.
Flor de la Mar, or Flor do Mar, is one of the most renowned undiscovered shipwrecks anywhere on Earth, thought to be filled with vast diamonds, gold and untold riches.
Ghost ships, sometimes also called phantom ships, are vessels with no living crew aboard. These may be real derelict ships found adrift with their crew missing, such as the 19th century HMS Resolute, or fictional and folkloric ones, like the apocryphal Octavius.
In real life the Flying Dutchman was a 17th century Dutch merchantman, captained by Captain Hendrick Van Der Decken, a skilled seaman but one of few scruples, and in 1680 was proceeding from Amsterdam to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.
The Lady Lovibond (sometimes spelled Luvibond) is the name given to a legendary schooner that is alleged to have been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, off the Kent coast of south-east England, on 13 February 1748, and is said to reappear there every fifty years as a ghost ship.
Written with the suspense of a thriller and the vivid accuracy of the best popular history, Ghost Ship tells the unforgettable true story of the most famous and most fascinating maritime mystery of all time.
On average, two ships a week are lost, one way or another. That doesn't take into account smaller vessels or fishing craft. This is the nature of shipping. The ocean is the most dangerous workplace on the planet.
It is estimated that there are over three million shipwrecks worldwide! Less than 1% of these wrecks have actually been explored. Some wrecks are actively being looked for, including the Bonhomme Richard, but many are found by accident. The Dokos shipwreck is the oldest known wreck, dated to 2700-2200 BC.
“every year, on average, more than two dozen large ships sink, or otherwise go missing, taking their crews along with them.” In a prescient comment, she says, “imagine the headlines if even a single 747 slipped off the map with all its passengers and was never heard from again”.
Between 2011 and 2021, some 892 vessels were lost at sea. The majority of ships lost during this period—around 357—were cargo ships.
The Ironton sank in September 1894 after colliding with a steamer ship named the Ohio. The sunken ship had been missing for around 120 years with only rumors of its location. Recently, researchers from the state of Michigan, the Ocean Exploration Trust and NOAA discovered the ship in what is known as Shipwreck Alley.
ABOUT STAR OF INDIA
Star of India is the world's oldest active sailing vessel. She is also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still afloat. She was launched as the fully-rigged ship Euterpe at Ramsey Shipyard on the Isle of Man in 1863. Euterpe began her working life with two near-disastrous voyages to India.
It became known as the Beeswax Wreck, and it inspired centuries of treasure hunters—and maybe even Steven Spielberg, as he created The Goonies. Now, researchers have found nearly 330-year-old timbers from the ship in a hard-to-access cave.
The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myths and ghost stories are likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and of Dutch maritime power.