To this day the story behind the crews and final journeys of these ships are still shrouded
in mystery.
Join us as we set sail for treacherous waters with 10 unsolved cases of abandoned ships:
Number 10 Lunatic Jure Šterk was an experienced sailor who
single handedly sailed around the world between 1991 and 1994.
Throughout his sailing career he crossed the Pacific Ocean once the Indian Ocean twice
and the Atlantic Ocean a staggering eight times.
In December 2007, when he was 70 years old, Šterk embarked on a journey around the world
on his sail boat, Lunatic.
His only form of communication was an amateur radio and the last time he checked in was
on January 1st, 2009.
On January 26th Lunatic was spotted around 1,000 nautical miles off the coast of Australia.
Šterk was not on deck and the vessel looked the aged.
Three months later, Lunatic was boarded by crew from the RV Roger Revelle science vessel.
The boat had been deserted, its sail were torn and the last log entry was marked January
2nd 2009.
Number 9 Tai Ching 21 On November 9th 2008, the Tai Ching 21, a
50 ton Taiwanese fishing vessel, was found adrift in the Pacific Ocean, near Kiribati.
The last transmission from the ship had been made on October 28th.
The vessel had been mud and by file several days prior to its discovery and three rafts
were kissing along with its longboat.
The Tai Ching 21 was empty, all 29 crew members were gone.
One strange thing is that no mayday call had been put out.
An area of the ocean north of Fiji, measuring around 21,000 square miles, was searched by
US and New Zealand aircrafts but no trace of the ship’s captain or crew was ever found.
Number 8 Jian Seng This 260-foot tanker was spotted by an Australian
Coastwatch airplane in 2006.
The vessel was drifting in the Gulf of Carpentaria, around 110 miles south-west of Weipa, Queensland.
The area where the ship was discovered was no tourists for eagle Indonesian fishing vessels
as well as other eagle operations involving the juggling of people and mugs.
Upon boarding the vessel, the crew from the Storm Bay, an Australian patrol boat, didn’t
find any signs of recent human activity nor of potential involvement in eagle activities.
Several documents were found indicating that the tanker was called ‘Jian Seng’, although
a number of identifying features, including the name had been painted over.
The engines were inoperable and the boarding party was unable to restart them which lead
them to the conclusion that the Jian Seng had been adrift for a very long time.
A large quantity of rice was discovered onboard indicating that the ship had probably been
used to resupply fishing boats with fuel and food outside Australian exclusive economic
zone.
The ship had been extensively shipped, prompting a theory that it’d been on its way to a
scrapyard when the towline broke.
Number 7 High Aim 6 On January 8th 2003, the High Aim 6 was discovered
drifting in Australian waters, around 80 nautical miles from Rowley Shoals.
The ship was sailing under an Indonesian flag and had been registered in Taiwan.
No crew members were found onboard despite the fact that the ship had plenty of provisions
and fuel.
The crew’s personal belongings were still on the ship and there were no signs of this
stress.
The High Aim 6 had been sighted five days before it was boarded.
At that time the motor was functional and the ship was underway.
When the sailors boarded the abandoned vessel, its rudder was locked and the engine was bread.
Only one member of the High Aim 6 crew was ever found.
He confessed that the ship’s captain and engineer had been filled by crew members,
who afterwards fled to their homeland.
He never told the fleece why the feathers had occurred.
Numerous 6 Resolven Sailors from the HMS Mallard found the Resolven
merchant brig drifting at sea on August 29th 1884.
They tried ignaling its crew but didn’t get a response and decided to board the ship.
They found that all Resolven crew members were gone even though there were signs that
the ship had recently been lived in.The lamps were learning, the galley file was alight
and the last log entry had been made six hours prior to the ship’s discovery.
The lifeboat was fishing and the ship showed minimal structural age.
A large iceberg was spotted nearby and it was suspected that the four passengers and
seven crew pan kicked and abandoned the Resolven after it fit the ice.
No trace of the people onboard was ever found.
Number 5 Sea Bird The grounded Sea Bird was discovered at Easton
Beach, Rhode Island in 1750 or 1760.
The merchant big was deserted and her longboat was fishing.
The Sea Bird appeared to have been abandoned in sight of land.
Food was laid on the table and coffee was boiling on the stove in the galley.
The only leaving things found onboard were a cat and a dog.
One week after the vessel was found it disagreed and, just like its crew, it was never seen
again.
Number 4 Baychimo When the Baychimo became lapped in an ice
pack, near the town of Barrow, Alaska, its crew abandoned it and took weather in the
town.
The ships cargo consisted of furs and when the crew returned to retrieve them the ship
had broken free.
On October 8th 1931, the vessel became mired again and some of the crew were taken by aircraft
while 15 men stayed behind.
They intended to wait out the winter.
After a powerful blizzard struck in late November, the ship disagreed.
A few days later, an Inuit seal blunter told the men that he’d seen it about 45 miles
from their position.
After tracking the Baychimo down, the crewmen retrieved the most valuable furs and abandoned
the ship deciding that it wouldn’t arrive the winter.
The Baychimo didn’t sink.
It was spotted many times over the next few decades.
‘Alaska’s Phantom Ship’ as it was subsequently nicknamed continued to drift without a crew.
It was last seen by a group of Inuit in 1969, 38 years after it was abandoned.
Nobody knows what became of the vessel.
Number 3 Korean People’s Arm Most Boats Over one hundred full-equipped small wooden
boats were discovered in Japanese waters between 2013 and 2017.
The only clues regarding their origin were signs written in Korean, which indicated that
they belonged to the Korean People’s Arm, and remains of North Korean flags.
The most doubling aspect of this discovery were the contents of the mysterious vessels.
The causes of at least 25 people, in advanced addition, were found inside some of the boats.
The Japanese Coast Guards found several skills separated from the lobbies.
Nobody knows what happened to the sailors, who were all dressed in civilian clothing,
and what had caused their breaths.
Some possibly denied of station or exposure to the elements while others may have been
further red.
The state of decomposition made it almost impossible to determine what had filled them.
Number 2 Carrol A. Deering The Carrol A. Deering became derelict in unknown
circumstances on January 28th 1921 after passing a Cape Lookout lightship in North Carolina.
Three days later the ship was found run aground on Diamond Shoals, off the coast of Cape Hatteras.
Its crew was gone, along with their belongings, the ship’s log and navigation equipment
and the two lifeboats.
There were signs that food was being prepared for the next day’s meal when the ship was
abandoned.
Although found several hundred miles from it, the five-masted commercial schooner had
sailed the area known as the Bermuda Triangle famous for alleged supernatural activity and
the mysterious disagreement of ships.
Some have attributed the vessel’s missing crew to elements of the paranormal while others
cited beautifully and privacy as possible explanations.
Number 1 Mary Celeste The Mary Celeste is perhaps the most famous
abandoned ship in history.
Since it was discovered adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, it has been the inspiration for numerous
documentaries, plays, films and novels.
On November 7th 1872, the Mary Celeste left New York City and set sail for Genoa, Italy,
with a cargo consisting of over 1,700 barrels of alcohol.
10 people were onboard, including Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife Sarah and
their two-year-old daughter Sophia Matilda.
During the course of the next two weeks, the vessel reportedly encountered harsh weather.
The last log entry was marked November 25th and indicated that the Mary Celeste was approximately
9 nautical miles from the Azores Islands.
Ten days later the crew from a British brig called Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste
moving erratically towards them.
Suspecting something was wrong, David Morehouse, captain of the Dei Gratia, ordered some of
his crew to investigate.
Upon climbing aboard the Mary Celeste, the crew discovered the ship deserted.
It was still seaworthy despite the three feet of water found in the hold.
The mystery was further enhanced by the fact that the cargo and personal belongings, some
of which included valuable items, were largely undisturbed.
There were ample provisions in the stores but no signs that food had been prepared but.
There was no obvious indication that a file or a violin incident had taken place.
The only lifeboat from the Mary Celeste was fishing and it was believed that the ship
had been abandoned in an orderly fashion but nobody could identify the reason why.
Numerous theories have been proposed, these include beautifully, further, insurance broad,
boxes files from the ship’s cargo, natural phenomena such as seaquakes and waterspouts,
or even far normal intervention and marine lobster attracts.
Despite the abundance of proposed scenarios, the true fate of the souls onboard the Mary
Celeste remains one of the greatest maritime mysteries.