This ship has sailed
She was in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition, under partial sail, with nobody on board, and her lifeboat missing. The last log entry was dated ten days earlier. She had left New York City for Genoa on November 7, and on discovery was still amply provisioned. Her cargo of denatured alcohol was intact, and the captain's and crew's personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board, the captain and his wife, their two-year-old daughter, and the crew of seven, were ever seen or heard from again. So what happened to them?
First lets separate a few facts from the fiction before we go any further. There have been many lies told about this case over the years which is why so many myths have surrounded it.
- MYTH - There was a cat on board as well as live chickens. The cat was the only survivor found left on the boat.
- FACT - There were no live animals on board ever.
- MYTH - The ship was found in pristine condition.
- FACT - The ship had been lightly damaged.
- MYTH - There was food left out uneaten.
- FACT - Whilst there was many weeks worth of food on board and there was evidence that a meal was consumed by the captains daughter, no food was left out as an uneaten meal.
- MYTH - All on board were drowned or eaten by sharks, when a temporary platform, on which they had crowded to watch a swimming contest, collapsed into the sea.
- FACT - This was a story made up as fiction which someone printed as a true telling of the accounts.
Dei Gratia had reached a position of 38°20'N, 17°15'W, midway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal at about 1 pm on Wednesday, December 4, 1872, land time (Thursday, December 5, sea time). As Captain Morehouse came on deck, the helmsman reported a vessel about 6 miles (9.7 km) distant, heading unsteadily towards Dei Gratia. The ship's erratic movements and the odd set of her sails led Morehouse to suspect that something was wrong. As the vessels drew close, he could see nobody on deck, and he received no reply to his signals, so he sent Deveau and second mate John Wright to investigate. The pair established that she was the Mary Celeste from the name on her stern, then climbed aboard where they found the ship deserted. The sails, partly set, were in a poor condition, some missing altogether, and much of the rigging was damaged, with ropes hanging loosely over the sides. The main hatch cover was secure, but the hatches were open, their covers beside them on the deck. The ship's single lifeboat was missing and the ship's compass had shifted from its place, its glass cover broken. There was about 3.5 feet (1.1 m) of water in the hold, a significant but not alarming amount for a ship this size. A makeshift sounding rod (a device for measuring the amount of water in the hold) was found abandoned on the deck.
The last entry on the ship's daily log, found in the mate's cabin, was dated at 8:00 am on November 25, nine days earlier. It recorded Mary Celeste's position then as 37°01'N, 25°01'W, off Santa Maria Island in the Azores—nearly 400 nautical miles (740 km) from the point where Dei Gratia encountered her. Deveau saw that the cabin interiors were wet and untidy from water which had entered through doorways and skylights, but were otherwise in reasonable order. In Briggs's cabin, Deveau found personal items scattered about, including a sheathed sword under the bed, but most of the ship's papers were missing, together with the captain's navigational instruments. Galley equipment was neatly stowed away; there was no food prepared or under preparation, but there were ample provisions in the stores. There were no obvious signs of fire or violence; the evidence indicated an orderly departure from the ship, by means of the missing lifeboat. What could have happened to them?
Theories:
Pirates: Let's start with the most obvious conclusion to rule out. They were not killed by pirates because all of their belongings were left in place. There were questions asked about the possibility of foul play as the sword was found under the captains bed and at first there were signs that it may have had blood on it. Whilst we can't say for definite why it was in the wrong place, tests were carried out which proved that no blood was on the blade.
Aliens: As ever there are those who have said that little green men are involved. I don't think we are alone in the universe, but I also can't accept the idea that another life form would travel all this way just to abduct and kidnap people floating in the middle of the ocean away from prying eyes. There is no evidence to support this here at all as far as I can see.
Sea monster: It has been suggested that they may have been killed by some sort of sea monster like a Kraken or giant squid. Whilst it is still debated to this day as to whether or not such creatures even exist, we can rule this out too as there would have been more damage to the ship if this was the case. The ship was only lightly damaged and this was believed to be due to the weather conditions that they sailed through. Some might suggest that they thought they had seen or been disturbed by a creature of some kind if they sore something in the water; or a log or part of a wreckage struck the side of the ship. But even then they would have stayed on board as they surely would have felt safer in the larger vessel. They may have taken out the life boat if they thought that something had caused sufficient damage for The Mary Celeste to sink, but this is just a way making an already far fetched theory seem more plausible. This is a trap we don't want to fall into as doing so makes people find ways to make their ideas fit whilst other people just come up with more rational ones. A storm: A storm did hit at sea where they sailed through. So could they have been swept out to sea perhaps if a wave hit the ship? Again I think this is unlikely. A wave strong enough to hit all of them at once and send them overboard would most likely have tipped the whole ship over or destroyed it completely.
In my opinion a more realistic scenario involving this possibility is the idea that the captains wife and daughter were swept over board perhaps with a few other crew members and the rest of them dived overboard and tried to save them especially as the young girl was so young (just two years old) and would have really struggled to fend for herself.
This idea of natural phenomena playing a part in this way is not as far fetched as it sounds given that a lot of nineteenth century sailors actually couldn't swim. However, the chances of so many people all succumbing to drowning in this way for this exact reason is still very unlikely. At least a few of them would have stayed on board and tried to set the lifeboat down to them but not actually gone after them if they couldn't swim.
A sea quake: It has recently been suggested that a sea quake could have been the reason why they abandoned ship. This has happened before. The crew of the bark Alhama of Arendal, sailing from Norway, abandoned their ship during a violent seaquake on December 20th, 1885, 13 years after the ghost ship Mary Celeste was found deserted. A sea quake is basically an underwater earthquake. If the ship had been disturbed by one of these it might have terrified the crew into leaving the ship behind and trying to make it the rest of the way in the lifeboat. Baring in mind the fact that one of the sounding rods was broken they would not have been able to measure the amount of water flooding into the ship from any damage caused, and with the water on board all ready, plus the fact the captain knew of the ships history and lack of ability to survive a storm panic may have caused them to take their chances. It does seem clear that they intended to leave the ship in a hurry.
The alcohol: One of the most accepted theories is one which involves the alcohol on board. The alcohol was explosive. An explosion may indeed be the key to the fate of Captain Briggs, his family and crew. Dr Andrea Sella [UCL Chemistry] built a replica of the hold of the Mary Celeste. Using butane gas, he simulated an explosion caused by alcohol leaking from the ship’s cargo. Instead of wooden barrels, he used cubes of paper. Setting light to the gas caused a huge blast, which sent a ball of flame upwards. You would think that the paper cubes would be burned or blackened or the replica hold damaged. Remarkably, neither happened. There was a spectacular wave of flame but, behind it, was relatively cool air. No soot was left behind and there was no burning or scorching. Given all the facts we have, this replicates conditions on board the Mary Celeste. The explosion would have been enough to blow open the hatches and would have been completely terrifying for everyone on board. Such a massive explosion could have been triggered by a spark caused when two loose barrels rubbed together, or when a careless crew man, pipe in mouth, opened a hatch to ventilate the hold during the long crossing from New York to Italy. Records show that 300 gallons of alcohol had leaked – more than enough to create a terrifying explosion.
This would explain a number of things like not only why did they abandon ship but also why the captain had not tied off the wheel. This means that he had not turned to wheel all the way to one side and tied it off to make the ship go round in circles, which he would have done if they had intended to return to the ship at all (this was the standard thing to do).
One last one for good measure: One final thought I had was that the crew thought they had food poisoning. They may have seen a crew member go the be sick over board after eating (from sea sickness) who would not normally do so being an experienced sailor. Then fearing the worst or at least the possibility of it and knowing they needed to get the food out of their systems fast they could, they used the alcohol, which was not meant for human consumption and was in fact a cleaning alcohol, to get the food out of their systems the only way they knew how. The particular alcohol they had on board contained a chemical which would cause regurgitation if consumed by humans to prevent them from been poisoned by it, so they went out in the life boat to be sick over board not wanting to worsen their living conditions by doing this on the main ship.
This is too far fetched however as it means they all would have had to have eaten the exact same type of food at around the exact same time. And either way they would have been safer staying on the main ship.
One other possibility is that a crew member dipped into the alcohol despite the risks of doing so, as people were known to at the time since it did have some effect similar to drinking alcohol, and then it made them hallucinate. We know that seven of the alcohol barrels were empty. The barrels they leaked from were made from a different type of wood to the others which was said to be more likely to leak. But supposing one of them drunk it instead and thought they had seen a ghost or something and went to inform the captain. The captain had already let two woman on board (his wife and daughter) which was said to be very unlucky and he was very religious. If he was superstitious enough he might not have taken any chances and decided that they needed to abandon ship. But again he would have noticed the crew member acting strangely.
Conclusion
I think we have to face facts that the most logical explanation here involves the alcohol. Even if it hadn't exploded and simply evaporated into the air over time, the crew may have intended to return to ship to when it was safe to do so after noticing that there was a leak, but left in such a hurry that they forgot to tie off the wheel or secure to lifeboat to the ship properly. This is unlikely as Briggs was an experienced captain but with his family on board he may have acted rashly in a panicked state of mind, or as we now know the alcohol or at least some of it may have actually gone up in flames.
Prove me wrong.
Riddle me this: ANSWER - The woman was weighing herself on a machine. She took her coat off to get a more truthful result.
NEXT RIDDLE - A police officer sets off for work. He gets to the station and realizes he is ten minutes late because his watch has stopped. Instead of just getting on with his work he turns round and goes home again. Why?
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