An abandoned ship washed up on the Irish coast this week. From the Flying Dutchman tale to North Korean ships washing up on the Japanese coast, "ghost ships" occupy space in both folklore and reality.
Image: AFP/Irish Coast Guard
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Ghost ships around the world
An abandoned ship washed up on the rocky shores of Ireland this week. From the Flying Dutchman tale to North Korean ships washing up on the Japanese coast, 'ghost ships' occupy space in both folklore and reality.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Dietmar Hasenpusch
The MV Alta
The MV Alta washed up on the Irish coast this week after a year lost at sea, amid torrential rain and unruly weather spurred by Storm Dennis. But unlike the Kaz II, the ship's crew were already accounted for. The US Coast Guard rescued the MV Alta's 10-person crew after it broke down in 2018.
Image: AFP/Irish Coast Guard
The Flying Dutchman
The mythical Captain Hendrick van der Decken, also known as the Dutchman, left for Amsterdam from the East Indies in 1641 and never returned. His ship, as the story goes, is doomed to sail forever. The Flying Dutchman is regarded by superstitious sailors as an ominous sign of trouble to come.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Photo12/Fine Art Photographs
Vessels from North Korea
In recent years, Japan has seen a wave of so-called ghost ships washing up on shore, most of which are identified as coming from North Korea. Some of the crew are found alive, while many of the boats have been found with dead bodies or no crew at all. Some of them were suspected of being defectors, while others have simply been fishermen who drifted too far.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/AP Photo/H. Asakawa
The 'Ryou-Un Maru'
The US Coast Guard sunk the Japanese ghost fishing boat 'Ryou-Un Mara' on the southeast Alaskan coast in April 2012. The boat had been set adrift from its mooring in Hachinohe, Japan, during the 2011 tsunami caused by a magnitude-9 earthquake. The ship spent over a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean before it was sunk with explosive ammunition.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U.S. Coast Guard
Lost at sea
The Nina, a 15.2-meter sailboat disappeared without a trace in the Tasman Sea in 2013, while sailing from New Zealand to Australia. On board were its owner, David Dyche, his wife, son and four crewmembers. Here, his mother Caryl Dyche sits under a photograph of her son's sailboat in her West Palm Beach, Florida, home a month after the Nina's disappearance.
Image: Imago Images/Zuma Press
The 'Sam Rataulangi PB1600'
The Indonesian 'Sam Rataulangi PB1600' was found mysteriously run aground off the coast of the Yangon region in Myanmar in August 2018. The Myanmar Navy said the 177-meter-long freighter was being towed by a tugboat to a ship-breaking factory in Bangladesh, when cables attaching the boat broke off amid bad weather. The 13-person Indonesian crew then decided to abandon ship.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Y.A. Thu
The MV 'Lyubov Orlova'
The 100-meter-long Yugoslavian-built MV Lyubov Orlova — named after a Soviet actress — was towed from St. Johns, Newfoundland, in 2010 on its way to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped. The liner, which previously took tourists on Arctic cruises, became separated from its tug after the lines broke, within just a day of leaving shore. Experts believe that the ship sunk in international waters.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Dietmar Hasenpusch
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In April 2007, a helicopter crew spotted an unusual sight – a catamaran drifting aimlessly in the Great Barrier Reef, a hundred miles off the Queensland coast of Australia. Its sails were up, engine running and radio and GPS intact. A half-empty coffee cup, a newspaper and silverware were found aboard the 9.8-meter-long SV Kaz II, but its three-man crew had vanished.
The phenomenon of ghost ships, or ships that are found with their crew missing or deceased, is one that is embodied in both folklore and real life stories.
The Flying Dutchman, for example, a mythical ship that is said to be doomed to sail forever and is a supposed ominous sign for sailors who see it.
The lesser-known Lady Lovibond, a schooner that allegedly wrecked on the Kent coast in the UK in February 1748, is said to reappear as a ghost ship every 50 years. However, there are no records of the shipwreck or its alleged reappearance.
Most recently, an abandoned ship washed up on the rocky shores of Ireland after a year lost at sea, amid torrential rain and unruly weather spurred by Storm Dennis. But unlike the Kaz II in 2007, the ship's crew were already accounted for. The US Coast Guard rescued the MV Alta's 10-person crew after it broke down in 2018, about 1,380 miles (2,220 kilometers) southeast of the Atlantic archipelago Bermuda.
Despite recent stories about ghost ships, however, the phenomenon of abandoned ships is "not as common as it was in the more remote past when pirates would raid ships passengers would be taken away as slaves, and would be killed or thrown overboard," says David Abulafia, Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University and author of The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans.
Doomed to sail forever, according to legend: The Flying DutchmanImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Photo12/Fine Art Photographs
In the case of cargo and freight companies, abandoning their ships, there could also be insurance incentives to abandon rather than recover the ships, he says.
"This was quite a big problem in the Indian Ocean when you had the Somali pirates raiding ships, and you almost had the sense that some shipping companies were glad to get rid of some of their old ships."
In recent years, Japan has seen a wave of so-called ghost ships washing up on shore, most of which are identified as coming from North Korea. Some of the ships wash up with dead crew members, while others have been found with survivors.
Unlike the Kaz II and the MV Alta, these boats are typically made of wood and equipped with only the basics – no modern GPS, communication or navigation systems. While some of those found alive are fishermen that have asked to return to North Korea, others have been suspected to be defectors.
"There is undoubtedly environmental danger," says Abulafia. Ghost ships can pose risks not just to the crew who abandon them, either forcibly or willingly, but also to other ships, people and the environment. Locating and subsequently harnessing ghost ships is extremely difficult and often impossible.
Unmanned ships also run the risk of colliding with offshore oil rigs and other ships, or leaking fuel and other chemicals into the sea.
"If a container ship is wandering around unmanned, it might get toppled and thousands of containers can fall to the bottom of the sea and could contaminate the seawater. It's extremely undesirable."
An abandoned ship washed up on the rocky shores of Ireland this week. From the Flying Dutchman tale to North Korean ships washing up on the Japanese coast, 'ghost ships' occupy space in both folklore and reality.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Dietmar Hasenpusch
The MV Alta
The MV Alta washed up on the Irish coast this week after a year lost at sea, amid torrential rain and unruly weather spurred by Storm Dennis. But unlike the Kaz II, the ship's crew were already accounted for. The US Coast Guard rescued the MV Alta's 10-person crew after it broke down in 2018.
Image: AFP/Irish Coast Guard
The Flying Dutchman
The mythical Captain Hendrick van der Decken, also known as the Dutchman, left for Amsterdam from the East Indies in 1641 and never returned. His ship, as the story goes, is doomed to sail forever. The Flying Dutchman is regarded by superstitious sailors as an ominous sign of trouble to come.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Photo12/Fine Art Photographs
Vessels from North Korea
In recent years, Japan has seen a wave of so-called ghost ships washing up on shore, most of which are identified as coming from North Korea. Some of the crew are found alive, while many of the boats have been found with dead bodies or no crew at all. Some of them were suspected of being defectors, while others have simply been fishermen who drifted too far.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/AP Photo/H. Asakawa
The 'Ryou-Un Maru'
The US Coast Guard sunk the Japanese ghost fishing boat 'Ryou-Un Mara' on the southeast Alaskan coast in April 2012. The boat had been set adrift from its mooring in Hachinohe, Japan, during the 2011 tsunami caused by a magnitude-9 earthquake. The ship spent over a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean before it was sunk with explosive ammunition.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/U.S. Coast Guard
Lost at sea
The Nina, a 15.2-meter sailboat disappeared without a trace in the Tasman Sea in 2013, while sailing from New Zealand to Australia. On board were its owner, David Dyche, his wife, son and four crewmembers. Here, his mother Caryl Dyche sits under a photograph of her son's sailboat in her West Palm Beach, Florida, home a month after the Nina's disappearance.
Image: Imago Images/Zuma Press
The 'Sam Rataulangi PB1600'
The Indonesian 'Sam Rataulangi PB1600' was found mysteriously run aground off the coast of the Yangon region in Myanmar in August 2018. The Myanmar Navy said the 177-meter-long freighter was being towed by a tugboat to a ship-breaking factory in Bangladesh, when cables attaching the boat broke off amid bad weather. The 13-person Indonesian crew then decided to abandon ship.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Y.A. Thu
The MV 'Lyubov Orlova'
The 100-meter-long Yugoslavian-built MV Lyubov Orlova — named after a Soviet actress — was towed from St. Johns, Newfoundland, in 2010 on its way to the Dominican Republic to be scrapped. The liner, which previously took tourists on Arctic cruises, became separated from its tug after the lines broke, within just a day of leaving shore. Experts believe that the ship sunk in international waters.
