The Ourang Medan
[ranking: 1]
The legend of the Ourang Medan may be one of the creepiest maritime ghost stories ever told. It goes as follows: two American ships received a signal from a Dutch cargo ship in distress. When the rescuers boarded the ship to save the crew, they made quite a grisly discovery. The entire crew was dead, without any signs of foul play.
It is said that terror was frozen on the faces of the corpses, which lie all throughout the ship, many with their arms reaching out for help. Before an investigation could get under way, the ship burst into flames, burning any evidence which may have helped solve the mystery of the Ourang Medan.
The Carroll A. Deering
[ranking: 2]
The Carroll A. Deering was discoverd in shallow water in North Carolina in 1921. The ship had set sail a month prior, en route to deliver coal from Virginia to Rio De Janeiro. According to Flavorwire, "The ship reached its destination, but the events that took place after caused great speculation. Reportedly, the captain wasn??t fond of his crew. The first mate made a public threat against the captain??s life, which landed him in jail. He was eventually bailed out, and the men made amends, but it set a negative tone for the trip home."
On the return home, the Carroll A. Deering is said to have made a call to a lightvessel??a ship that acts as a lighthouse??reporting that they had lost the ship's anchors. Unfortunately, the captain of the lightvessel was unable to report it because the ship's radio was broken.
When the ship reappeared several weeks later with the crew nowhere in sight, an official investigation was launched, yet yielded no results.
The Octavius
[ranking: 3]
Legend has it that the Octavius traveled from England to the Orient in 1761, and made it there the following year. However, on the trip back home??while traveling through the Northwest Passage??it became lodged in ice, and its crew members died. The Octavius was found drifting off the coast of Greenland, the crew members still below board, frozen to death, 13 years later.
The Kaz II
[ranking: 4]
Let's momentarily flash forward to more contemporary times. It's April 20, 2007, and the Kaz II, aka "The Ghost Yacht," is found drifting near the Great Barrier Reef off the eastern coast of Australia. The three-man crew (all of which are said to have been knowledgable sailors) is nowhere to be found, and surprisingly, there are no signs of piracy or foul play of any sort.
What's even creepier is that a video camera was found aboard, and was said to have contained footage of the three men sitting around, fishing in choppy water, five days prior to the boat's discovery. Could the crew have succumbed to the ocean's waves? Perhaps we will never truly know.
The HMS Eurydice
[ranking: 5]
On March 24, 1878, en route from Bermuda to Portsmouth, the naval ship HMS Eurydice was caught in an unbelievable snow storm off the coast of The Isle of Wight. The ship capsized and sank, killing all but two of the 319 crew members. A young Winston Churchill bore witness to the event.
Since capsizing, many reports have been made of having seen the ship afloat just where it is said to have sunk. Some of these reports have even been made by reputable sources, like Prince Edward, who claimed to have seen the ship sail off into the mist during a TV interview some 70 years later.
The Mary Celeste
[ranking: 6]
In 1872, after just one month at sea, the Mary Celeste was discovered sailing aimlessly near Portugal. Curious, the discoverers boarded the ship, only to find the lone lifeboat was gone and the crew was nowhere to be found.
Piracy and mutiny were ruled out??there weren't any signs of violence aboard the ship, and the crew's belongings were left untouched.
Over the years, people have both theorized that the crew abandoned ship, or that the Mary Celeste succumbed to the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle. Either way, legend has it that every time the ship changed hands, the new owner would sell it after hearing about its history of bad luck. In1887, the boat was purposefully destroyed by its owner.
The Jenny
[ranking: 7]
"May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive," reads an ominous entry of the Jenny's captain's logbook. When whaling boat Hope came upon the Jenny 17 years later, said captain and his crew were found aboard, frozen to death.
The Flying Dutchman
[ranking: 8]
If the Mary Celeste is the intro to all things ghost ship, then The Flying Dutchman is the holy grail. The ship is doomed to sail the seven seas for all of eternity, and can never make port.
Some firsthand encounters of the Flying Dutchman have been around for centuries, while other stories of the ship's crew asking other sailors to deliver messages to their loved ones have also made the rounds. There are also accounts that the ship is manned by the Devil himself. With so many different variations on the Flying Dutchman legend, it's unlikely that we'll ever know the real truth.
The SS Baychimo
[ranking: 9]
The cargo ship the SS Baychimo was an abandoned ship found lodged in ice in the Arctic Ocean. The ship eventually broke free of the ice and began floating sans-crew, onto the ocean. Several attempts have been made to board and stop the ship, but to no avail. The last sighting of SS Baychimo, which up until then had been frequent, was in 1969, 38 years after its initial discovery. Though a 2006 investigation was launched to find the ship's whereabouts, these attempts were unsuccessful, and the SS Baychimo presumably still sails the sea to this day.
The MV Joyita
[ranking: 10]
The MV Joyita was reported missing in October of 1955 and wasn't discovered by rescuers in the Pacific until several weeks later. Curiously, where most ghost ships tend to be found aimlessly sailing the sea, the MV Joyita was discovered almost completely submerged, in horrible conditions, with the crew missing and definite signs of bloodshed. Many people theorize mutiny and piracy had to be involved, while others think it may have been the target of a Soviet submarine.
What most baffled rescuers about finding the sinking ship was that the MV Joyita was reported to be an unsinkable ship, and yet there it was, sinking into the Pacific, without a crew member in sight.
The SS Valencia
[ranking: 11]
If there's one thing to be careful of when evacuating a sinking ship, it's to avoid panicking. Take the circumstances of the passengers of The SS Valencia, for instance??136 people were killed when the ship encountered bad weather and crashed into a reef. Hysteria broke out aboard the ship when passengers sought a way to flee the sinking ship, which ultimately led to two capsized lifeboats, while another disappeared altogether. Legend has it that one of the lifeboats washed ashore some 27 years later.
The Lady Lovibond
[ranking: 12]
Why have there been reports of a ghost ship sailing the English Channel every 50 years since 1798? Perhaps the story of the Lady Lovibond could explain some things.
Legend has it that the ship was deliberately wrecked in the English Channel sometime in 1748 by the ship's first mate, who unsuccessfully made advances on the captain's wife. When the first mate saw no other way out, he did what he had to do.
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