Many tragic fates of the crew were decided on “ghost ships” – Photo: READER’S DIGEST
The “ghost ship” sailed for 13 years at sea
On August 11, 1775, the whaling ship Herald spotted the strange ship in the waters off the coast of Greenland near the Arctic Ocean. It was a three-masted “ghost ship” named Octavius. The train sparkled with snow and ice, seemed mysterious and uninhabited.
With four men, Captain Warren of the whaling ship boarded the Octavius to find out. They were shocked at the scene before them.
28 sailors died, curled up in bed. A woman and a child hugging, bodies almost intact. A sailor froze while trying to light a fire on the deck.
In the room, the captain – the owner of the ghost ship – was still sitting at his desk, writing a diary about the fateful trip. Diary page dated 11-11-1762. The crew has been dead for 13 years.
The last position of the Octavius was discovered about 402km from the crash site. It seems the Octavius did what no other ship could do at the time: It made its way through a 402km journey at sea without a single living person on board.
Decipher the world’s biggest maritime mystery
Another ghost ship, the HMS Terror, was also discovered in the western corridor of the Arctic Ocean. It was carrying more than 120 people and then went missing along with its sister ship, the HMS Erebus.
Later, the explorers discover a truth. As it entered the icy waters, the seawater froze around the HMS Terror. The crew abandoned the Terror to the rescue ship HMS Erebus. They hope to head south to safety.
But the meager rations were not enough to sustain everyone. The ghost ship Erebus continues to get lost in the middle of thousands of kilometers of icy sea. All 120 crew members died on board HMS Erebus.
Subsequent search teams found only skeletons and diaries documenting the tragedy on board.
The fate of two ghost ships Erebus and Terror became one of the world’s greatest maritime mysteries. It was not until 2014 and 2016 that these mysteries were discovered.
Like the Octavius, the Erebus and Terror were frozen and in perfect condition when discovered, Arctic Research Organization spokesman Adrian Schimnowski told Radio CNN.
“Ghost ship” appears and disappears
The SS Baychimo has nearly two decades of successful operations around the Arctic oceans. Suddenly, the ship encountered a blizzard in the Sea Horse Islands. This place is not far from where the Octavius was last seen.
The crew and passengers abandoned the SS Baychimo. Some were taken to Alaska and Vancouver. Some wintered nearby, waiting until the SS Baychimo was ready to run again.
But a few months later, another storm hit and Baychimo disappeared.
Cortney Pachet, a collaborator at the Manitoba Museum in Canada, explains: “The captain and crew of the Baychimo were frozen while waiting for the icebreaker. They were discovered by the Inuk about 72km south of their base.”
The crew of the Inuk tracked the Baychimo once more. They recovered anything of value that was still on the ship and abandoned it on the ice.
From that time to 1969, people saw the ghost ship Baychimo pass through the Arctic waters at least 7 times, some even boarded the ship to see.
However, over the past 50 years, SS Baychimo has not been seen. But that doesn’t stop people from looking for it.