belom ada blackbox si..hehehe
tp serem jg klo kek gt.bs ilang gt aja.klo perampok pasti harta nya jg di ambil..kasian ya pelaut zaman dl..klo mati gajebo..
Printable View
belom ada blackbox si..hehehe
tp serem jg klo kek gt.bs ilang gt aja.klo perampok pasti harta nya jg di ambil..kasian ya pelaut zaman dl..klo mati gajebo..
kemungkinan mereka diculik hantu !!??
ayo lanjutin ceritanya..
rame nih bacanya
ini thread da terpuruk sampe ke yg paling last..g tongolin lg de..hwhwhwh
Buat apa perompak iseng gak ngambil barangnya, mereka pasti ngambil. Penjelasan yang paling logis apa ya? Sama anehnya kek Amelia Earhart.Quote:
Originally Posted by [BaBy]Shiseiten
Kapal Hantu Mary CelesteQuote:
Originally Posted by lazane
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...on_in_1861.jpg
Kapal itu terapung-apung di tengah Samudera Atlantik. Tanpa awak, terombang-ambing mengikuti arah angin. Ditemukan masih berlayar tak jauh dari gugus Kepulauan Azores Portugal, sekitar 500 mil dari Pulau St Maria. Inilah kisah kapal hantu Mary Celeste yang menggemparkan dunia.
November, seratus tiga puluh empat tahun lalu, kapal jenis brigantine (kapal layar bertiang dua) terdaftar berlabuh di Pelabuhan Staten Island, New York. Kapal yang dikomando Kapten Benjamin Briggs itu dilaporkan memuat sejumlah produk alkohol dari perusahaan Meissner Ackermann & Coin. Dijadwalkan berangkat dari New York, Amerika Serikat menuju Genoa, Italia dengan tujuh kru plus sang kapten, istrinya Sarah E Briggs dan putri mereka yang berusia dua tahun Sophia Matilda.
Pada 7 November 1872, Mary Celeste berlayar di hari yang cerah melintasi rute pelayaran normal menuju Samudera Atlantik. Tak satu pun yang menyangka bahwa itulah pelayaran terakhir Mary Celeste. Tidak diketahui penyebabnya, namun kapal itu diduga melintasi perairan paling menakutkan di Atlantik, yaitu Segitiga Bermuda dan menyisakan misteri. Mary Celeste dikabarkan hilang dan seluruh krunya tak pernah ditemukan.
Tujuh hari setelah Mary Celeste berlayar, sebuah kapal layar Inggris “Dei Gratia” yang dikomando Kapten David Reed Morehouse melintasi rute yang sama dengan Mary Celeste. Dalam pelayaran melintasi gugus Kepulauan Azores, Portugal, Dei Gratia melihat noktah aneh di perairan lepas.
Kosong Tanpa Awak
[ image disabled ] Tercatat pada 4 Desember 1872, kru Dei Gratia mengidentifikasi bahwa noktah itu adalah sebuah kapal jenis brigantine bertiang dua. Setelah memantau melalui teropong selama dua jam, mereka menyimpulkan bahwa kapal itu terapung-apung tak tentu arah.
Kapten David Reed Morehouse memerintahkan membuka kontak signal dengan kapal tersebut, siapa tahu kapal asing itu memerlukan bantuan. Namun tak ada balasan signal dari kapal yang terapung tersebut.
Perwira kapal Dei Gratia Oliver Deveau atas perintah Kapten Reed, menurunkan sekoci dan mengayuh mendekati kapal yang bernama lambung Mary Celeste itu. Ketika ia dan beberapa kru menaiki Mary Celeste, mereka tak mendapat sambutan di dek kapal.
Setelah melakukan pemeriksaan keliling di dek luar, mereka tidak menemukan seorang pun manusia di kapal itu.
Oliver Deveau dan kru memeriksa seluruh bagian kapal. Mereka melaporkan bahwa kapal tersebut dalam kondisi sangat laik untuk melaut, dengan muatan kargo 1.700 barel alkohol dalam drum.
Seluruh kabin tampak pernah dihuni, bahkan di pantri (dapur kapal) masih terlihat sepanci sayuran di atas kompor yang sudah mati.
Beberapa pintu kapal memang terbuka dan dek kapal dekat ruang pompa air tergenang air laut dengan sebuah pompa air yang masih beroperasi. Sementara di dalam gudang perbekalan, masih tersisa banyak makanan dan bergalon-galon suplai air putih untuk perbekalan enam bulan.
Tampaknya kapal Mary Celesta ditinggalkan seluruh kru dan penumpangnya secara terburu-buru. Dibiarkan kosong dan tetap berlayar menuju pelabuhan terakhir. Mengapa demikian?.
Global | Medan
http://triy.wordpress.com/2008/09/18...-mary-celeste/
The Mary Celeste
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r...Ghost-Ship.jpg
Satu lagi kisah misteri perkapalan yang sangat terkenal dan sampai saat ini belum berhasil terpecahkan.
Kisah ini barangkali ada sangkut-pautnya dengan suatu kawasan maut yang disebut "Segitiga Bermuda".
Pada 4 November 1872 , sebuah kapal layar jenis square-rigged brigantine bernama Mary Celeste telah meninggalkan pelabuhan New York, Amerika Serikat menuju ke Italia.
Pada 4 Desember , Crew Kapal Dei Gratia menemukan kapal ini hanyut ditengah samudera dalam keadaan kosong tanpa awak , benar-benar tidak ada seorang pun manusia di atasnya.
Anehnya, tidak ada tanda-tanda bahwa telah terjadi suatu kekacauan di atas Mary Celeste , tidak ada suatu tanda-tanda bahwa kapal itu sebelumnya telah diserang oleh para perompak.
Kondisi didalam kapal itu sendiri masih sangat bersih dan rapi , seluruh benda berharga milik awak kapal yang berada didalam-nya juga masih utuh.
Catatan terakhir dalam buku catatan pelayaran Mary Celeste telah dibuat oleh sang kapten , Benjamin Spooner Briggs sepuluh hari sebelum Dei Gratia menemukan kapal itu .
Kapten Briggs hanya menyebutkan bahwa pada waktu dia menulis catatan tersebut, cuaca kelihatan buruk , dan mungkin akan terjadi badai beberapa saat lagi .Hanya itu saja yang dituliskan olehnya.
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r...ry_celeste.jpg
Sebuah ilustrasi , saat Crew Dei Gratia menemukan Mary Celeste berlayar tanpa awak di tengah samudera
Andaikan jika Mary Celeste telah ditinggalkan oleh para awaknya akibat terjangan ombak besar akibat badai, apakah sebabnya semua anak kapal meninggalkannya, sedangkan tidak ditemukan satupun kerusakan pada tubuh kapal?
Dan mengapa pula barang-barang di atas kapal itu tidak berserakan/berantakan apabila sebuah kapal dihantam oleh terjangan ombak besar akibat badai tersebut?
Bahkan ada sebotol obat batuk yang telah dibuka tetapi tidak tumpah di atas kapal itu. Di atas meja kapten , terdapat tanda-tanda bahwa dia sedang akan sarapan. Kapten Briggs bahkan telah memecahkan bagian atas sebutir telur setengah matangnya , dan kemudian ditinggalkan begitu saja.
Ketika ditemui, Mary Celeste didapati berlayar tepat mengikuti arah yang sepatutnya ia ambil tanpa ada seorangpun yang mengemudikannya.
Hal ini dirasa sangat ganjil , selama sepuluh hari semenjak kapal itu ditinggalkan secara misterius oleh para awaknya , ia mampu berlayar sejauh 500 kilometer dengan arah yang benar walaupun arus laut dan angin dapat dengan mudah mengalihkan arah laju dari kapal tersebut.
Sebenarnya apakah yang telah terjadi diatas Mary Celeste semenjak meninggalkan New York pada 4 November 1872? Mengapa tidak suatu petunjuk dari para awak kapal tentang apa yang telah terjadi disana sehingga ia ditinggalkan begitu saja?
Lalu kemanakah perginya ke-10 awak kapal tersebut? Dan bagaimanakah ia dapat meneruskan perjalanan selama sepuluh hari tanpa awak kapal tepat mengikut arah tujuannya yang benar?
Mungkinkah Mary Celeste telah memasuki perairan Segitiga Bermuda, lalu anak kapalnya lenyap seperti banyak kasus-kasus misterius lainnya yang kerap terjadi di kawasan tersebut?
Yup , semua itu masih menjadi misteri yang belum dapat terpecahkan hingga saat ini..............
Sebenarnya masih banyak lagi kisah-kisah menarik , penuh misteri yang berkaitan dengan dunia pelayaran dan sebuah kawasan kawasan misterius yang bernama "Segitiga Bermuda". Teman-teman bisa mendapatkan cerita-cerita menarik tersebut dengan mudah di Internet , termasuk versi lengkap dari kisah Mary Celeste ini. Selamat mencari aja deh.
http://ada-1.blogspot.com/2007/08/my...y-celeste.html
Mary Celeste was launched in Nova Scotia in 1860. Her original name was "Amazon". She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed through a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed "Mary Celeste".
The new captain of Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, 37, a master with three previous commands. On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with Captain Briggs, his wife, young daughter and a crew of eight. The ship was loaded with 1700 barrels of raw American alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy. The captain, his family and crew were never seen again.
A British Board of Inquiry in Gibraltar gathered evidence and testimony from the boarding party that had discovered Mary Celeste as a drifting derelict. Lack of evidence of violence ruled out piracy or foul play, but no conclusions as to the fate of the mortals aboard was forthcoming.
Newspapers in America and England took little passing notice of the incident, and it soon faded from public interest as the loss of a small ship at sea was not not uncommon in those days.
The popular mystery of the Mary Celeste did not begin until 1884 when Arthur Conan Doyle (the future author of the Sherlock Holmes series) writing under a pseudonym published a story about a derelict ship which he called "Marie Celeste". It was titled "J. Habakuk Jepson's Statement". This tale recounted some of the actual events of the Mary Celeste with considerable added fictional and provocative detail which stirred up controversy and captured the public interest. Since then, and to this day, no two versions of the story are the same.
http://www.fortogden.com/maryceleste.html
Upaya Mengungkap Misteri Mary Celeste
Penemuan kapal hantu Mary Celeste yang terapung tanpa awak di Samudera Atlantik sangat mengejutkan. Sejumlah teori diajukan untuk memberi penjelasan terhadap misteri yang menyelimutinya. Namun, hingga kini belum ada jawaban pasti yang memuaskan. Apa sesungguhnya yang terjadi terhadap Mary Celeste?
Teori-teori yang paling masuk akal adalah berdasarkan muatan kargo yang diangkut Mary Celeste. Briggs belum pernah mengangkut kargo berbahaya semacam 1.700 barel alkohol. Hasil penyelidikan menemukan sembilan tong dalam keadaan bocor, yang bisa menyebabkan gumpalan uap di sekitarnya.
Sejarawan Conrad Byers meyakini bahwa Kapten Briggs memerintahkan bahwa tong-tong tersebut dibuka. Akibatnya muncul asap yang membahayakan akibat alkohol yang menguap. Kapten Briggs menduga kapal akan meledak dan memerintahkan seluruh kru masuk ke sekoci. Dalam ketergesaan mereka, dia gagal menyelamatkan kapal dengan memakai tali penuntun. Angin muncul dan berhembus, sehingga kapal itu menjauh dari mereka. Mereka yang ada di sekoci tersebut ada yang tenggelam dan juga ada yang hanyut terbawa arus ke lautan lepas hingga mati kelaparan dan kehausan.
Teori Masuk Akal
Perbaikan untuk teori ini dicanangkan pada 2005 oleh sejarawan Jerman, Eigel Wiese. Dia menyarankan para ilmuwan di Universitas College London untuk membuat sebuah konstruksi kapal berskala kecil (miniatur) yang akan menguji teori pengapian uap dari kargo alkohol yang mudah menguap. Dengan mengunakan butana (gas hidrokarbon tak bewarna) sebagai bahan bakarnya dan kubus kertas sebagai tongnya, di mana penutupnya disegel dan uap yang dipanasi.
Kekuatan ledakan tersebut mencampakkan pintu penutup dan mengguncangkan model skala kapal itu yang berukuran sekitar peti mati.
Tidak satupun dari kubus kertas tersebut mengalami kerusakan, bahkan tidak ada tanda-tanda kerusakan. Teori ini bisa menjelaskan bahwa kargo yang tersisa ditemukan masih utuh, sementara keretakan yang terjadi di tonggak kapal diduga akibat dari salah satu pintu penutup.
Pembakaran uap alkohol di penutupnya mengagumkan dan mungkin cukup menakutkan awaknya, namun apinya belum cukup panas untuk memberi kesan kebakaran.
Dugaan Pemberontakan
Teori lain mengemukakan soal pemberontakan awak kapal. Sejumlah kru Mary Celeste membuka penutup tong minuman beralkohol itu dan mabuk-mabukan. Dalam kondisi lepas kontrol, mereka melakukan pemberontakan dan pembunuhan terhadap Kapten Briggs dan keluarganya. Lalu seluruh kru melarikan diri dengan berpindah kapal atau menumpang sekoci.
Kendati demikian, teori ini mustahil. Alkohol yang diangkut ke dalam Mary Celeste bukanlah jenis alkohol yang layak dikonsumsi manusia, dan para awak pun tahu tentang itu.
Namun teori ini terbantah dengan track record Kapten Briggs yang dikenal sebagai orang yang taat beribadah, adil dan jujur. Dia bukanlah sosok seorang kapten yang bisa membuat awaknya melakukan pemberontakan. Catatan tentang kru kapalnya juga cukup baik sebagai pelaut yang loyal terhadap Kapten Briggs.
Teori lainnya menuturkan bahwa kapal itu dihantam badai tornado yang terjadi di lautan. Dengan keadaan demikian, seluruh kru tersapu badai dan menghilang di lautan. Ini bisa menjelaskan adanya tiang yang tergores dan kompas yang pecah serta satu sekoci yang menghilang. Teori lainnya meneruskan bahwa sebuah guncangan di laut semacam badai besar membuat panik awak kapal dan meninggalkan kapal. Kendati demikian, para pelaut umumnya sepakat bahwa untuk meninggalkan kapal adalah masalah yang ekstrem.
Brian Hicks dalam bukunya baru-baru ini menyebutkan teori yang dapat diterima akal bahwa Kapten Briggs telah membuka tutup tong tersebut guna memberi udara selama laut dalam keadaan tenang. Dikeluarkannya uap alkohol dari tong-tong tersebut membuat panik si kapten dan awak kapal lainnya, sehingga meninggalkan kapal tersebut.
Terlepas dari itu semua, sejumlah orang meyakini bahwa adanya keterlibatan aktivitas paranormal dalam peristiwa ini. Ada juga mengaitkan misteri Segitiga Bermuda dengan menghilangnya kru kapal, walau ditemukan jauh dari lokasi itu. Lantas ada juga teori penculikan UFO. Walau teori-teori itu diajukan, toh Mary Celeste tetaplah menjadi misteri hingga kini!
Dokumen Abel Fosdyk
Empat puluh tahun setelah Mary Celeste ditemukan, sebuah majalah terbitan London “Strand Magazine” mempublikasikan Misteri Mary Celeste pada 1913. Artikel tersebut ditulis oleh Howard Linford berdasarkan dokumen Abel Fosdyk yang diklaim sebagai satu-satunya saksi hidup kapal Mary Celeste.
Artikel ini diterbitkan setelah Abel tewas dan mewariskan dokumen itu pada temannya Howard Linford. Dikisahkan bahwa Abel ingin melarikan diri dari Amerika Serikat oleh suatu sebab. Ia diselamatkan Kapten Briggs yang juga temannya. Abel diselundupkan ke atas kapal dan tidak tercatat di daftar kru dan penumpang.
Menurut Abel, saat kapal berlayar, Kapten Briggs menyuruh seorang kru yang ahli pertukangan membuat dek khusus untuk istri dan anaknya di anjungan kapal. Bekas dek khusus ini terlihat pada bekas torehan lubang di bagian depan kapal.
Suatu hari, di dekat Kepulauan Azores, Kapten Briggs berdebat dengan perwira kapal dan krunya. Mereka membahas soal berapa lama orang bisa berenang dengan pakaian lengkap di tengah laut dalam. Perdebatan berubah menjadi pertaruhan. Tiba-tiba Kapten Briggs terjun ke laut dan berenang mengelilingi kapal.
Seluruh kru tertawa dan menemukan kesenangan dengan melihat sang kapten berenang. Ketujuh kru kemudian ikut terjun ke laut dan berenang bersama sang kapten. Sementara Abel, istri dan anak sang kapten duduk menyaksikan kegembiraan itu dari dek khusus yang baru selesai dibuat.
Di tengah keasyikan kapten dan kru yang berenang, seorang kru yang berenang di bawah anjungan kapal menjerit kesakitan. Semua berusaha mendekat dan ingin melihat apa yang terjadi. Ternyata kru tersebut diserang hiu raksasa. Kapten kru yang masih di air berenang cepat menggapai dek khusus. Karena tergesa-gesa panik, seluruh kru serentak menggapai, sehingga dek khusus tersebut tak mampu menahan beban. Dek khusus itu patah dan seluruh penumpang kapal jatuh ke air.
Abel juga ikut terjatuh, namun poisisinya persis di atas lembaran papan dek yang terapung di laut. Sementara hiu raksasa itu satu persatu memangsa seluruh kru, kapten, istri dan anaknya. Semua tewas kecuali Abel yang tetap bertahan di papan dek yang semakin menjauhi kapal dan terbawa arus.
Setelah terombang-ambing di papan selama berhari-nari, Abel terdampar di pantai Afrika. Ia kemudian diselamatkan oleh penduduk lokal.
Dari kisah ini pengamat menemukan kejanggalan. Disebutkan Abel, Mary Celeste adalah kapal berbobot 600 ton, kenyataannya kapal itu berbobot 280 ton dengan panjang 30 meter. Lalu ia menyebutkan bahwa kru kapal adalah orang-orang Inggris, padahal dalam dokumen pelayaran, kru Mary Celeste adalah campuran orang Jerman dan Amerika.
Laporan dalam publikasi ini disangsikan, namun tak ada yang bisa membuktikan apakah kejadian itu benar atau tidak. Sebuah misteri yang masih tertutup rapat!
Global | Berbagai Sumber
http://triy.wordpress.com/2008/09/18...-mary-celeste/
MARY CELESTE WAS ABANDONED DURING A SEAQUAKE!
http://www.deafwhale.com/maryceleste/mc1.jpg
The British brigantine Dei Gratia came upon the Mary Celeste sailing erratically midway between the Azores and Portugal on 4 December 1872. The crew could spot no one on deck threw their spy glass so the captain of the Dei Gratia dispatched a boarding party lead by 1st Mate Oliver Deveau. Deveau's team reported that the ship was fully provisioned and perfectly seaworthy yet mysteriously abandoned. A few clues indicated the crew of the Mary Celeste had quickly launched a small yawl for no apparent reason.
The Mary C had departed New York on 5 November loaded with 1,709 barrels of grain alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy.
The crew endured strong winds from the time they left New York until arriving at Santa Maria Island in the Azores --- they'd sailed the last few hundreds miles in a gale.
It seems reasonable to suggest that in order to take a break from the pounding, the captain gave the order to sail to the lee side of Santa Maria Island where the cook started a fire in the large galley stove to make hot food while other members of the crew furled most of the sails, leaving just enough canvas up to hold her course as they made their way slowly along the lee shore. Other crew members set about pumping the bilge and doing other chores. When the food was ready, the men stopped what they were doing and ate. After taking a smoke break, the Captain gave orders to get underway and the crew went back to work. Some went back to pumping the bilge; others started to set the sails they had just furled. Just then the seafloor started dancing up and down in a violent seaquake, relatively common in the Azores.
During rapid vertically shifting of the hard bottom, the seabed becomes like a giant transducer, pushing and pulling the water, sending powerful alternating pressure waves towards the surface. The results onboard the boat were as if there was no sea at all under the ship....just as though the vessel was setting on dry land during an earthquake. The deck on the Mary Celeste shook violently. The severe vibrations loosened the stays around nine barrels, dumping almost 500 gallons of raw alcohol into the bilge. Fumes spread rapidly throughout the boat. The seaquake also shook the galley stove so violently that it was lifted up from its chocks and set down out of place.
Choking on the alcohol fumes from the leaking barrels while seeing sparks and embers flying about from the fire in the cooking stove was all it took to send the crew into panic and cause them to quickly launch the small yawl and try to get away from the coming explosion.
The elation the crew felt when the alcohol fumes did not explode was short lived.
In the fear of the moment, the crew forgot to secure a line from the life boat to the mother ship. They watched in dismay as the Mary Celeste, now crewless, sailed slowly away from the yawl with her jib and two other small sails set. As she pulled away from the small sailing yawl, the men had to decide quickly whether to try to catch up with their ship, or go for the safety of Santa Maria Island, less than 10 miles away. They likely argued about the merits of each course of action, but, knowing they would be disgraced for having abandoned their seaworthy boat and her valuable cargo, they chose to try to catch the Mary C in the small yawl, hoping (1) they could overcome her, or (2) the wind would shift and cause her to tack back towards them. Each day of their journey carried them further and further away from the safety of Santa Maria. They never caught up to their mother ship. Five months later, five highly decomposed bodies were found tied to two rafts off the coast of Spain. One was flying an American flag. Thus is the fate of the crew the greatest sea mystery ever told.
Introduction
The crew was delighted to finally get underway on the morning of 7 November 1872 when Captain Benjamin S. Briggs gave the order to hoist anchor. They had departed New York Harbor two days earlier, but were forced to anchor off Staten Island waiting on the heavy seas to slacken.
On board with the 37-year-old Captain were his 30-year-old wife, Sarah Elizabeth, and their second child, two-year-old Sophia. Sarah had insisted on bringing along her melodeon to break the monotony of the long voyage with song. She had also brought along her sewing machine and toys for Sophia. They had left behind their seven-year-old son so he could stay in school.
The seven-man crew consisted of 28-year-old First Mate Albert G. Richardson, 25-year-old Second Mate Andrew Gillings, and 23-year-old Steward and Cook Edward Head. The four Germans serving as seamen were Volkert Lorenzen (29), his brother Boz Lorenzen (23), Arian Martens (35), and Gottlieb Goodschaad (23).
An hour after weighing anchor, the 103-foot, 282 ton half-brigantine was under full sail on its way to Genoa, Italy. The little ship was due to enter the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar no later than 6 December.
But something dreadful went wrong. The Mary Celeste entered the Strait on 12 December, but rather than set a course on to Genoa, she sailed into the Port of Gibraltar with not a single soul who had departed New York still on board.
The ship was now under the command of Oliver Deveau, the 1st Mate of the British brigantine Dei Gratia. Deveau’s ship had left New York eight days after the Mary Celeste, both vessels heading into the Mediterranean Sea. By a twist of fate, the Dei Gratia had caught up with an abandoned Mary Celeste 370 nautical miles east of Santa Maria Island in the Azores, midway between Santa Maria and the Strait of Gibraltar.
On 18 December, the Vice-Admiralty Court of Gibraltar held its first session to hear testimony in connection with the claim for salvage made against the derelict and her cargo. The presiding Justice was Sir James Cochrane, a British Knight and the Commissary of the Vice-Admiralty Court. The Queen’s Proctor was Frederick Solly Flood.
Flood's suspicions were aroused from the moment he heard a crewmember from the Dei Gratia say that the ghost ship was "fit to sail around the world with good crew and good sails." He immediately ordered, and personally attended, a survey made by John Austin, Surveyor of Shipping at Gibraltar, and Ricardo Portunato, diver. This official inspection, done two days before Christmas, failed to uncover any evidence that a crime had been committed.
Flood spent the holidays mulling over the case. He so convinced himself of foul play that he ordered a second detailed survey. The Queen's lawyer now saw the mystery of the missing crew as his big chance to make a name for himself. He was right. Word about the ghost ship quickly spread around the world.
The US State Department became interested because the boat had only three years earlier became a US registered vessel. Horatio J. Sprague, the US Consul to Gibraltar, kept the State Department fully informed with a barrage of cablegrams. He even enlisted the services of US Navy Captain R. W. Shufeldt who arrived at Gibraltar on board the U.S.S. Plymouth. Consul Sprague cabled Captain Shufeldt’s report on the condition of the abandoned vessel back to the State Department the day it was prepared. Cable services between Gibraltar and New York saw more activity in one month than had occurred in the previous ten years.
Newspapers everywhere gobbled up any hint of news turning the court proceedings into the "O. J. Simpson trial" of the era. Most headlines read the same: "Seaworthy American Brig Abandoned at Sea For Unknown Reason!"
Four insurance companies, three US agencies, three British agencies and numerous other "interested parties" became entangled for two years trying to sort out the truth of what happened to the crew.
Since then more than 30 books, two movies, and several documentaries have focused on the ghost ship. Yet no generally accepted explanation for why Captain Briggs, his wife and daughter, and seven crewmen abandoned ship has ever been put forward.
Pointing out the fact that Captain Briggs was an old friend of Captain Morehouse, master of the Dei Gratia, many newspapers of the time reported no mystery, choosing rather to insinuate insurance fraud. Others reported on the possibility of mutiny by a drunken crew. Still others insisted that the ship had encountered pirates. Fiction writers pumped out wild tales that were later published in newspapers as true accounts. None other than Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote the most widely read yarn.
Everyone had a theory. Even William Richard, US Secretary of the Treasury, published his idea on what happened on the front page of the New York Times. He, like Queen’s Proctor Flood, felt the crew had got at the alcohol and murdered Captain Briggs and his family in a drunken fury. Flood later changed his mind on a drunken crew in favor of a conspiracy between Captains Briggs and Morehouse.
Dr. James Kimble, head of the US Weather Bureau, and author Gershom Bradford both suggested a waterspout had struck the vessel suddenly. Waterspouts are not common outside the tropics, yet Bradford made a convincing argument for such a happening in his book, The Secret of the Mary Celeste (W. Foulsham & Co. 1966). Bradford’s mistaken concepts will be visited later in this presentation.
US Consul Sprague wrote, "This case of the Mary Celeste is startling, since it appears to be one of those mysteries which no human ingenuity can penetrate sufficiently to account for abandonment of this vessel and the disappearance of her master, family and crew."
One newspaperman of the time called the incident, "a detective-story writer’s nightmare: the perfect perplexing situation without any logical solution --- a plot which can never be convincingly unraveled."
HISTORY OF VESSEL/SEAQUAKE ENCOUNTERS
If the incident had occurred 15 years later, in 1887, maybe the Vice-Admiralty Court could have determined what happen. That was the year Eberhart Rudolph, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Strasburg in Germany, published the first part of his detail work on seaquakes in the prestigious German geophysical journal, Beitrage zur Geophysik.
By the time he had finished his project, eleven years later, he had published over six hundred pages, documenting more than 550 seaquake/vessel encounters, many resembling the narratives in today's books on the Bermuda Triangle.
Loud--sometimes painful--noises, lasting as long as fifteen minutes, bellowed up from the deep to reverberate against a ship's bottom, generating an incredible rumble throughout. At the same time, the sea rose erratically and violently, causing the ships to heave and roll in all directions.
Often a cannonball, water barrel, or some other heavy spherical object would be jostled from its chocks and set free to roll and lurch about the deck like a boulder crashing down a mountainside. Unable to stand, let alone run, on the quaking decks, the crew was at the mercy of providence, believing all the while each moment would be their last.
If that were not enough to frighten the very breath from the superstitious sailors, the needles of the ships' compasses would often spin in queer directions. At other times the compasses would not be affected at all, and the wind would become the source of puzzlement, sometimes shifting abruptly shortly before or after a seaquake.
One captain wrote in his log that he saw his sister ship being drawn under in a huge dome-shaped mound of frothing water. Another wrote, "The tremendous concussion below the keel made the stout hull vibrate through every beam, and the tall masts quiver like young twigs in a gale."
Hundreds of eyewitnesses told of busted planks, cracked beams, and broken masts as they reminisced about the damage sustained by their vessels during the incredible pounding of a seaquake. But, oddly Rudolph thought, no one ever mentioned a seaquake sinking a vessel. He justified this lack of total loss by reasoning that many ships might have gone down in a seaquake leaving no survivors to tell the story. He also thought the sailing vessels of his day might be somewhat protected from seaquakes. He wrote: "I believe the stout timbers of a wooden vessel and the moisture these timbers soak up give these ships a natural flexibility, enabling them to endure the rigorous shuddering of a seaquake just as a willow might withstand a tempest."
What happens on the surface during a seaquake depends on many factors. If the hypocenter of the quake is deep in the bowels of the earth, little occurs on the bottom or in the water column. On the other hand, if the hypocenter is so shallow that the seabed opens up, the coupling of P-wave energy into the water is greatly enhanced. (Water cannot support shear so S-waves are missing in a seaquake.)
In addition, before a seaquake can generate potent P-waves in the water, the seabed itself must simulate the action of a giant piston, moving up and down rapidly, shoving and pulling at the water column. The faster the piston moves, the more potent is the vertical traveling pressure waves. In fact, speed of the vertical quivering plays the determining role in ship damage, not the magnitude of the quake.
Magnitude is more related to the length of the rupture rather than to the power of vertical pressure waves released into the water. A magnitude three seaquake, erupting explosively with predominate up and down motion, might release a hundred times the energy into the water column over a magnitude six event with mostly horizontal motion. For example, a ship directly above a slow moving magnitude six quake might experience only the feeling of running aground or hitting a submerged object. On the other hand, a ship above an explosive magnitude three event, with predominate rapid vertical shifting in the seabed, might join the many thousands of vessels posted as "missing without a trace."
The best way to envision what might happen on board a ship is to imagine no water between the earthquake and the vessel. Keep in mind that a vessel is a sprung mass and, as such, more subject to being "excited" if any portion of the energy is in sync with the ship’s own natural frequencies. In the "sprung mass" state, a ship is more like a tight banjo string than a loose one.
A tall building can also act as a sprung mass during an earthquake, collapsing if the seismic energy resonates with one of many natural frequencies of the building. The same principals that applies to a tall building in an earthquake also applies to a ship in a seaquake.
Both the US and British Navies know of this hazard to shipping. Nevertheless, for reasons of their own, prefer not to release this knowledge, choosing instead to place the danger of seaquakes into a black hole of secrecy.
SEISMIC ACTIVITY IN THE AZORES
According to a chart compiled by the Acoustics Division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (1981), a major seaquake has occurred within sixty miles of Santa Maria Island in the Azores every year since the beginning of man's ability to record such happenings. In fact, the ocean floor in the area is one of the most seismically threatened places in the world. The active East Azores Fracture Zone is located about thirty miles southwest of Santa Maria; about fifteen miles east-northeast lies another hot-spot for undersea earthquakes known as the Gloria Fracture Zone.
When Dr. Lowell Whiteside, a Geophysicist with the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado was asked if he could be certain a seaquake did or did not occur on 25 November 1872 in the sea near Santa Maria, he said: "The problem with identifying the occurrence of historical earthquakes from 1872 is that there were no seismological instruments at the time. The only earthquakes recorded were those that were felt strong enough to be noteworthy. This means that earthquakes outside of populated area and under the ocean were seldom reported. The only evidence of large sub-oceanic event comes from tsunamis and seaquakes noted by people aboard ocean-going vessels. The Azores is a highly seismic region and earthquakes occur often, often they are of moderate to large size. Unfortunately, because of the non-recording of oceanic events in 1872, it cannot be confirmed or denied that an earthquake occurred in that region on November 25, 1872."
He added, "An 8.5 magnitude seaquake did occur in the Azores in late December of that year. This event was the largest in the area in one hundred years. It is probable that many large foreshocks and aftershocks occurred locally within a month of this event."
As Dr. Whiteside confirmed, no instruments or earthquake stations existed at the time to record earthquakes. The historical records of events in 1872 were created in the early 1900's by searching old newspapers and other printed accounts. Since the Azores are located in a seismically active area, to be newsworthy an event would have had to special, causing objects to fall from shelves or in some way disrupting to the lives of the local folk on Santa Maria. The Magnitude 8.5 event in late December was reported all over the Azores. Foreshocks would likely have been too common to make the newspapers, therefore a seaquake under the Mary Celeste might have easily frightened the weary crew because of the explosive nature of the cargo they carried while not being especially notable by those on land.
Charles Fay wrote the metrological service in the Azores and ask about the weather and any earthquakes and got the following answer: "From the records from Angra do Heroismo and Ponta Delgada, the only two stations existing in 1872, it is concluded that stormy conditions prevailed in the Azores on the 24th and 25th November 1872. A cold front passed Angra do Heroismo between 3 and 9 PM on the 25th, the wind shifting then from SW to NW. The minimum of pressure was 752 mm and the wind velocity attained to 62 km at Ponta Delgada at 9 PM on the 24th. Calm or light wind prevailed on the forenoon of the 25th, but later, the wind became of a gale force. As usually the wind direction before the cold front was WSW to SW; after the cold front NW. Fourteen mm of rain were collected at Angra from noon on the 24th to noon 25th, and 29 mm at Ponta Delgada. No record of any earthquake is found in the registers, neither in the local newspapers which we have searched."
THE FACTS OF THE CASE
The crew of the Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste sailing erratically midway between the Azores and Portugal on the 4th of December. They noticed that she was headed toward them making about two knots under short canvas. They were unable to spot anyone on deck through their glass so, as the Dei Gratia’s helmsman steered a nearby approach, her crew hailed the deserted vessel over and over. When no response was received, a boarding party, lead by 1st Mate Oliver Deveau, was quickly dispatched to soon discover the Mary Celeste was abandoned.
The boarding crew noticed her jib and foretopmast staysail set on a starboard tact. The foresail and the upper foretopsail had been mostly blown away. The standing rigging was in good order, but some of the running rigging was also blow away. Her masts, yards and spars, and anchors and chains were all right. A stout rope about 100 meters long used to hoist the outer end of the gaff sail, called a main peak halyard, was broken and most of it missing. The main staysail was lying loose on the forward house and all the rest of the sails were furled.
(painted by John Styga)
The bilge pump, positioned just forward of the mainmast, was found in good working condition. However, Deveau noticed that the sounding rod used to measure water in the bilge was laying on the deck. Next to the rod was a valve that had been removed from one of the two large bilge tubes feeding down to the bilge. Deveau testified that the valve had to be taken out so that the sounding rod could be lowered down the bilge tube to measure the water. It seems the Mary Celeste was missing both her sounding pipes.
Besides two larger tubes running to the port and starboard bilge to facilitate hastily pumping out excess water regardless of the tact, a brig of this class normally had two additional smaller pipes just for sounding the bilge, one to port and one to starboard. But, for unknown reasons, the carpenters had failed to install these extra pipes when they had recently put in the new spar deck making it was necessary to remove the valves in the main bilge tubes in order to send the sounding rod down to the bilge. Deveau testified that he dropped the rod down the open tube and found three and one-half feet of water in her; an amount that would not have been noticed above her cargo except by using the sounding rod.
There was a foot of water swashing around on the galley floor in forward house. The water likely came in from the open scuttle on the roof and the open door because the port side of the forward house, which had no door or scuttle, was dry. There was also a great deal of water between decks likely because both the fore cargo hatch and the lazarette hatch were off, lying on the deck nearby. The main hatch was securely fastened.
The compass stand was broken and the compass destroyed. The wheel was not lashed alee as is the procedure normal observed when abandoning a sailing ship in an emergency.
The six windows around the slightly raised aft deck cabin were battened with canvas and board. The skylight on the cabin top was raised open. The Captain’s bed was unmade and wet; the water likely came from the opened skylight. The Captain’s chronometer, sextant, navigation book, ship‘s register and other papers were missing. The logbook and the log slate were found in the mate’s cabin. There were six months’ provisions in the storeroom and plenty of drinking water. We know the food and water was not contaminated because the salvage crew ate and drink from these supplies while they sailed the ship to port.
On inspecting the forward house, Oliver Deveau found the door open. In addition, the scuttle-hatch covering the hatchway in the roof of the galley was off. However, the small windows around the raised portion of the forward house were shut. No cooked food was found anywhere on the vessel; the pots and pans were cleaned and stored properly. However, the large cast iron galley stove had been lifted up by some strange force and set down out of place, no longer resting inside the four heavy chocks that secured each leg of the stove to the galley floor. The heavy water cask, normally chocked down on the deck to prevent it from sliding when the ship was healed over in a strong wind, was also found moved about as if some powerful force had acted upon it.
The crew’s clothing was left behind. Their rain gear, boots, and even their smoking pipes were found near their berths in the forecastle.
There was no sign of fire or smoke damage anywhere on board. Nor was any evidence found that the ship had nearly capsized. Her hull appeared in good condition and was described as "nearly new." However, there was some strange damage noted to the bow timbers down both sides of the vessel.
This damage was the most paradoxical aspect of her condition. John Austin, Gibraltar's Surveyor of Shipping, became highly suspicious. In his official report to the Court of Inquiry, he stated: "On approaching the vessel I found on the bow, between two and three feet above the water line on the port side, a long narrow strip at the edge of a plank under the cat-head cut away to the depth of about three eights of an inch and about one and a quarter inches wide for a length of about six to seven feet. This injury had been sustained recently and could not have been effected by weather or collision and was apparently done by a sharp cutting instrument continuously applied through the whole length of the injury. I found on the starboard bow but a little further from the stern of the vessel a precisely similar injury at the edge of a plank but perhaps an eighth or tenth of an inch wider, which in my opinion had been effected simultaneously and by the same means and not otherwise. However; as the Official Surveyor for this Court of Inquiry, I must profess intense bewilderment as to the tool used to cut such marks and why they would have been cut in any vessel at these locations."
The boarding party concluded that the Mary Celeste was in good sailing order. Only the small yawl, lashed on top of the main hatch, was gone. A section of railing running alongside was also removed to allow launching of the boat over the side. Deep cuts in the wooden railing and on top of the hatch, where the yawl had been stored, indicated that the crew had used an axe to cut the yawl loose rather than take the time to untie it properly. The evidence was clear, Captain Briggs and his family and crew had abandoned the Mary Celeste in great haste.
Later, when the cargo was unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels was found empty.
REENACTING THE VOYAGE
We shall not rehash the events prior to departing Staten Island on 7 November. Nor will we deal with the first 15 days of the voyage, reporting only that the wind had been favorable.
By magic, we catch up with life aboard the little half-brig in the Azores on 23 November 1872, where we see her sailing due east with all her sails trimmed to a strong southwest breeze. We can peace together much about the trip and the condition of the seas because the logbook was recovered from Mate’s cabin. It showed the tract of the vessel up to 24 November. The first mate's log slate was also found with an entry dated 25 November showing the position of the ship on that date. In addition, we also have the sworn testimony of the crew of the Dei Gratia who were not more than ~300 miles from the location of the Mary Celeste during this period.
On Board, we notice 1st Mate Albert Richardson gauging speed by hurling wood chips over the bow and counting the seconds until they drift passed the stern. He computes her speed at 8 knots, then turns his attention to calculating their position, reckoning they are at Latitude 36:56 North, Longitude 29:20 West, about 227 nautical miles directly east of Santa Maria Island, near the large red X in the map to the left.
The wind increases all morning. At noon, Mate Richardson orders her sails shortened, putting a reef in her main sail, main-gaff-topsail, main-topmost staysail and middle staysail. As the afternoon progresses and the wind continued to strengthen, one-at-a-time, he has the crew furl the main staysail, fore royal, foretopgallant, and flying jib. The wind reaches a moderate gale by seven that evening, increasing her speed to nine knots.
The night ahead promising to be a stormy one. Mate Richardson consults with the captain and together they see to it that all hatches are secured and that all the six windows around the cabin are battened tight with canvas and boards. At 8 PM when the first watch comes on duty, the storm is raging, making it necessary to put a reef in her foresail and double-reef her upper topsail and furl her lower topsail.
Midnight passes and they progress steadily. One o'clock, two o'clock, and three o'clock--the entry against each hour reads the same--8 knots. Soon the first streaks of dawn will be visible.
At 5 AM the logbook reads, "Made the Island of Saint Mary's, bearing ESE." (Santa Maria Island was know as Saint Mary's in the 1800's.) The point of land observed by the vessel's watch, using this bearing, was probably near Ponta Cabrasante, on the northwestern extremity of the Island. The Mary Celeste was located somewhere near the red X on the left side of the chart below.
The fact that the ship had been pushed forcefully along by a gale blowing hard out of the southwest is supported by the course taken by Captain Briggs around Santa Maria Island. The Strait of Gibraltar, entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, lies on a latitude sixty miles south of his present position; therefore, the most direct route would be to go south of Santa Maria Island, yet Captain Briggs steers the little brigantine north of the Island. Why?
The obvious reason would be to get on the lee shore, and take a break from the rough seas. Maybe the Captain’s daughter, Sophia, was sick and had been crying the entire night? Maybe he promised Sarah a break from the pounding sea? Maybe the crew was demanding a hot food? The sea had been so rough the last few days that Cook Edward Head was not likely able to fire the galley stove, let alone cook a meal. If you have ever been on sailing vessel of this size during a heavy wind, you would know better than to ask the cook for hot food. Cooks on sailing vessels are no different today as they where 130 years ago--no cooking whatsoever goes on during a gale!
It was 5 AM when they spotted Santa Maria, and 8 AM when the eastern point of Island bore SSW 6 miles distance. At 5 AM, they would have been somewhere near the red X. By 8 AM they would have been near the black X. The trip along the ten-mile breath of Santa Maria had taken three hours, indicating that they had likely sailed to a point near the black X and then dropped anchor for several hours, or she slowly sailed about in the area with only the jib and foretopmast staysail to hold her in place. It was likely about 6 AM when the cook, knowing they would soon be on the lee side of the island, started a fire in the galley stove.
EVIDENCE OF A SEAQUAKE
Sometime after eight in the morning on the 25th something dreadful happened on board the Mary Celeste causing an experienced master mariner to place his wife and 2-year-old daughter and seven other adults besides himself into a yawl with limited freeboard, and hastily abandon a perfectly sea-worthy, 101-foot, 282 ton vessels. The Captain had to believe, as everyone else, that staying aboard the Mary Celeste was extremely dangerous.
As the Dei Gratia salvage crew noted, most of the sails were furled when the Mary Celeste was found, which leads one to believe that whatever had happened on board, happened moments before they departed the lee side of Santa Maria.
Likely, while hoved to near shore or anchored, Sarah tended to Sophia as the cook prepared their first hot meal in days. After the crew ate, they took a well-deserved smoke break and the cook cleaned the pots and stowed things away. Then, sometime after 8 AM, the captain gave the orders to pump the bilges and run up the sails, putting order back into the Mary Celeste.
Knowing their new course to be a safe one, he took his wife and retired for a nap, leaving the first mate in charge with instructions to call him only if needed. We know this because the Captain's bed was reported unmade, something that never happened on board a well run ship in the 1872, unless the Captain was in the bed or intended to go back to it later.
The seaquake erupted just as the Mary Celeste was about to depart.
The ship shook violently, knocking her wooden compass stand over and breaking the compass housing.
The up and down motion bounced the large drinking-water cast loose from its chocks on the main deck, and danced the huge cast-iron galley stove out of place, likely flinging open the stove door or bouncing one of the top lids off to the side, allowing smoke and embers to whirl out of the stove.
The severe vibrations also jarred the barrels of alcohol she carried, loosening the stays on nine barrels, spilling almost 500 gallons of raw alcohol into the bilge.
The men pumping the bilge must have been knocked off their feet because they stopped what they were doing, leaving the sounding rod and the bilge valve on the deck.
The sailors up in the rigging, in the process of setting the foresail and upper and lower topsail, might have been jolted so hard that they fell into the sea or landed hard on the deck, showing reason why the fore-lower topsail was only partly set. The foresail gear was left dangling, explaining why the gear was later found broken with the clew lines and bunting gone. The fore-braces on the port side were placed out of order, no doubt due to the hysteria of the men. Some of the other running rigging was left hanging loose for the same reason, which explains why two sails apparently tore away from the yards and blew overboard during the time the Mary Celeste sailed as a ghost ship.
Bradford was right in his book when he said the cause of the disaster was an "outside destructive force," not something within the ship. However, he made a mistake in developing his waterspout theory by assuming the blown away sails meant only one thing -- excessive wind. He never reasoned that, in a normal breeze, a loose flapping sail could be torn away and/or ripped to shreds within a few days if not set properly.
The leading theory up until Bradford published his book was that alcohol fumes were somehow responsible. He belittled this idea by pointing out that, if any alcohol had leaked into the bilge, it would be mixed with water and pumped out everyday when the bilge was tended. If there had been an alarming amount of alcohol in the bilge water, Bradford reasoned, the seamen would have notified the captain and they would have vented the bilge at all cost. The alcohol expert consulted by Bradford added that, in his opinion, had there been a dangerous alcohol leak, there would have been an explosion and a fire leaving no doubt as to the cause of the abandonment. No one reasoned that a violent shaking of the cargo during a seaquake would cause nine barrels of alcohol to empty into the bilge in less than a minute.
There can be little doubt, the hull of the Mary Celeste, like an echo chamber, thunderously reverberated the hammering on her bottom planks, inciting the God-fearing crew to think judgment day had arrived.
To make matters worse, the vibrations likely caused mental confusion making it more difficult for the officers to decide on the proper action. In such a moment one would also wonder how well the Germany crew understood orders yelled at them in English.
Before the first shocks ended, the entire ship began to permeate with alcohol fumes. Fearful of an explosion, the crew dropped whatever they were doing and ran to open the fore hatch to inspect the cargo, throwing the hatch cover to the side. They also quickly opened the lazarette hatch, and the fore and aft sky lights in an attempted to air out the lower decks. However, they did not open the main hatch, in agreement with the evidence, because, at this point in time, the yawl was still lashed to the cover.
Shortly after the main shocks, the aftershocks began and more smoke, embers, and sparking bits of burning wood bellowed from the hot stove. Maybe William Head was brave enough to close the stove as best he could but it is doubtful he or anyone else lingered in the galley for any length of time. The fear of catching on fire in a pending explosion would have caused any member of crew to stay as far away from the galley as possible. No wonder they did not take any personal items since they had to pass by the dancing stove to get to their chest in the forecastle.
No mention was made of the condition of the stove's flue or what type of flue system the stove was equipped with. Nevertheless, one would expect some means of exhausting the burning ash and smoke since the galley was setting just below the canvas. Whatever matter of exhaust the stove was equipped with was likely lost when it was shaken from its chocks. Other safety standards, such as shielding and other means of fire prevention, was also likely breached when the stove was bounced up and down on the galley floor. Under such a situation, the alcohol fumes could explode at any second and everyone knew it.
Captain Briggs did the only rational thing he could do. He yelled out the orders to abandon the Mary Celeste.
In a mad dash, someone grabbed an ax and quickly cut the yawl loose from the main hatch and everyone helped drag it over to the starboard rail. At this point, the man with the ax grabbed the main peak halyard from the belaying pin in the pin-rack, played-out a good section, placed the line on the rail and whacked it through, at the same time, making a deep cut into the rail. He let the loose end go, took the end of the line he had just cut off the halyard and tied it to the yawl.
They heaved the yawl over the starboard side and secured it with the line cut from the halyard. The Captain put his wife and daughter in the small boat, snatched his chronometer, sextant, and the ship's papers and jump in. The crew joined him.
At this point, Sarah praying and Sophia screaming and everyone else near panic, one of the crew secured the other end of the halyard to the rail and the yawl drew away. The was standard procedure in those days when a ship was abandoned during a fire. The idea was to tie your life boat a safe distance off the stern and hope the fire went out before the vessel burnt to the waterline. The crew could pull themselves back on board when the danger was over and claim salvage to whatever remained.
However, as luck was going for the crew of the Mary Celeste, another aftershock might have occurred, sinking the yawl, turning its mass into a sea anchor and ripping the halyard loose from the rail.
But what are the odds the little boat was sunk immediately?
The problem in recreating what might have happened on the yawl is that we have no real description of this vessel. The info given by others is that the boat is 15 to 20 feet in length without mention of whether it is a row boat or a sailing yawl. If we assume Captain Briggs was not a complete *****, then we must also assume the yawl was capable of carrying everyone. It was likely closer to 20 feet in length and carried a sail along with at least one set of strong oars, maybe two. There might have also been emergency provisions stored on board. The boat was likely lashed to the main hatch because it was too big to fit on the stern davits.
If the yawl was a large 20-foot life boat we can take a different view of what might have happened to the crew after they departed the Mary Celeste, especially in view of what appeared in the Liverpool Daily Albion on 16 May 1873. It was reported that two rafts had been found by fishermen from a small town off the Coast of Spain (see chart below). One of the rafts had a corpse lashed to it and was flying an American flag. (No flag was found on board the Mary Celeste.) The second raft held five decomposing bodies but no mention was made as to how long the bodies might have been "decomposing."
Was this the crew? Suppose, moments before you realized the mother ship was not going to explode, the halyard holding the yawl off the stern somehow parted or came unknotted. You know you forgot to the wheel lashed, something a good Captain would have done. What do you do now if you were Captain Briggs? Would you try to catch up with your vessel and your valuable cargo, hoping the wind would change and turn her back into your little boat? Or, would you turn the yawl about and head back to the safety of Santa Maria? Capt Briggs had his sextant and charts. Maybe he tried to catch the Mary Celeste? They might have lived for weeks on rain water and fish? The yawl could have broke apart in heavy seas? The survivors could have lashed together two crude rafts and drifted for long time before being found off the Coast of Spain?
We know the Mary Celeste sailed ~370 nautical miles in a westerly direction as a ghost before being found nine days later. Those who think it impossible for her to travel so far in such a short period with only two small sails set should realize that she was carried more by the Azores Current than by the wind.
The main Gulf Stream passes close to the Grand Banks, south of Newfoundland, where it branches into two currents: the North Atlantic and the Azores Currents. The North Atlantic turns north just east of Newfoundland, and flows east toward the British Isles. The Azores Current, flows east at about two nautical miles per hour past the Azores Islands towards the shores of Portugal before turning south.
Carried by this current, the Mary Celeste could have traveled up to 50 nautical miles per day making it reasonable that a Dei Gratia came upon her where she did.
EXPLAINING THE CUTS IN THE BOW PLANKS
John Austin, Gibraltar's Surveyor of Shipping, testified that he found on the bow, about two and one-half feet above the water line on both sides, a long narrow strip, at the edge of a plank under the cat-head, cut away to the depth of about 3/8 inch and about 1 1/4 inches wide for a length of about six to seven feet. He professed intense bewilderment as to the tool used to cut such marks and why they would have been cut in any vessel at these locations.
Captain Winchester, one of the owners of the Mary Celeste, had a different opinion. He agreed with Captain Shufeldt, who had determined that the injury was actually splinters or splints that had popped off the wood, which had been steamed and bent to curve the bow when the boat was recently rebuilt.
The Mary Celeste had been "on the rocks" several times in her long history. She also had been involved in two collisions, one of them recent. According to testimony, just before this trip, she had been purchased at a salvage auction in New York for $2,600 and rebuilt for $14,000. Her rebuilt condition was confirmed by the crew of the Dei Gratia when they said, "Her hull appeared to be nearly new."
We can assume that many of her bow planks were newly replaced. They were probably cut from black spruce, a long-fibered wood used most often in the construction of ships along the Northeastern Coast and in Newfoundland. Slight ring failure along the grain might have occurred in the planks while they were still curing in the repair yard. Even if they were perfect boards, the steaming and bending of the planks to fit the contour of the hull would weaken the grain.
The caulking done during her recent rebuilt could also have been responsible for the edges of the planks to splinter out. Caulking was extremely important process, not only because it rendered the vessel watertight, but also because driving the oakum between the planks put great pressure on and squeezed them together tightly, holding them in tension adding to the rigidity and strength of the vessel. During caulking it was very important to allow for expansion of the planks when wet, especially if the grain ran in a direction that made splintering likely. If too much oakum was pounded in between the planks, then a condition of excessive stress would have been established at the edges of the replaced planks. As these planks soaked up water, the stress would increase.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that during the severe vibrations of the seaquake, long splints would pop from the edges of a few bow planks along the grain, appearing as if it were cut with an unknown instrument.
http://www.deafwhale.com/maryceleste/
MARY CELESTE WAS ABANDONED DURING A SEAQUAKE!
http://www.deafwhale.com/maryceleste/mc1.jpg
The British brigantine Dei Gratia came upon the Mary Celeste sailing erratically midway between the Azores and Portugal on 4 December 1872. The crew could spot no one on deck threw their spy glass so the captain of the Dei Gratia dispatched a boarding party lead by 1st Mate Oliver Deveau. Deveau's team reported that the ship was fully provisioned and perfectly seaworthy yet mysteriously abandoned. A few clues indicated the crew of the Mary Celeste had quickly launched a small yawl for no apparent reason.
The Mary C had departed New York on 5 November loaded with 1,709 barrels of grain alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy.
The crew endured strong winds from the time they left New York until arriving at Santa Maria Island in the Azores --- they'd sailed the last few hundreds miles in a gale.
It seems reasonable to suggest that in order to take a break from the pounding, the captain gave the order to sail to the lee side of Santa Maria Island where the cook started a fire in the large galley stove to make hot food while other members of the crew furled most of the sails, leaving just enough canvas up to hold her course as they made their way slowly along the lee shore. Other crew members set about pumping the bilge and doing other chores. When the food was ready, the men stopped what they were doing and ate. After taking a smoke break, the Captain gave orders to get underway and the crew went back to work. Some went back to pumping the bilge; others started to set the sails they had just furled. Just then the seafloor started dancing up and down in a violent seaquake, relatively common in the Azores.
During rapid vertically shifting of the hard bottom, the seabed becomes like a giant transducer, pushing and pulling the water, sending powerful alternating pressure waves towards the surface. The results onboard the boat were as if there was no sea at all under the ship....just as though the vessel was setting on dry land during an earthquake. The deck on the Mary Celeste shook violently. The severe vibrations loosened the stays around nine barrels, dumping almost 500 gallons of raw alcohol into the bilge. Fumes spread rapidly throughout the boat. The seaquake also shook the galley stove so violently that it was lifted up from its chocks and set down out of place.
Choking on the alcohol fumes from the leaking barrels while seeing sparks and embers flying about from the fire in the cooking stove was all it took to send the crew into panic and cause them to quickly launch the small yawl and try to get away from the coming explosion.
The elation the crew felt when the alcohol fumes did not explode was short lived.
In the fear of the moment, the crew forgot to secure a line from the life boat to the mother ship. They watched in dismay as the Mary Celeste, now crewless, sailed slowly away from the yawl with her jib and two other small sails set. As she pulled away from the small sailing yawl, the men had to decide quickly whether to try to catch up with their ship, or go for the safety of Santa Maria Island, less than 10 miles away. They likely argued about the merits of each course of action, but, knowing they would be disgraced for having abandoned their seaworthy boat and her valuable cargo, they chose to try to catch the Mary C in the small yawl, hoping (1) they could overcome her, or (2) the wind would shift and cause her to tack back towards them. Each day of their journey carried them further and further away from the safety of Santa Maria. They never caught up to their mother ship. Five months later, five highly decomposed bodies were found tied to two rafts off the coast of Spain. One was flying an American flag. Thus is the fate of the crew the greatest sea mystery ever told.
Introduction
The crew was delighted to finally get underway on the morning of 7 November 1872 when Captain Benjamin S. Briggs gave the order to hoist anchor. They had departed New York Harbor two days earlier, but were forced to anchor off Staten Island waiting on the heavy seas to slacken.
On board with the 37-year-old Captain were his 30-year-old wife, Sarah Elizabeth, and their second child, two-year-old Sophia. Sarah had insisted on bringing along her melodeon to break the monotony of the long voyage with song. She had also brought along her sewing machine and toys for Sophia. They had left behind their seven-year-old son so he could stay in school.
The seven-man crew consisted of 28-year-old First Mate Albert G. Richardson, 25-year-old Second Mate Andrew Gillings, and 23-year-old Steward and Cook Edward Head. The four Germans serving as seamen were Volkert Lorenzen (29), his brother Boz Lorenzen (23), Arian Martens (35), and Gottlieb Goodschaad (23).
An hour after weighing anchor, the 103-foot, 282 ton half-brigantine was under full sail on its way to Genoa, Italy. The little ship was due to enter the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar no later than 6 December.
But something dreadful went wrong. The Mary Celeste entered the Strait on 12 December, but rather than set a course on to Genoa, she sailed into the Port of Gibraltar with not a single soul who had departed New York still on board.
The ship was now under the command of Oliver Deveau, the 1st Mate of the British brigantine Dei Gratia. Deveau’s ship had left New York eight days after the Mary Celeste, both vessels heading into the Mediterranean Sea. By a twist of fate, the Dei Gratia had caught up with an abandoned Mary Celeste 370 nautical miles east of Santa Maria Island in the Azores, midway between Santa Maria and the Strait of Gibraltar.
On 18 December, the Vice-Admiralty Court of Gibraltar held its first session to hear testimony in connection with the claim for salvage made against the derelict and her cargo. The presiding Justice was Sir James Cochrane, a British Knight and the Commissary of the Vice-Admiralty Court. The Queen’s Proctor was Frederick Solly Flood.
Flood's suspicions were aroused from the moment he heard a crewmember from the Dei Gratia say that the ghost ship was "fit to sail around the world with good crew and good sails." He immediately ordered, and personally attended, a survey made by John Austin, Surveyor of Shipping at Gibraltar, and Ricardo Portunato, diver. This official inspection, done two days before Christmas, failed to uncover any evidence that a crime had been committed.
Flood spent the holidays mulling over the case. He so convinced himself of foul play that he ordered a second detailed survey. The Queen's lawyer now saw the mystery of the missing crew as his big chance to make a name for himself. He was right. Word about the ghost ship quickly spread around the world.
The US State Department became interested because the boat had only three years earlier became a US registered vessel. Horatio J. Sprague, the US Consul to Gibraltar, kept the State Department fully informed with a barrage of cablegrams. He even enlisted the services of US Navy Captain R. W. Shufeldt who arrived at Gibraltar on board the U.S.S. Plymouth. Consul Sprague cabled Captain Shufeldt’s report on the condition of the abandoned vessel back to the State Department the day it was prepared. Cable services between Gibraltar and New York saw more activity in one month than had occurred in the previous ten years.
Newspapers everywhere gobbled up any hint of news turning the court proceedings into the "O. J. Simpson trial" of the era. Most headlines read the same: "Seaworthy American Brig Abandoned at Sea For Unknown Reason!"
Four insurance companies, three US agencies, three British agencies and numerous other "interested parties" became entangled for two years trying to sort out the truth of what happened to the crew.
Since then more than 30 books, two movies, and several documentaries have focused on the ghost ship. Yet no generally accepted explanation for why Captain Briggs, his wife and daughter, and seven crewmen abandoned ship has ever been put forward.
Pointing out the fact that Captain Briggs was an old friend of Captain Morehouse, master of the Dei Gratia, many newspapers of the time reported no mystery, choosing rather to insinuate insurance fraud. Others reported on the possibility of mutiny by a drunken crew. Still others insisted that the ship had encountered pirates. Fiction writers pumped out wild tales that were later published in newspapers as true accounts. None other than Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote the most widely read yarn.
Everyone had a theory. Even William Richard, US Secretary of the Treasury, published his idea on what happened on the front page of the New York Times. He, like Queen’s Proctor Flood, felt the crew had got at the alcohol and murdered Captain Briggs and his family in a drunken fury. Flood later changed his mind on a drunken crew in favor of a conspiracy between Captains Briggs and Morehouse.
Dr. James Kimble, head of the US Weather Bureau, and author Gershom Bradford both suggested a waterspout had struck the vessel suddenly. Waterspouts are not common outside the tropics, yet Bradford made a convincing argument for such a happening in his book, The Secret of the Mary Celeste (W. Foulsham & Co. 1966). Bradford’s mistaken concepts will be visited later in this presentation.
US Consul Sprague wrote, "This case of the Mary Celeste is startling, since it appears to be one of those mysteries which no human ingenuity can penetrate sufficiently to account for abandonment of this vessel and the disappearance of her master, family and crew."
One newspaperman of the time called the incident, "a detective-story writer’s nightmare: the perfect perplexing situation without any logical solution --- a plot which can never be convincingly unraveled."
HISTORY OF VESSEL/SEAQUAKE ENCOUNTERS
If the incident had occurred 15 years later, in 1887, maybe the Vice-Admiralty Court could have determined what happen. That was the year Eberhart Rudolph, Professor of Geophysics at the University of Strasburg in Germany, published the first part of his detail work on seaquakes in the prestigious German geophysical journal, Beitrage zur Geophysik.
By the time he had finished his project, eleven years later, he had published over six hundred pages, documenting more than 550 seaquake/vessel encounters, many resembling the narratives in today's books on the Bermuda Triangle.
Loud--sometimes painful--noises, lasting as long as fifteen minutes, bellowed up from the deep to reverberate against a ship's bottom, generating an incredible rumble throughout. At the same time, the sea rose erratically and violently, causing the ships to heave and roll in all directions.
Often a cannonball, water barrel, or some other heavy spherical object would be jostled from its chocks and set free to roll and lurch about the deck like a boulder crashing down a mountainside. Unable to stand, let alone run, on the quaking decks, the crew was at the mercy of providence, believing all the while each moment would be their last.
If that were not enough to frighten the very breath from the superstitious sailors, the needles of the ships' compasses would often spin in queer directions. At other times the compasses would not be affected at all, and the wind would become the source of puzzlement, sometimes shifting abruptly shortly before or after a seaquake.
One captain wrote in his log that he saw his sister ship being drawn under in a huge dome-shaped mound of frothing water. Another wrote, "The tremendous concussion below the keel made the stout hull vibrate through every beam, and the tall masts quiver like young twigs in a gale."
Hundreds of eyewitnesses told of busted planks, cracked beams, and broken masts as they reminisced about the damage sustained by their vessels during the incredible pounding of a seaquake. But, oddly Rudolph thought, no one ever mentioned a seaquake sinking a vessel. He justified this lack of total loss by reasoning that many ships might have gone down in a seaquake leaving no survivors to tell the story. He also thought the sailing vessels of his day might be somewhat protected from seaquakes. He wrote: "I believe the stout timbers of a wooden vessel and the moisture these timbers soak up give these ships a natural flexibility, enabling them to endure the rigorous shuddering of a seaquake just as a willow might withstand a tempest."
What happens on the surface during a seaquake depends on many factors. If the hypocenter of the quake is deep in the bowels of the earth, little occurs on the bottom or in the water column. On the other hand, if the hypocenter is so shallow that the seabed opens up, the coupling of P-wave energy into the water is greatly enhanced. (Water cannot support shear so S-waves are missing in a seaquake.)
In addition, before a seaquake can generate potent P-waves in the water, the seabed itself must simulate the action of a giant piston, moving up and down rapidly, shoving and pulling at the water column. The faster the piston moves, the more potent is the vertical traveling pressure waves. In fact, speed of the vertical quivering plays the determining role in ship damage, not the magnitude of the quake.
Magnitude is more related to the length of the rupture rather than to the power of vertical pressure waves released into the water. A magnitude three seaquake, erupting explosively with predominate up and down motion, might release a hundred times the energy into the water column over a magnitude six event with mostly horizontal motion. For example, a ship directly above a slow moving magnitude six quake might experience only the feeling of running aground or hitting a submerged object. On the other hand, a ship above an explosive magnitude three event, with predominate rapid vertical shifting in the seabed, might join the many thousands of vessels posted as "missing without a trace."
The best way to envision what might happen on board a ship is to imagine no water between the earthquake and the vessel. Keep in mind that a vessel is a sprung mass and, as such, more subject to being "excited" if any portion of the energy is in sync with the ship’s own natural frequencies. In the "sprung mass" state, a ship is more like a tight banjo string than a loose one.
A tall building can also act as a sprung mass during an earthquake, collapsing if the seismic energy resonates with one of many natural frequencies of the building. The same principals that applies to a tall building in an earthquake also applies to a ship in a seaquake.
Both the US and British Navies know of this hazard to shipping. Nevertheless, for reasons of their own, prefer not to release this knowledge, choosing instead to place the danger of seaquakes into a black hole of secrecy.
SEISMIC ACTIVITY IN THE AZORES
According to a chart compiled by the Acoustics Division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (1981), a major seaquake has occurred within sixty miles of Santa Maria Island in the Azores every year since the beginning of man's ability to record such happenings. In fact, the ocean floor in the area is one of the most seismically threatened places in the world. The active East Azores Fracture Zone is located about thirty miles southwest of Santa Maria; about fifteen miles east-northeast lies another hot-spot for undersea earthquakes known as the Gloria Fracture Zone.
When Dr. Lowell Whiteside, a Geophysicist with the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado was asked if he could be certain a seaquake did or did not occur on 25 November 1872 in the sea near Santa Maria, he said: "The problem with identifying the occurrence of historical earthquakes from 1872 is that there were no seismological instruments at the time. The only earthquakes recorded were those that were felt strong enough to be noteworthy. This means that earthquakes outside of populated area and under the ocean were seldom reported. The only evidence of large sub-oceanic event comes from tsunamis and seaquakes noted by people aboard ocean-going vessels. The Azores is a highly seismic region and earthquakes occur often, often they are of moderate to large size. Unfortunately, because of the non-recording of oceanic events in 1872, it cannot be confirmed or denied that an earthquake occurred in that region on November 25, 1872."
He added, "An 8.5 magnitude seaquake did occur in the Azores in late December of that year. This event was the largest in the area in one hundred years. It is probable that many large foreshocks and aftershocks occurred locally within a month of this event."
As Dr. Whiteside confirmed, no instruments or earthquake stations existed at the time to record earthquakes. The historical records of events in 1872 were created in the early 1900's by searching old newspapers and other printed accounts. Since the Azores are located in a seismically active area, to be newsworthy an event would have had to special, causing objects to fall from shelves or in some way disrupting to the lives of the local folk on Santa Maria. The Magnitude 8.5 event in late December was reported all over the Azores. Foreshocks would likely have been too common to make the newspapers, therefore a seaquake under the Mary Celeste might have easily frightened the weary crew because of the explosive nature of the cargo they carried while not being especially notable by those on land.
Charles Fay wrote the metrological service in the Azores and ask about the weather and any earthquakes and got the following answer: "From the records from Angra do Heroismo and Ponta Delgada, the only two stations existing in 1872, it is concluded that stormy conditions prevailed in the Azores on the 24th and 25th November 1872. A cold front passed Angra do Heroismo between 3 and 9 PM on the 25th, the wind shifting then from SW to NW. The minimum of pressure was 752 mm and the wind velocity attained to 62 km at Ponta Delgada at 9 PM on the 24th. Calm or light wind prevailed on the forenoon of the 25th, but later, the wind became of a gale force. As usually the wind direction before the cold front was WSW to SW; after the cold front NW. Fourteen mm of rain were collected at Angra from noon on the 24th to noon 25th, and 29 mm at Ponta Delgada. No record of any earthquake is found in the registers, neither in the local newspapers which we have searched."
THE FACTS OF THE CASE
The crew of the Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste sailing erratically midway between the Azores and Portugal on the 4th of December. They noticed that she was headed toward them making about two knots under short canvas. They were unable to spot anyone on deck through their glass so, as the Dei Gratia’s helmsman steered a nearby approach, her crew hailed the deserted vessel over and over. When no response was received, a boarding party, lead by 1st Mate Oliver Deveau, was quickly dispatched to soon discover the Mary Celeste was abandoned.
The boarding crew noticed her jib and foretopmast staysail set on a starboard tact. The foresail and the upper foretopsail had been mostly blown away. The standing rigging was in good order, but some of the running rigging was also blow away. Her masts, yards and spars, and anchors and chains were all right. A stout rope about 100 meters long used to hoist the outer end of the gaff sail, called a main peak halyard, was broken and most of it missing. The main staysail was lying loose on the forward house and all the rest of the sails were furled.
(painted by John Styga)
The bilge pump, positioned just forward of the mainmast, was found in good working condition. However, Deveau noticed that the sounding rod used to measure water in the bilge was laying on the deck. Next to the rod was a valve that had been removed from one of the two large bilge tubes feeding down to the bilge. Deveau testified that the valve had to be taken out so that the sounding rod could be lowered down the bilge tube to measure the water. It seems the Mary Celeste was missing both her sounding pipes.
Besides two larger tubes running to the port and starboard bilge to facilitate hastily pumping out excess water regardless of the tact, a brig of this class normally had two additional smaller pipes just for sounding the bilge, one to port and one to starboard. But, for unknown reasons, the carpenters had failed to install these extra pipes when they had recently put in the new spar deck making it was necessary to remove the valves in the main bilge tubes in order to send the sounding rod down to the bilge. Deveau testified that he dropped the rod down the open tube and found three and one-half feet of water in her; an amount that would not have been noticed above her cargo except by using the sounding rod.
There was a foot of water swashing around on the galley floor in forward house. The water likely came in from the open scuttle on the roof and the open door because the port side of the forward house, which had no door or scuttle, was dry. There was also a great deal of water between decks likely because both the fore cargo hatch and the lazarette hatch were off, lying on the deck nearby. The main hatch was securely fastened.
The compass stand was broken and the compass destroyed. The wheel was not lashed alee as is the procedure normal observed when abandoning a sailing ship in an emergency.
The six windows around the slightly raised aft deck cabin were battened with canvas and board. The skylight on the cabin top was raised open. The Captain’s bed was unmade and wet; the water likely came from the opened skylight. The Captain’s chronometer, sextant, navigation book, ship‘s register and other papers were missing. The logbook and the log slate were found in the mate’s cabin. There were six months’ provisions in the storeroom and plenty of drinking water. We know the food and water was not contaminated because the salvage crew ate and drink from these supplies while they sailed the ship to port.
On inspecting the forward house, Oliver Deveau found the door open. In addition, the scuttle-hatch covering the hatchway in the roof of the galley was off. However, the small windows around the raised portion of the forward house were shut. No cooked food was found anywhere on the vessel; the pots and pans were cleaned and stored properly. However, the large cast iron galley stove had been lifted up by some strange force and set down out of place, no longer resting inside the four heavy chocks that secured each leg of the stove to the galley floor. The heavy water cask, normally chocked down on the deck to prevent it from sliding when the ship was healed over in a strong wind, was also found moved about as if some powerful force had acted upon it.
The crew’s clothing was left behind. Their rain gear, boots, and even their smoking pipes were found near their berths in the forecastle.
There was no sign of fire or smoke damage anywhere on board. Nor was any evidence found that the ship had nearly capsized. Her hull appeared in good condition and was described as "nearly new." However, there was some strange damage noted to the bow timbers down both sides of the vessel.
This damage was the most paradoxical aspect of her condition. John Austin, Gibraltar's Surveyor of Shipping, became highly suspicious. In his official report to the Court of Inquiry, he stated: "On approaching the vessel I found on the bow, between two and three feet above the water line on the port side, a long narrow strip at the edge of a plank under the cat-head cut away to the depth of about three eights of an inch and about one and a quarter inches wide for a length of about six to seven feet. This injury had been sustained recently and could not have been effected by weather or collision and was apparently done by a sharp cutting instrument continuously applied through the whole length of the injury. I found on the starboard bow but a little further from the stern of the vessel a precisely similar injury at the edge of a plank but perhaps an eighth or tenth of an inch wider, which in my opinion had been effected simultaneously and by the same means and not otherwise. However; as the Official Surveyor for this Court of Inquiry, I must profess intense bewilderment as to the tool used to cut such marks and why they would have been cut in any vessel at these locations."
The boarding party concluded that the Mary Celeste was in good sailing order. Only the small yawl, lashed on top of the main hatch, was gone. A section of railing running alongside was also removed to allow launching of the boat over the side. Deep cuts in the wooden railing and on top of the hatch, where the yawl had been stored, indicated that the crew had used an axe to cut the yawl loose rather than take the time to untie it properly. The evidence was clear, Captain Briggs and his family and crew had abandoned the Mary Celeste in great haste.
Later, when the cargo was unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels was found empty.
REENACTING THE VOYAGE
We shall not rehash the events prior to departing Staten Island on 7 November. Nor will we deal with the first 15 days of the voyage, reporting only that the wind had been favorable.
By magic, we catch up with life aboard the little half-brig in the Azores on 23 November 1872, where we see her sailing due east with all her sails trimmed to a strong southwest breeze. We can peace together much about the trip and the condition of the seas because the logbook was recovered from Mate’s cabin. It showed the tract of the vessel up to 24 November. The first mate's log slate was also found with an entry dated 25 November showing the position of the ship on that date. In addition, we also have the sworn testimony of the crew of the Dei Gratia who were not more than ~300 miles from the location of the Mary Celeste during this period.
On Board, we notice 1st Mate Albert Richardson gauging speed by hurling wood chips over the bow and counting the seconds until they drift passed the stern. He computes her speed at 8 knots, then turns his attention to calculating their position, reckoning they are at Latitude 36:56 North, Longitude 29:20 West, about 227 nautical miles directly east of Santa Maria Island, near the large red X in the map to the left.
The wind increases all morning. At noon, Mate Richardson orders her sails shortened, putting a reef in her main sail, main-gaff-topsail, main-topmost staysail and middle staysail. As the afternoon progresses and the wind continued to strengthen, one-at-a-time, he has the crew furl the main staysail, fore royal, foretopgallant, and flying jib. The wind reaches a moderate gale by seven that evening, increasing her speed to nine knots.
The night ahead promising to be a stormy one. Mate Richardson consults with the captain and together they see to it that all hatches are secured and that all the six windows around the cabin are battened tight with canvas and boards. At 8 PM when the first watch comes on duty, the storm is raging, making it necessary to put a reef in her foresail and double-reef her upper topsail and furl her lower topsail.
Midnight passes and they progress steadily. One o'clock, two o'clock, and three o'clock--the entry against each hour reads the same--8 knots. Soon the first streaks of dawn will be visible.
At 5 AM the logbook reads, "Made the Island of Saint Mary's, bearing ESE." (Santa Maria Island was know as Saint Mary's in the 1800's.) The point of land observed by the vessel's watch, using this bearing, was probably near Ponta Cabrasante, on the northwestern extremity of the Island. The Mary Celeste was located somewhere near the red X on the left side of the chart below.
The fact that the ship had been pushed forcefully along by a gale blowing hard out of the southwest is supported by the course taken by Captain Briggs around Santa Maria Island. The Strait of Gibraltar, entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, lies on a latitude sixty miles south of his present position; therefore, the most direct route would be to go south of Santa Maria Island, yet Captain Briggs steers the little brigantine north of the Island. Why?
The obvious reason would be to get on the lee shore, and take a break from the rough seas. Maybe the Captain’s daughter, Sophia, was sick and had been crying the entire night? Maybe he promised Sarah a break from the pounding sea? Maybe the crew was demanding a hot food? The sea had been so rough the last few days that Cook Edward Head was not likely able to fire the galley stove, let alone cook a meal. If you have ever been on sailing vessel of this size during a heavy wind, you would know better than to ask the cook for hot food. Cooks on sailing vessels are no different today as they where 130 years ago--no cooking whatsoever goes on during a gale!
It was 5 AM when they spotted Santa Maria, and 8 AM when the eastern point of Island bore SSW 6 miles distance. At 5 AM, they would have been somewhere near the red X. By 8 AM they would have been near the black X. The trip along the ten-mile breath of Santa Maria had taken three hours, indicating that they had likely sailed to a point near the black X and then dropped anchor for several hours, or she slowly sailed about in the area with only the jib and foretopmast staysail to hold her in place. It was likely about 6 AM when the cook, knowing they would soon be on the lee side of the island, started a fire in the galley stove.
EVIDENCE OF A SEAQUAKE
Sometime after eight in the morning on the 25th something dreadful happened on board the Mary Celeste causing an experienced master mariner to place his wife and 2-year-old daughter and seven other adults besides himself into a yawl with limited freeboard, and hastily abandon a perfectly sea-worthy, 101-foot, 282 ton vessels. The Captain had to believe, as everyone else, that staying aboard the Mary Celeste was extremely dangerous.
As the Dei Gratia salvage crew noted, most of the sails were furled when the Mary Celeste was found, which leads one to believe that whatever had happened on board, happened moments before they departed the lee side of Santa Maria.
Likely, while hoved to near shore or anchored, Sarah tended to Sophia as the cook prepared their first hot meal in days. After the crew ate, they took a well-deserved smoke break and the cook cleaned the pots and stowed things away. Then, sometime after 8 AM, the captain gave the orders to pump the bilges and run up the sails, putting order back into the Mary Celeste.
Knowing their new course to be a safe one, he took his wife and retired for a nap, leaving the first mate in charge with instructions to call him only if needed. We know this because the Captain's bed was reported unmade, something that never happened on board a well run ship in the 1872, unless the Captain was in the bed or intended to go back to it later.
The seaquake erupted just as the Mary Celeste was about to depart.
The ship shook violently, knocking her wooden compass stand over and breaking the compass housing.
The up and down motion bounced the large drinking-water cast loose from its chocks on the main deck, and danced the huge cast-iron galley stove out of place, likely flinging open the stove door or bouncing one of the top lids off to the side, allowing smoke and embers to whirl out of the stove.
The severe vibrations also jarred the barrels of alcohol she carried, loosening the stays on nine barrels, spilling almost 500 gallons of raw alcohol into the bilge.
The men pumping the bilge must have been knocked off their feet because they stopped what they were doing, leaving the sounding rod and the bilge valve on the deck.
The sailors up in the rigging, in the process of setting the foresail and upper and lower topsail, might have been jolted so hard that they fell into the sea or landed hard on the deck, showing reason why the fore-lower topsail was only partly set. The foresail gear was left dangling, explaining why the gear was later found broken with the clew lines and bunting gone. The fore-braces on the port side were placed out of order, no doubt due to the hysteria of the men. Some of the other running rigging was left hanging loose for the same reason, which explains why two sails apparently tore away from the yards and blew overboard during the time the Mary Celeste sailed as a ghost ship.
Bradford was right in his book when he said the cause of the disaster was an "outside destructive force," not something within the ship. However, he made a mistake in developing his waterspout theory by assuming the blown away sails meant only one thing -- excessive wind. He never reasoned that, in a normal breeze, a loose flapping sail could be torn away and/or ripped to shreds within a few days if not set properly.
The leading theory up until Bradford published his book was that alcohol fumes were somehow responsible. He belittled this idea by pointing out that, if any alcohol had leaked into the bilge, it would be mixed with water and pumped out everyday when the bilge was tended. If there had been an alarming amount of alcohol in the bilge water, Bradford reasoned, the seamen would have notified the captain and they would have vented the bilge at all cost. The alcohol expert consulted by Bradford added that, in his opinion, had there been a dangerous alcohol leak, there would have been an explosion and a fire leaving no doubt as to the cause of the abandonment. No one reasoned that a violent shaking of the cargo during a seaquake would cause nine barrels of alcohol to empty into the bilge in less than a minute.
There can be little doubt, the hull of the Mary Celeste, like an echo chamber, thunderously reverberated the hammering on her bottom planks, inciting the God-fearing crew to think judgment day had arrived.
To make matters worse, the vibrations likely caused mental confusion making it more difficult for the officers to decide on the proper action. In such a moment one would also wonder how well the Germany crew understood orders yelled at them in English.
Before the first shocks ended, the entire ship began to permeate with alcohol fumes. Fearful of an explosion, the crew dropped whatever they were doing and ran to open the fore hatch to inspect the cargo, throwing the hatch cover to the side. They also quickly opened the lazarette hatch, and the fore and aft sky lights in an attempted to air out the lower decks. However, they did not open the main hatch, in agreement with the evidence, because, at this point in time, the yawl was still lashed to the cover.
Shortly after the main shocks, the aftershocks began and more smoke, embers, and sparking bits of burning wood bellowed from the hot stove. Maybe William Head was brave enough to close the stove as best he could but it is doubtful he or anyone else lingered in the galley for any length of time. The fear of catching on fire in a pending explosion would have caused any member of crew to stay as far away from the galley as possible. No wonder they did not take any personal items since they had to pass by the dancing stove to get to their chest in the forecastle.
No mention was made of the condition of the stove's flue or what type of flue system the stove was equipped with. Nevertheless, one would expect some means of exhausting the burning ash and smoke since the galley was setting just below the canvas. Whatever matter of exhaust the stove was equipped with was likely lost when it was shaken from its chocks. Other safety standards, such as shielding and other means of fire prevention, was also likely breached when the stove was bounced up and down on the galley floor. Under such a situation, the alcohol fumes could explode at any second and everyone knew it.
Captain Briggs did the only rational thing he could do. He yelled out the orders to abandon the Mary Celeste.
In a mad dash, someone grabbed an ax and quickly cut the yawl loose from the main hatch and everyone helped drag it over to the starboard rail. At this point, the man with the ax grabbed the main peak halyard from the belaying pin in the pin-rack, played-out a good section, placed the line on the rail and whacked it through, at the same time, making a deep cut into the rail. He let the loose end go, took the end of the line he had just cut off the halyard and tied it to the yawl.
They heaved the yawl over the starboard side and secured it with the line cut from the halyard. The Captain put his wife and daughter in the small boat, snatched his chronometer, sextant, and the ship's papers and jump in. The crew joined him.
At this point, Sarah praying and Sophia screaming and everyone else near panic, one of the crew secured the other end of the halyard to the rail and the yawl drew away. The was standard procedure in those days when a ship was abandoned during a fire. The idea was to tie your life boat a safe distance off the stern and hope the fire went out before the vessel burnt to the waterline. The crew could pull themselves back on board when the danger was over and claim salvage to whatever remained.
However, as luck was going for the crew of the Mary Celeste, another aftershock might have occurred, sinking the yawl, turning its mass into a sea anchor and ripping the halyard loose from the rail.
But what are the odds the little boat was sunk immediately?
The problem in recreating what might have happened on the yawl is that we have no real description of this vessel. The info given by others is that the boat is 15 to 20 feet in length without mention of whether it is a row boat or a sailing yawl. If we assume Captain Briggs was not a complete *****, then we must also assume the yawl was capable of carrying everyone. It was likely closer to 20 feet in length and carried a sail along with at least one set of strong oars, maybe two. There might have also been emergency provisions stored on board. The boat was likely lashed to the main hatch because it was too big to fit on the stern davits.
If the yawl was a large 20-foot life boat we can take a different view of what might have happened to the crew after they departed the Mary Celeste, especially in view of what appeared in the Liverpool Daily Albion on 16 May 1873. It was reported that two rafts had been found by fishermen from a small town off the Coast of Spain (see chart below). One of the rafts had a corpse lashed to it and was flying an American flag. (No flag was found on board the Mary Celeste.) The second raft held five decomposing bodies but no mention was made as to how long the bodies might have been "decomposing."
Was this the crew? Suppose, moments before you realized the mother ship was not going to explode, the halyard holding the yawl off the stern somehow parted or came unknotted. You know you forgot to the wheel lashed, something a good Captain would have done. What do you do now if you were Captain Briggs? Would you try to catch up with your vessel and your valuable cargo, hoping the wind would change and turn her back into your little boat? Or, would you turn the yawl about and head back to the safety of Santa Maria? Capt Briggs had his sextant and charts. Maybe he tried to catch the Mary Celeste? They might have lived for weeks on rain water and fish? The yawl could have broke apart in heavy seas? The survivors could have lashed together two crude rafts and drifted for long time before being found off the Coast of Spain?
We know the Mary Celeste sailed ~370 nautical miles in a westerly direction as a ghost before being found nine days later. Those who think it impossible for her to travel so far in such a short period with only two small sails set should realize that she was carried more by the Azores Current than by the wind.
The main Gulf Stream passes close to the Grand Banks, south of Newfoundland, where it branches into two currents: the North Atlantic and the Azores Currents. The North Atlantic turns north just east of Newfoundland, and flows east toward the British Isles. The Azores Current, flows east at about two nautical miles per hour past the Azores Islands towards the shores of Portugal before turning south.
Carried by this current, the Mary Celeste could have traveled up to 50 nautical miles per day making it reasonable that a Dei Gratia came upon her where she did.
EXPLAINING THE CUTS IN THE BOW PLANKS
John Austin, Gibraltar's Surveyor of Shipping, testified that he found on the bow, about two and one-half feet above the water line on both sides, a long narrow strip, at the edge of a plank under the cat-head, cut away to the depth of about 3/8 inch and about 1 1/4 inches wide for a length of about six to seven feet. He professed intense bewilderment as to the tool used to cut such marks and why they would have been cut in any vessel at these locations.
Captain Winchester, one of the owners of the Mary Celeste, had a different opinion. He agreed with Captain Shufeldt, who had determined that the injury was actually splinters or splints that had popped off the wood, which had been steamed and bent to curve the bow when the boat was recently rebuilt.
The Mary Celeste had been "on the rocks" several times in her long history. She also had been involved in two collisions, one of them recent. According to testimony, just before this trip, she had been purchased at a salvage auction in New York for $2,600 and rebuilt for $14,000. Her rebuilt condition was confirmed by the crew of the Dei Gratia when they said, "Her hull appeared to be nearly new."
We can assume that many of her bow planks were newly replaced. They were probably cut from black spruce, a long-fibered wood used most often in the construction of ships along the Northeastern Coast and in Newfoundland. Slight ring failure along the grain might have occurred in the planks while they were still curing in the repair yard. Even if they were perfect boards, the steaming and bending of the planks to fit the contour of the hull would weaken the grain.
The caulking done during her recent rebuilt could also have been responsible for the edges of the planks to splinter out. Caulking was extremely important process, not only because it rendered the vessel watertight, but also because driving the oakum between the planks put great pressure on and squeezed them together tightly, holding them in tension adding to the rigidity and strength of the vessel. During caulking it was very important to allow for expansion of the planks when wet, especially if the grain ran in a direction that made splintering likely. If too much oakum was pounded in between the planks, then a condition of excessive stress would have been established at the edges of the replaced planks. As these planks soaked up water, the stress would increase.
Accordingly, it is not surprising that during the severe vibrations of the seaquake, long splints would pop from the edges of a few bow planks along the grain, appearing as if it were cut with an unknown instrument.
http://www.deafwhale.com/maryceleste/
Tergantung apa bahan kapal Mary Celeste, kalo ferromagnetik hilang di tempat semacam segitiga bermuda, kalo diamagnetik kemungkinan ga ilang, karena di tempat segitiga bermuda katanya ada medan magnetnya.
Pada tanggal 4 November 1872 berangkatlah kapal layar jenis square rigged dari pelabuhan New York menuju Italia. Kapal ini ditemukan pada 4 Desember 1872 oleh kapal Dei Gratia sedang dalam keadaan kosong tanpa ada penumpang satupun.
Tidak ada tanda2 telah terjadi perompakan. Semua barang terlihat utuh rapi termasuk barang2 berharga. Satu2nya petunjuk yang tak berarti adalah catatan terakhir Kapten Kapal Benyamin Spooner Brigg. Di dalamnya hanya tertulis cuaca tampak buruk dan mungkin akan terjadi badai sebentar lagi.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_O727moVhtE...04_468x662.jpg
Yang menjadi pertanyaan hingga saat ini adalah kemana semua penumpang Marry Celeste? Andaikan terjadi badai yang hebat kenapa barang2 yang ada tidak berantakan? Masih tetap rapi pada tempatnya. Di sana juga sempat ditemukan sebotol obat yang telah dibuka tutup botolnya masih utuh tanpa adanya bekas2 tumpahan.
Lebih aneh lagi kapal ini ditemukan (tanpa ada seorang pun didalamnya), tetap pada jalur pelayarannya yang benar dan telah meninggalkan New Yor sejauh kurang lebih 500 kilometer jauhnya.
Kemana semua awak dan penumpang kapal Mary Celeste? Apa yang membuat kapal tanpa awak tersebut tetap pada jalur pelayaran yang benar setelah jauh dari pelabuhan asalnya?
Sumber: sumber :http://misteridunia.byethost10.com
Apakah para penumpang dari kapal ini ketemu sama kapal yg legendaris yg konon di sebut² sebagai
" FLYING DUTCHMAN " ?