Greatest maritime mysteries: Ghost ships and disappearances

The loss of the cargo ship El Faro during Hurricane Joaquin is the latest in a long line of maritime mysteries.

An 1861 painting of the Mary Celeste whose crew mysteriously vanished in 1872.

Earth’s surface is about 71 per cent water and every day vessels across the globe set out to navigate it. Most of them make it back to land but some disappear — never to be seen again.

The reason US cargo ship El Faro vanished this week is not much of a mystery — mechanical failure left it drifting in the path of Hurricane Joaquin — but the fact it was lost in the area long known as the Bermuda Triangle is a reminder of other great maritime mysteries.

Over the centuries many ships have vanished without a trace. Others were eventually found largely intact with nobody left on board.

In some cases there are obvious explanations, such as reefs, treacherous waters, weather or even pirates, but sometimes all we are left with are theories and enduring mysteries.

1498: John Cabot and his fleet

Genoan-born explorer Giovanni Caboto became a skilled navigator aboard Italian trading vessels before moving to England in 1495 and Anglicising his name to John Cabot. In 1496 Cabot was given letters patent by Henry VII to explore new lands and to have a monopoly on trade with the lands discovered. Taking one ship, the Matthew, in 1497 he discovered land in what is today Canada. He was then given a fleet of five ships to undertake another voyage in 1498. One of the ships was damaged in a storm and stopped in Ireland. The rest continued on toward America and no trace was ever seen of them again. It’s possible they were lost in a storm or reached America but were shipwrecked.

1872: Mary Celeste

The brigantine Mary Celeste set sail on November 7, 1872, from New York on a voyage to Genoa, carrying a cargo of denatured alcohol. It was found on December 4, drifting in the middle of the Atlantic with nobody on board. The lifeboat was missing suggesting passengers and crew had abandoned ship. There was no sign of violence, which ruled out pirates, nor was weather to blame. It has been theorised that a build-up of vapours from the alcohol had blown off some of the hatches and caused a hasty abandonment. No crew were ever found. The ship was sold and was later deliberately wrecked on a reef in an attempted insurance fraud.

An 1861 painting of the Mary Celeste whose crew mysteriously vanished in 1872.

1909: Waratah

The steamship Waratah was on her second trip from England to Australia 1909 when she hit heavy weather after stopping in Durban, South Africa. It was last sighted on July 27 when it passed the ship Clan McIntyre and was never seen again. Searches failed to find any sign of the ship or the 211 people aboard.

The ill-fated Blue Anchor liner “SS Waratah” which mysteriously disappeared in 1909.

1918: Cyclops

The American navy coal carrier USS Cyclops set out from Rio de Janeiro in February 1918 with 306 passengers and crew and a cargo of ore heading for Baltimore. She made an unscheduled stop at Barbados because of an engine problem and then set out to sea again, never to be seen again. One theory suggests that the ship was overloaded and was hit by a freak storm in the waters later dubbed the Bermuda Triangle.

The Cyclops, a 19,000 tone collier which disappeared in 1918.

1988: Patanela

The 19m steel-hulled Patanela was sailing from Fremantle, Western Australia, heading for Airlie Beach in Queensland when, on November 8, 1988, it vanished near Sydney with four people aboard. There was no rough weather at the time, the seas were calm and the ship was fitted out with the latest navigational, communications and safety equipment. Seven months later a barnacle-encrusted lifebuoy from the ship was found near Taree, and in 2008 a message in a bottle was found in Western Australia which had been thrown overboard earlier in the voyage. There are no clues as to its fate.

The luxury schooner Patanela under full sail prior to her disappearance in 1988.

BERMUDA THEORIES

In a 1964 magazine article author Vincent Gaddis coined the term Bermuda Triangle, for an area of ocean where a lot of ships and planes had disappeared without explanation. Others took up the theme and found evidence to fit their strange theories, such as supernatural influences and extraterrestrial visits. Many craft have been lost in the area in question — off the coast of Florida, bounded by Bermuda and the Greater Antilles — but not more than usual given the high amount of traffic and most can be explained by things such as rough weather and failure to compensate for compass variations.

Originally published as Greatest maritime mysteries: Ghost ships and disappearances