Top 4 Mysterious Ghost Ships and Haunted Stories of the Maritime World

Mystery, fear, enigma encompass the seafaring ghost ships’, or phantom ships’ tales that has been passed around throughout centuries by sailors, anglers and others. These mysterious ships are fantasized as spectral phantasms that materialize in the middle of the sea and disappear quickly, which is apparently a bad omen. I present to you with four such mysterious ghost ships of the maritime world that would surely give you an eerie feeling and goose bumps.

1. The Flying Dutchman

In maritime folklore, this ghost ship has left the maximum impact like no other by inspiring numerous paintings, films, books, opera, etc. Van der Decken, the captain, on its way towards East Indies, with sheer determination tried to steer his ship through the adverse weather condition of the Cape of Good Hope but failed miserably even after vowing to drift until the doomsday. Legend says that since then they have been cursed to sail the oceans for eternity. To this day, hundreds of fisherman and sailors from deep-sea have claimed to have witnessed the Flying Dutchman continuing its never-ending voyage across the waters.

2. The Mary Celeste

Probably the most famous real-life ghost ships story embraces the Mary Celeste, found adrift in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872 in a completely unharmed condition with all its sails still up, the crew’s personal belongings intact and a cargo hold of over 1500 alcohol barrels untouched. The only things missing were the lifeboat, the captain’s logbook and most importantly, the entire crew. Since pirate’s attack could not be held responsible for such a phenomenon, theories of crew mutiny, waterspout killing, and consumption of poisonous food leading to madness came into being.

3. The Lady Lovibond

An interesting story of love, jealousy and rage complements the tale of this haunted ship. In 1748, the day before the Valentine’s Day, it was set assail as a celebration of the ship’s captain’s wedding. Nevertheless, his friend, who was too in love with her, out of vengeance, steered the ship into the notorious Goodwind Sands, sinking it and killing all on-board. Since then it could be seen every fifty years sailing around Kent. 1798, 1848, 1898 and 1948 has witnessed this ship’s sightseeing and some boats had actually sent out rescuers, assuming it was in distress, but later could not be found. Albeit, there was not any confirmed spotting in 1998, this famous ghost ship continues to be a legend.

4. The Joyita

In 1955 this fishing and charter boat was found abandoned in the South Pacific, five weeks after it had been reported overdue. The air-search mission could not trace it, until a merchant ship found it drifting almost 600 miles off its original source with no sign of crew and cargo. There was a doctor’s bag and several bloody bandages on the deck and the radio was tuned to the universal  distress signal, but what happened actually there was never revealed as none of the crew was ever seen again.