THE GHOST-SHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21100, 6 February 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE GHOST-SHIP.

In these days, stories of ghost-ship* are likely to be received with a very incredulous smile. All very well for " threepenny thrillers," but nob for the boys and girls of these sophisticated days. Yet there is something very creepy about a ghost-ship incident recorded recently in an English paper. What mystery surrounds the strange ship sighted by the captain and crew of the Aberdeen trawler Arona—an old derelict thickly covered with weeds and shell seen drifting northward off the Scottish coast ? Four days south of the fishing grounds which fringe the ice barrier of the Arctic, the Arona slashed her way between walls of white-topped waves blown up by the fast-increasing gale. Suddenly a dark object was sighted ahead. The helmsman spun the wheel round to bring the object out of line with the vessel. There was no doubt about it, she was an old ship, for her great chain-plates projected from her sides like those of an ancient frigate! After the authorities at Aberdeen had taken details, the mutter was reported to Lloyd's and a warning broadcast to ships. Shetland Islanders arc trying to connect the derelict with a schooner which was sighted off the 33utt of Lewis two winters ago. this vessel was being admired from the shore as she sailed west under heavy canvas. Then, as they watched, she suddenly faded out like a ghost-ship. Another theory put forward is (hat the ghost-ship was the schooner HarcLvick, supposed to have been drifting about the high seas for the last 12 years. This vessel left Bridgewater, X.S., late in September 1919 She was abandoned by her crew on October 10 while on passage to Madeira. Long after she was reported by passing ships, and a year later a Spanish steamer found her drifting 2000 miles south of her last reported position. The lone wanderer must have borne a charmed life, for she had weathered gales and survived risks of collision. Willi her hold full of swollen timber, so compressed as to become a solid mass, the ship may " keep the soas ' for many more years. Who knows but what the vessel seen by the Arona may not be the old timberladen llardwirk driven north again '! Stranger things have happened on the sea.