Sailors are considered to be some of the most superstitious people on the planet. And there are good reasons for this. The oceans and seas amaze the imagination with their enormity and indomitable power. Every year, about 300 shipwrecks are recorded, in which about 8,000 people die.

Most shipwrecks remain unsolved mysteries, since often death overtakes ships and their crews in chilling loneliness in the depths of the sea, when the nearest help is thousands of kilometers away.

In such conditions you will become superstitious. Adding fuel to the fire of maritime superstition legends about ghost ships.

Hundreds, and maybe thousands of ships without a crew for decades, or even centuries, ply the expanses of the world's oceans, creating a serious danger for shipping.

Some abandoned ships are dilapidated and almost completely submerged in water. Only a small speck may remain on the surface, recognizable from a distance as ordinary marine debris.

Sometimes ghost ships for ten years they remain in excellent technical condition, despite the complete lack of any maintenance. It seems that some mysterious forces are protecting the ghostly ships from destruction and the ruthless elements of the sea for some incomprehensible purpose of their own.

Real stories about abandoned ships told by eyewitnesses are truly amazing with their unusual facts and circumstances.

Origins

Why do they say "ghost ships"? After all, uncontrollable ships discovered at sea, although they turn out to be without command and control, are quite real?

The phenomenon of abandoned ships acquired a mystical aura from an ancient maritime legend passed down from generation to generation in ship crews around the world.

Almost four centuries have passed since then. There is a popular belief among sailors that seeing a ghostly "Flying Dutchman"- this is a sign of the imminent and inevitable death of the ship and the entire crew.

• In 1641, a commercial ship under the command of Dutch-born captain Philip Van der Decken (Van Straaten) was heading from the East Indies to Europe.
• A newlywed couple asked to board the ship as passengers.
• Captain Van der Decken had a cruel, almost pirate-like disposition and was used to always getting his way. He liked a young girl, whom the captain invited to enter into a relationship with his characteristic directness and unceremoniousness.
• In order to remove any obstacles, the Dutch captain simply shot the girl’s fiancé.
• In horror, the girl jumped overboard and died in the depths of the sea.

As if in retribution for a monstrous crime, the sea gods sent a terrible storm to the ship in the area of ​​​​the Cape of Good Hope.

The place, by the way, itself is notorious among sailors due to its unstable and unpredictable weather. Hundreds of ships found their last refuge on the ocean floor near the cape with such a “good” name.

The crew demanded that the captain take refuge in a calm bay. However, the stubborn captain Van der Decken was always used to standing his ground. The captain, for the sake of intimidation, shot several people from the crew and brutally suppressed the riot on the ship.

After which the captain swore that not a single living person would be able to go ashore until the ship rounded the treacherous cape. At the same time, the captain poured out terrible blasphemies and curses.

According to one version of the legend, the captain sought to achieve success in his ambitious enterprise.

Another version says that the captain, in a fit of pride, exclaimed: “I will go around this damn cape, even if I have to sail until the Second Coming.” And then the gods, as usual, responded by proclaiming: “You said. It will be like this. Swim."

As the legend says, the gods became angry and forever cursed Captain Van der Decken, the ship and the entire crew to wander the seas until the Second Coming, finding no refuge or peace anywhere.

However, there is a version that the curse can be lifted if the young and beautiful girl voluntarily agrees to marry the rebellious captain of the Flying Dutchman.

This is quite a Hollywood plot, worthy of the Oscar-winning camera of Spielberg or Tarantino. It’s simply surprising that off the top of my head, not a single memory of a Hollywood blockbuster that plays on such an eternal theme comes to mind:

• Love and death, good and evil, eternity, the pride of mortals and the exquisite jokes of the gods.

Just two or three years ago, an uncontrollable yacht of a famous German traveler was discovered in the resort area of ​​Thailand. The captain's body had already become mummified in the specific maritime climate. At the same time, the yachtsman continued to sit at the table and his hands held the navigation instruments, plotting a course on the map lying in front of him.

The on-board computer continued to work. All equipment, engine, rigging, were in perfect order. There was a pot of coffee with dried grounds on the table, and provisions and water were stored in the hold.

A medical examination showed that the captain had suffered a stroke, as sailors called it during the legendary “Treasure Island,” or a stroke, as they say today.

According to eyewitness accounts and investigative reports, the painting on ghost ships always strikingly the same:

• There is no crew or all the people died for an unexplained reason. Often the faces of dead sailors retain an expression of horror.
• There are no visible damages indicating the death of the crew due to the elements.
• Ship animals, cats, dogs, birds in cages, usually remain alive, although often in an exhausted state from hunger and thirst.

One of the most acceptable versions points to certain natural phenomena that occasionally occur in the ocean. In particular, scientists have confirmed the fact of the so-called “voice of the sea,” which terrifies ship passengers and even leads to death.

These are the so-called natural generation of ultra-low frequency sound waves that arise as one of the consequences of typhoons and tsunamis. The “Voice of the Sea” can travel thousands of kilometers from the epicenter, fully retaining the power of influence on the people’s psyche.

In inexplicable horror, people exposed to the infrasound wave leave the ship without even realizing their actions.

Why do ship pets stay? Animals probably feel fear too. But people, paralyzed by horror, forget about saving unfortunate animals. As a result, the pets manage to escape death.

The second most popular ghost ship after the Flying Dutchman - however, unlike it, it really existed. “Amazon” (as the ship was originally called) was notorious. The ship changed owners many times, the first captain died during the first voyage, then the ship ran aground during a storm, and finally it was bought by an enterprising American. He renamed the Amazon the Mary Celeste, believing that the new name would save the ship from trouble.

In 1872, a ship traveling from New York to Genoa with a cargo of alcohol on board was discovered by the 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 abandoned the ship.

"Lady Lovibond"

According to legend, the captain of the ship, Simon Reed, contrary to naval beliefs, took a woman, his young wife, on board the ship. According to one version, his assistant was secretly in love with the young Mrs. Reed and at night steered the ship onto a sandbank. According to another, the crew members coveted the charms of the captain’s wife and, having hanged him, 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 the sinking of the Lady Lovibond, several crews of merchant ships claimed to have seen the Lady at the wreck site. Boats were sent there, but rescuers were unable to find anyone.

"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 that year), and the ship drifted for another 13 years and ended its voyage with the dead on board. The captain tried to find shortcut from China to England through the Northwest Passage (the sea route through the Arctic Ocean), but the ship was covered in ice.

"Beichimo"

The cargo ship was built in 1911 and transported hides to northwest Canada. In 1931, the ship got stuck in ice during its next voyage. Only a week later the ice broke under the weight of the ship, and the voyage continued. However, 8 days later, history repeated itself. The crew went ashore, planning to wait for the thaw. But the next day the ship disappeared. The crew decided that the ship had sunk, but the coast guard reported that they saw the “Baichimo” 60 kilometers from the coast in the ice. The owner company decided to abandon the ship, as it was badly damaged, but it again escaped from captivity in the ice and plied the Bering Strait for another 38 years. In 2006, the Alaska government launched a campaign to capture "Baychimo", but the search was unsuccessful.

"Carroll A. Dearing"

An American five-masted cargo schooner was abandoned by its 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 it made an intermediate stop. After this, a few days later she was seen in the area of ​​the Bahamas, then in Cape Canaveral, and on January 31 she was found stranded off Cape Hatteral. There was not a single person on the ship. There were no rescue boats, but food was prepared in the galley. 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, which was in the Gulf of Malacca. Along with the signal, the message “Everyone is dead” was received. 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, was 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 dead 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 later turned out, Ourang Medan was not assigned to any port. According to one version, the cause of death of the crew and the ship itself was the smuggling of nitroglycerin or nerve gas left over from the Second World War.

"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 similar, but even watched a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio...), and most of the passengers died. This, of course, led to the tragic story becoming overgrown with myths, and the Valencia is regularly seen by local sailors before a storm. And in 1970, a completely empty lifeboat from the Valencia washed ashore in excellent condition.

After finishing a bottle of rum with a snack of vegetables, corned beef and fresh bread, I usually fall into a kind of dreamy state in which I remember past legends. And often young sailors ask me to tell me the story of the Ghost Ship.

Well, when the weather turns bad and the wind changes and howls terribly chimney, seeping through the windows as a draft, it’s not he who chills you to the bones with a chilling breath, forcing you to move closer to the hearth, but the terrible stories about ships that ply the seas and oceans, alone without lights, emerging from the fog to deal a fatal blow to those unfortunate ones who are not able to recognize its approach by ominous signs; and others - in a deathly halo of light, foreshadowing a storm in which the downpour rips the flesh from the bones, and lightning smashes the mast into splinters. Others pass by, and it is impossible to catch up with them, it is impossible to board them and learn their secrets.

For every sea has its own ship. And there is no more terrible torment for his crew than not being able to tell about the fate that befell him.

Flying Dutchman

ABOUT " The Flying Dutchman“Enough has been told without me; I’ll just say that they were two different ships, due to ignorance of geography by land rats, merged into one. The first of them tried to go around the Horn, the second - the cape, called in those days the Cape of Storms.

Among the reasons for their curse is usually the will of heaven, although in the first case it is ignorance of the fact that in the southern hemisphere the stormy season occurs at a time when in the northern hemisphere the weather is extremely seaworthy, and in the second it is an attempt to pass the Horn against the wind, which is still destructive .

Kaleuche

But here are other ships - one of them sails in the Pacific Ocean, and is called "Kaleuche". This name does not belong to the ship, because as the aborigines call it, attributing to it mysterious and monstrous properties - appearing out of nowhere and hiding in the fog, festive lights are always burning on board, and beautiful, enchanting music is heard - but woe to those who sail to its sounds, they will lead aground and reefs, in fog and storm, to certain death.

But there is something else: Captain Kaleuche knows about all the treasures that are hidden at the bottom of the sea. More than once, gold hunters who got on board this ship through cunning, ingenuity and even secret magic tried to find out about the gold from the captain - and the captain, respecting the courage of those who are not afraid of death and curses, with a bitter smile showed them what they were looking for. He also always warned them that every treasure had a terrible price. Whatever human greed, loss awaited each of them, and the pain from it could not be drowned out even by all the gold in the world. And then, having drunk this cup to the bottom, the broken and tormented former brave man one day saw Kaleuche leaving on the horizon into the fog, and on board - everything that the man who went to look for hidden gold had lost. Needless to say, now you won’t give even a couple of coins for the life of this poor fellow?

Ice Ship

Those who walk on southern seas(and some in the north), of course, are afraid of icebergs, but the Ice Ship inspires much more fear in them. Sometimes he is seen frozen in the ice, sometimes floating; it is white and white with frost, quietly ringing with icicles frozen on the gear, mournfully telling about the fate of those whose fire went out - both literally and figuratively. Another daredevil may board this ship and find people there covered with a crust of ice - the helmsman, hanging powerlessly at the helm, the captain at the table, where an unfinished line is blackened in the ship's log, the unfortunate people huddled in tight embraces under a blanket, trying to save at least a crumb of warmth , a cook, clutching a tinder tree in his hand, trying to strike a spark to the last... They say that a meeting with him is marked by freezing rain, and the sailors are exhausted, chipping off the rapidly growing ice from the sides, and if they despair and the fire in their souls goes out - this the ship will join the ice fleet.

Is there a good omen? Rarely, but such ships do occur. For example, an unnamed sailing ship, illuminated by lights on the ends of the yards, on the bowsprit and the hook - it is impossible not to notice it, it is approaching and soon you see the same lights lighting up throughout your ship. The sailor’s soul at this moment is calm, because he knows that the stormy ghost ship shared good luck with him, and let there be a storm, let there be a battle, the ship will pass through them and survive.

Unnamed

There are other ships whose names have been erased by time, and some of them appear only from time to time, and some are doomed from time immemorial to repeat their last hours, disturbing tourists and giving rise to rumors, but no one has yet been able to board them.

Nowadays, in the era of satellite navigation and radar, there is a whole generation of those who consider themselves sailors, staring at the screen and pressing buttons. And no, no, let the rumor spread through the taverns - such and such a ship, so many tons, is insured by Lloyd, having so many souls of the crew on board did not arrive at its destination, and from that moment is considered missing.

And we never know - did he encounter a ghost ship that sent him to the bottom with a ramming blow - or did he become one himself? And perhaps soon some sailor, pale as death, entering the tavern and draining a glass of rum, will tell that he saw a steamer, without lights, in a severe storm, skirting the coast of Alaska, and everything would have been fine, but there was no smoke hovering above its chimney, but its body was rusty and not a trace of paint remained.

Or maybe he saw an old clipper, rushing through the storm under full sail (which naturally no reasonable captain would do), disappearing as if it had never existed in just a couple of moments.

Or maybe he saw the sky, illuminated by a crimson flame, and in clouds of smoke, two ships side by side exchanged thunderous volleys before disappearing without a trace.

Many dead are buried in our seas and oceans. And many ghost ships ply them at the will not of people, but of winds and currents. When you see them, stay away, they no longer belong to this world.

Ghost ship - what is it? Sea mirage? The quintessence of imagination and fear? Old sailor's tales? ...or is it reality?

To date, it is not known for sure whether these chimeras exist in the sea night. But in the end, it was not for nothing that this myth appeared in the first place? If there were no precedents for meeting the supernatural, then the rumor would not have spread... Therefore, firstly, arm yourself with courage when traveling by sea, ocean, and secondly, let’s get to know the possible companions better.

1. "Octavius"

2. "Joita"