"SEA GHOSTS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13134, 24 March 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

"SEA GHOSTS."

WEIRD TALE OF AN ABANDONED BRIG. EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF DANGEROUS DERELICTS. Yet another attempt is to be made to reduce the number of wrecks afloat in the Atlantic. The United States vessel Nina is to bunt down and sink all dangerous wreckage that can bs sighted within 200 miles of the Atlantic seaboard. This would appear to most very like looking for the sixpence you dropped over the end of the pier, but the approximate positions of a largo number of derelicts are well known. Every vessel which sights wreckage of any description reports the same on arrival, and the advices of flotsam and jetsam met with on the high seas are quite the most j interesting of the reports issued by Lloyd's. I " l'assed through hundreds of boxes of i oranges m such a latitude." " Saw a ship's lifeboat, painted white outside and blue in, with mast and oars, 50 miles south-west of Scilly." " Sighted a wooden ship, bottom up, of about 1000 tons, in such a latitude and longitude; name submerged." So run these terse, graphic accounts. The number of deserted vessels known to be adrift on the trade routes, in the western ocean, is large, and in the cases where they retain features which identify them in some- way the reports brought in by ships which sighted them make it possible to chart the courses of these " Sea Ghosts," prevalent winds, storms, and set of currents being known. Thus the seafarer has information winch enables him to determine, approximately, where they may be met with. But, doubtless, there are fewer than at first appears, owing to the fact that one hull, with its decks awash, may provide A WHOLE FLEET OK DERELICTS, according to the number of times recorded, and eccentricities of winds'.and tides. The yearly summary issued by Lloyd's Register of vessels totally lost always includes a large number of vessels abandoned at sea, nearly all sailers, though a few steamers usually occur, too. The returns show as %nany as a hundred ships deserted in the course of a year. But, contrary to the expectations of their crews, they do not always founder. When wooden, and, as is often" the case, timber laden, so long as the hull holds together foundering is almost impossible, and such a craft may float for years voyaging up and down the seas, her treacherous body level with the water, 3000 tons of solid resistance, which may account for the astonishing disappearance of some well-appointed steamer which struck her at night, and so became another ocean mystery, whilst the cause of disaster, little damaged, went wallowing off, steered by chance for another victim to happen upon. The United States steamer Nina, under Captain Bell, will convey enough guncotton to lay all the sea ghosts she could possibly meet. She will cruise for three months. What would happen to a liner, full of passengers, plunged down by a gigantic roller at night atop of one of : these floating rocks is not pleasant to speculate upon. Torpedoes will also be used j by the Nina to send the derelicts "downstairs." Torpedoes and guncotton have at times to be followed by the ram before the ( wreck is destroyed. Of all historic dere- , licts, says the Morning Leader, no doubt ] the Marie Celeste was the weirdest. 1

She was a Yankee brig, and sailed on December 4, 1875, with a cargo, from New York to Genoa. She was sighted by the Highlander, "all well." Ten days later she was seen in lat. 38deg. 20m. N., and long. 17deg. 30m. W,. running west on the starboard tack, with sails set. Presently it was plain everybody on board the vessel was eitliei drunk or asleep. The sighting vessel ran under her lee, hailed her, and, getting no response, boarded her. She was deserted. . None of her crew were ever seen again. The vessel was ship-shape, the decks appeared to have been recently flushed, the log explained nothing, the effects of passengers, officers, and crew were undisturbed—in fact, there wasn't a clue about the vessel which could say anything. She was, and is, an inexplicable mystery. Even a phial of medicine stood upright still on a table* showing no bad weather had been met with since it was left there. .