A ghost ship is a vessel that has no living crew aboard. It can be a ship haunted in folklore or fictional stories, or it may be an abandoned ship found with a dead or missing crew.
The “Ghost Ship” Drifting for 13 Years at Sea
On August 11, 1775, the whaling ship Herald discovered a strange vessel off the coast of Greenland near the Arctic Ocean. It was the ghost ship named Octavius. The ship shimmered with ice and snow, appearing mysterious and deserted.
Captain Warren of the whaling ship, along with four crew members, boarded the Octavius to investigate. They were shocked by the sight before them.
The tragic fates of the ghost ship crew have been sealed – (Photo: READER’S DIGEST).
28 crew members had died, curled up in their beds. A woman and a child were found embracing, their bodies almost intact. One sailor was frozen while attempting to light a fire on deck.
In the cabin, the captain – the owner of the ghost ship – was still seated at his desk, writing a log about the ill-fated voyage. The log was dated November 11, 1762. The crew had been dead for 13 years.
The last known location of the Octavius was approximately 402 kilometers from where it had met its fate. It seemed that the Octavius had accomplished what no other ship had managed at that time: It drifted for 402 kilometers across the sea without a living soul aboard.
Unraveling the Greatest Maritime Mystery
Another ghost ship, HMS Terror, was also discovered in the western Arctic corridor. It was carrying over 120 people when it went missing alongside its sister ship, HMS Erebus.
Later, explorers uncovered a truth. Upon entering the icy waters, the seawater froze around the HMS Terror. The crew abandoned the Terror for the rescue ship HMS Erebus. They hoped to head south to safety.
However, the meager rations were insufficient to sustain everyone. The ghost ship Erebus continued to drift amid thousands of kilometers of icy seas. All 120 crew members perished aboard HMS Erebus.
Subsequent search teams found only skeletons and logs documenting the tragedy aboard the ship.
The fate of the two ghost ships Erebus and Terror became one of the greatest maritime mysteries in the world. It wasn’t until 2014 and 2016 that these mysteries were finally uncovered.
Like the Octavius, the Erebus and Terror were found frozen and in remarkably intact condition, as spokesperson for the Arctic Research Organization Adrian Schimnowski told CNN.
The Ghost Ship That Appeared and Disappeared
SS Baychimo operated successfully for nearly two decades across the Arctic oceans. Suddenly, the ship encountered a snowstorm in the Sea Horse Archipelago, not far from where the Octavius was last seen.
The crew and passengers abandoned the SS Baychimo. Some were taken to Alaska and Vancouver, while others sought shelter nearby, waiting for the SS Baychimo to be ready to sail again.
But months later, another storm struck, and Baychimo vanished.
Cortney Pachet, a contributor at the Manitoba Museum in Canada, explained: “The captain and crew of the Baychimo were frozen while waiting for an icebreaker. They were discovered by the Inuk ship about 72 kilometers south of their shelter.”
The crew of the Inuk tracked the Baychimo once more. They salvaged anything valuable still aboard and left it on the ice.
From that time until 1969, the ghost ship Baychimo was sighted passing through the Arctic waters at least seven times, with some even boarding it to take a look.
However, for over 50 years, the SS Baychimo has not been seen again. But that hasn’t stopped people from searching for it.
