Grab your pillows and prepare to tremble as we tell you the spookiest stories at sea this Halloween.
To celebrate Halloween this year we want to get you in the spooky mood. So sit back, get some seasonal treats and SuperYachtsMonaco is going to tell some of the spookiest stories about haunted ships to keep you awake until the witching hour.
The Flying Dutchman
Many of you may have heard of the haunted ship, The Flying Dutchman. Cursed to sail the seas until the end of time, the legend of this iconic ghost ship first came to life in the 17th century. The legend tells the story of the captain, Van Der Decken, in an attempt to reach the East Indies, had to steer his ship through the Cape of Good Hope during a storm. Full of determination and in return for his safety he vowed to sail the seas for the rest of eternity. To this day people have claimed to have spotted The Flying Dutchman continuing on her eternal voyage across the seven seas and is a bad omen for those who pass her. The most famous sighting was that of King George V who spotted her just off the shores of Australia.
The Mary Celeste
The mystery of the Mary Celeste still haunts many sailors to this day. The facts we know are that she had set sail from New York on 7th November 1872, making a journey to Genoa, Italy. On board were 10 crew members and 1,700 barrels of alcohol. Almost a month later, the ship was found between Azores and Portugal by the British ship, Dei Gratia. When the crew boarded the Mary Celeste, they discovered that it was deserted yet still in seaworthy condition. On top of this confusion, the cargo and crew’s personal belongings remained untouched with no signs of violence. To this day, we still do not know what happened to the captain and crew and their disappearance remains unsolved.
Octavius
In 1761, the Octavius set sail with a full crew, the captain, and his wife and son to China. On their journey back to England, the captain decided to take a detour home through the Northwest Passage due to warmer waters this year. This was an unchartered passage connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and was very dangerous. We now jump to 14 years later when Octavius was spotted by another ship, the Herald, floating near Greenland. The five men who decided to board the run-down ship were horrified by what was before their eyes. They found the entire crew below deck, frozen to death. The captain was found sitting at his desk with his pen in hand writing his logbook with his last entry being in 1762, 13 years before they had been found. To make the mystery more complicated, the last logged position was on the opposite side of the continent meaning the ship had been able to make this impossible voyage however at a fatal cost.
SS Ourang Medan
The tragic tale of the SS Ourang Medan is a story that haunts people to this day and still remains unsolved. The legend tells of the cargo ship letting out several distress signals whilst off the coast of Indonesia in 1948. The calls declared that the captain and possibly the rest of the crew were dead with the final message being just two words “I die.” Once the ship had been reached, the rescuers were shocked to discover that the entire crew was in fact dead however there were no signs of injury. Their bodies were contorted, with their arms in front of them as if they were fending off something. The supernatural tale is still a mystery due to the ship suddenly going up in flames before further investigations could be made.
Baychimo
The “Ghost Ship of the Arctic” was named due to its mysterious stories of the derelict ship continuously sailing the seas. In 1931, Baychimo became trapped in ice causing the crew to abandon her and set up camp nearby. A 15-man crew kept watch over the trapped vessel until there was a violent blizzard in which Baychimo disappeared. Many assumed she would have been damaged in the storm and sank, although just days later, she was spotted again trapped in ice, however, 45 miles away. Once found she seemed to be on the brink of sinking, however, she did not sink. Over the years there have been 11 spottings of the abandoned ship with the last sighting of her in 1969, off the coast of Alaska, again, trapped in ice.
