Mary Celeste

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Mary Celeste
Mary Celeste as Amazon in 1861.jpg
Ship data
flag United States 37United States United States
other ship names

Amazon

Ship type Schoonerbrigg
home port Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, Canada; New York; Boston
Shipyard Joshua Dewis Shipyard, Spencer Island , Nova Scotia , Canada
Launch May 18, 1861
Whereabouts sunk off Haiti on January 3, 1885
Ship dimensions and crew
length
31 m ( Lüa )
displacement 282  t
 
crew 8th
Rigging and rigging
Rigging Schoonerbrigg
Number of masts 2
Number of sails 14/15: 4/5 square, 2 side, 8 staysails (with headsail)

The Mary Celeste was a schooner brig , a two-masted sailing ship that was found abandoned in the Atlantic in 1872 halfway between the Azores and Portugal . Why the ship drifted there is still unclear. The Mary Celeste is one of the most famous ghost ships .

Mary Celeste is the correct spelling of the name, although the spelling Marie Céleste also exists. This was used by the writer Arthur Conan Doyle for his 1884 story J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement (Eng. "J. Habakuk Jephson's Report", also in 1890 in the volume The Captain of the Polestar, and other tales ), which the mystery of the Mary Celeste decorated with fictional events.

description

Benjamin Briggs, Captain of the Mary Celeste

The Mary Celeste was a 31 meter long schooner brig with a displacement of 282 tons under the command of Captain Benjamin Briggs . On the foremast she drove four square sails (foresail, foremarsail , foresails, fore royal sails ) and four foresails, on the mainmast a main mast and head sails, plus four staysails, a total of 14/15 sails.

history

The Mary Celeste was built in 1861 on Spencer Island on the north bank of the Minas Canal in Fundy Bay , Nova Scotia ( Canada ), and was originally named Amazon . After completion, it had a length of 99.3 ft. (= 30.27 m) and a displacement of 198.42 tons. The ship was the first construction of the Dawis shipyard and belonged to a community of owners. 40/64 of the shares belonged to the builder Joshua Dawis and his family members. The first captain was the client Robert McLellan, who died before the maiden voyage. His successor was John Nutting Parker in 1861/62. The Amazon made trips to Europe, along the American east coast and to the West Indies. In 1863 William Thompson became captain. After various negative events, it was sold several times until it was named Mary Celeste in 1869 .

On November 7, 1872, Mary Celeste loaded industrial alcohol on behalf of the Meissner, Ackermann & Co company in New York and set out for Genoa in Italy .

On December 4th she was sighted by the barque Dei Gratia in apparently good condition, but no one was on board. Captain Briggs, his crew of seven, and the passengers were never seen again.

The Dei Gratia had left New York seven days after the Mary Celeste . As it approached, the Mary Celeste could be watched for two hours, and it became apparent that she was drifting without a leader. No distress signals were flagged. Captain Morehouse of the Dei Gratia knew Captain Briggs personally as an experienced seaman . The first officer (chief mate) of the Dei Gratia , Oliver Deveau, took a command in a rowboat to the Mary Celeste to examine the ship. He found a broken bilge pump and a lot of water between the decks. He reported to his captain that the ship was “a totally wet mess” (“the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess”) . Even the captain's bed was completely soaked. In the galley , the stove had been torn from its place and kitchen utensils were strewn around.

Various hatches and the hospital door were open, the ship's clock was out of order and the compass was destroyed. The sextant and chronometer could not be found, which indicated that the ship had been abandoned on purpose. The only lifeboat appeared to have been deliberately launched rather than washed away (other sources claim it was still on board).

The shipment of 1,701 barrels of ethanol valued at $ 35,000 appeared intact. However, during the unloading in Genoa, it was found that nine barrels were empty. A food and water supply for six months was on board. With the exception of the logbook , no ship's papers could be found. The last entry in the logbook was dated November 25th and indicated a position not far from the island of St. Mary ( Santa Maria ) in the Azores .

Part of the crew of the Dei Gratia was posted to sail the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar . During the maritime court hearing, the judge praised the team for their courage and their experienced handling. However, the tide turned when Admiralty Court officer Frederick Solly Flood suddenly turned the hearing from salvage to one against the men of the Dei Gratia on suspicion of malice. In the end, the team received a rescue fee, but it turned out to be significantly less than expected - as a “penalty” for an injustice that was not defined (and also not proven) by the court.

After the restoration of the Mary Celeste , the ship was used by different owners for twelve years until the last owner tried on January 3, 1885 to sink it with a load of rubber boots and cat food off the Rochelois Reef near Haiti ; obviously in order to collect a disproportionately high sum insured for an almost worthless load. However, the ship did not go down immediately, so insurance inspectors were able to uncover the fraud .

The American writer Clive Cussler claims to have discovered the remains of Mary Celeste on August 9, 2001 on the reef off Haiti with the help of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) which he founded. Investigations of the growth rings of the wood ( dendrochronology ) of the found wreck by Scott St. George of the Geological Survey of Canada dated the youngest annual rings of that wreck to a decade after the sinking of the Mary Celeste .

assumptions

Dozens of theories have been voiced about the mystery of the Mary Celeste , from pirates to abduction by alien life forms.

  • The assumption that the disappearance had something to do with the infamous Bermuda Triangle is unfounded . The ship was far too far from there.
  • Sir William Charles Crocker, an insurance expert, suggested something like this. a. from (as mentioned above) 1,701 barrels with raw alcohol. Therefore, since the start of the trip, the cargo hold has been repeatedly ventilated because of the escaping fumes. The hatches had to be closed for a while because of stormy weather, and nine of the barrels had leaked out during this time. Its contents had saturated the air in the hold to form a highly explosive mixture of ethanol and air. There was an opening between the hold and the galley through which the alcohol fumes could enter the galley. When the stove was lit to prepare a hot meal, there was presumably a deflagration in the galley, which continued down the canal into the hold. No traces of smoke were found because burning alcohol does not leave any combustion residues. Fearing (another) explosion, the entire crew disembarked into the lifeboat. The lifeboat was connected to the ship by a rope, but at some point the rope broke and the boat drifted off.
  • Another assumption is that the captain wanted to vent the alcohol fumes. In order to escape the fumes, the crew went into the lifeboat. When a storm came up, the crew could not return to the ship.
  • It has also been speculated that a seaquake threw several crew members into the sea and allowed a lot of water to enter the ship, whereupon the rest of the crew, assuming this would sink, hastily abandoned the ship. The arguments given for this were that the guidance of the sail and the attachment of the sail indicated that the crew had broken off a maneuver to change the position of the sail (or went overboard during the seaquake). The lifeboat was therefore not connected with a rope, and a broken end of the rope was not found. Seaquakes are common in the region north of the Azores. In the spring of 1873, a lifeboat with five badly decayed corpses, one of them that of a small child, was propelled on the Portuguese coast, carrying an American flag (but no indication of the ship from which it came). No flag had been found on the Mary Celeste .
  • The German-language Morgenblatt published in Zagreb printed a thesis by the English seaman Georg Osborne in the edition of February 1, 1939: According to this, Osborne, as captain of the cutter Girl Pat, observed that “on various small Atlantic islands [...] the sand on the coasts had a strange composition. These islands often rise up as solitary peaks from greater depths. The sand that builds up around these islands often slides into the depths at the slightest touch. ”According to his theory, the Mary Celeste anchored off such an island or even went up the beach a little. After the crew left the ship, the sand slipped and released the ship, which "could continue its voyage on its own even in moderate winds, while the crew stayed on the island and gradually died." Osborne's announcement, printed in the newspaper, that he would search various small islands in the Atlantic for the remains of the crew, was carried out, is not known.

logbook

The crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste are recorded in the ship's log as follows:

crew
Surname status nationality Age
Benjamin S. Briggs captain American 37
Albert C. Richardson 1st officer American 28
Andrew Gilling, right Andres Jensen Gylling 2nd officer Dane (born September 30, 1850 in Kolby / Samsø ) 23
Edward W. Head Steward and cook American 23
Volkert Lorenzen sailor German / North Frisian from Föhr , registered in the parish registers of St. Laurentii / Süderende / Föhr 29
Arian Knudt Martens sailor German / North Frisian (born September 13, 1837 in Süddorf / Amrum ) 35
Boy Lorenzen sailor German / Nordfriese, brother of Volkert, registered in the church books of St. Laurentii / Süderende / Föhr 23
Gottlieb Goudschaal sailor German / East Frisian from Westerende 23
Passengers
Surname status Age
Sarah Elizabeth Briggs (née Cobb) Wife of the captain 30th
Sophia Matilda Briggs daughter 2

reception

The American writer Philip José Farmer transfers part of the plot of his retelling of the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 Days, entitled The Real Log of Phileas Fogg (Heyne, ISBN 3-453-31016-0 ), to the Mary Celeste and gives a science fiction interpretation of the mysterious processes that led to the abandonment of the ship.

An episode of the BBC's longstanding British SF television series Doctor Who also offers a science fiction explanation . There in the third part of the six-part The Chase called Flight Through Eternity (BBC first broadcast: June 5, 1965), the protagonist lands with his time machine TARDIS for a few minutes on the Mary Celeste , followed by a time machine of his archenemies, the Daleks , when it appears the entire crew of the ship jump overboard in fear.

In 1935, the director Denison Clift created a version of the story as a mutiny film based on his own script under the title The Mystery of the Mary Celeste . Dracula actor Bela Lugosi took on the role of Anton Lorenzen, which was an allusion to the actual crew member Volkert Lorenzen. This film was an early production by the Hammer Film Studios but received poor reviews.

Frank Herbert wrote the short story The Mary Celeste Move (The Mary Celeste Moves) in 1964 . In it he describes a traffic planning phenomenon in which people suddenly left their home and settled in a new place with all their belongings. Research (in the history) revealed that these people accidentally got into the high-speed automatic network with their vehicles and were spat out again at a distant point. Shocked by this traumatic event, they then decided never to use the transport system again and started over on the spot. Herbert mentions the story of Mary Celeste as a parable for a new beginning. Shortly after reaching the new world , the commander of the Mary Celeste ordered his crew to burn the ship in order to send a clear signal that from now on there would be no turning back (this is also an allusion to the fate of the Bounty ) .

In Germany there was a film adaptation in 1972 based on the script by Rolf Olsen under the title The Secret of Mary Celeste , in which Hans-Joachim Kulenkampff took part.

In the 1973 science fiction novel The Hunters of the Red Moon by Marion Zimmer Bradley , the Mary Celeste is also mentioned, but here it is said, “The ship was found floating in the Atlantic, all lifeboats in order, the ship in perfect, seaworthy condition Constitution, the crew's breakfast ready in the galley and the coffee still warm - but no soul on board, neither alive nor dead. "

The British singer-songwriter Al Stewart processed the story of Mary Celeste in his song Life in Dark Water , which appeared on the 1978 album Time Passages .

Another fantastic continuation of the historical events appeared in 1984 in the Atlan novel No. 678 Escape to New Marion by Falk-Ingo Klee .

In the film Ghost Ship (2002) with Gabriel Byrne , the story of the Mary Celeste is mentioned in a narrative: The cargo was cotton, the ship was seen four months after its disappearance off Tripoli in the Mediterranean under full sails and without crew or passengers been. The narrative captain (Byrne) asks the question: "The ship sailed 4,000 nautical miles across the open ocean, through the Strait of Gibraltar, under full sail ... and no man was at the helm."

In the 2004/2005 Commonwealth saga by British science fiction author Peter F. Hamilton , Mary Celeste is the name of a stranded alien spaceship whose crew has disappeared.

The Frisian rock group Mandrake released their album Mary Celeste in 2008 based on the incident.

In Stephen King's novella Langoliers , Mary Celeste is also briefly mentioned. In this short story, the majority of the people on board disappear on an intercontinental flight of a passenger plane. The twelve remaining, who slept during the disappearance, only find metal objects belonging to people, including watches and glasses, but also objects that were placed inside the body, such as surgical bolts or pacemakers. When the remaining passengers are discussing theories about what might have happened, one of them points to the Mary Celeste and wonders how people might have felt when they found the ship - with some cigarettes still smoking.

In 2010 the author Max Pechmann published the audio book Celeste - Das Geisterschiff . It is a horror novel that is partly based on historical facts, but above all takes up the eerie rumors and speculations that have grown up around this ship.

The point-and-click adventure Black Sails also takes place on the abandoned Mary Celeste . The seaman Volkert Lorenzen was the only member of the crew to keep his real name. The ethanol cargo and the little girl who was on board also play a role.

In the song Then She Appeared by the group XTC , the fate of Mary Celeste is also mentioned.

literature

  • Paul Begg: Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery Of The Sea. Longman, ISBN 0-582-78422-0 (English).
  • Charles Edey Fay: The Story of the Mary Celeste. ISBN 0-486-25730-4 (English).
  • John Harris: On the last trip. Knaur Sachbuch 3745, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-426-03745-9 .
  • Brian Hicks: Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and her Missing Crew. ISBN 0-345-46391-9 .
  • Lawrence David Kusche: The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved. ISBN 0-87975-971-2 .
  • Valerie Martin : The Ghost of the Mary Celeste . Novel. Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, New York 2014.
  • Vero Roberti: The Secret of Mary Celeste. Original title: Il mito del Mary Celeste , translated by Hilde Bertsch. Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1841-0 .
  • Eigel Wiese: The ghost ship. The true story of Mary Celeste. Europa, Hamburg / Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-203-75103-8 / ISBN 3-203-75101-1 ; as paperback: Bastei Lübbe-TB 64195, Bergisch Gladbach 2003, ISBN 978-3-404-64195-6 .
  • Egg yolk meadow: Mary Celeste. A ship on an eternal journey. KJM-Buchverlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-96194-066-0 .

Web links

Commons : Mary Celeste  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. the full name in the shipping register was: Amazon of Parrsboro
  2. ↑ The fact that the date December 5th appears in some sources is due to the fact that it was common in merchant shipping at that time to start the new day at 12 noon, because the position was usually determined at this time ( so-called midday width )
  3. map at http://www.maryceleste.net/part2.htm
  4. Jonathan Thompson: Dating of wreck's timbers puts wind in sails of the 'Mary Celeste' mystery . The Independent . January 23, 2005. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
  5. Falk-Ingo Klee: Flucht nach New Marion , Atlan No. 678. Pabel-Moewig, 1984.