Mary Celeste (/səˈlɛst/; often erroneously referred to as Marie Celeste) was an American-registered merchant brigantine, best known for being discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores Islands on December 4, 1872.
Mary Celeste, formerly Amazon, American brigantine that was found abandoned on December 5, 1872, some 400 nautical miles (740 km) from the Azores, Portugal. The fate of the 10 people aboard remains a mystery. The ship was built in 1861 at Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, and named the Amazon.
The crew of another vessel called Dei Gratia spotted the Mary Celeste ten days later, on December 5, 1872. It was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean, off the Azores Islands, Portugal. Per accounts, its main sail was furled, and the topmast sail was torn.
The Mary Celeste, a Nova Scotia-built brigantine, became the world's most famous ghost ship when it was found drifting without any crew on board in 1872.
Apparently, the Mary Celeste had been drifting toward Genoa on her intended course for 11 days with no one at the wheel to guide her. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew of the vessel were never found, and the reason for the abandonment of the Mary Celeste has never been determined.
In 1885, her captain deliberately wrecked her off the coast of Haiti as part of an attempted insurance fraud. The story of her 1872 abandonment has been recounted and dramatized many times in documentaries, novels, plays, and films, and the name of the ship has become a byword for unexplained desertion.
As for the Mary Celeste, her end was far less mysterious. In November of 1884, she was sailed right into a reef just off the coast of Haiti; wrecked by a crooked captain who was trying to scam his insurance company. He was charged with fraud and died soon after.
“every year, on average, more than two dozen large ships sink, or otherwise go missing, taking their crews along with them.” In a prescient comment, she says, “imagine the headlines if even a single 747 slipped off the map with all its passengers and was never heard from again”.
Images were taken of the wreck which match the size, shape and location, all pointing strongly to this being the remains of the White Ship after 900 years underwater. Never before has modern digital technology be used to search for the wreck of the White ship, so the site remained relatively undisturbed.
Vertical Entertainment hits the seas with the supernatural thriller Haunting of the Mary Celeste, which is based on a true story and remains one of the sea's great, unsolved mysteries.
In March 1962, she was seen drifting along the Beaufort Sea coast by a group of Inuit. She was found frozen in an ice pack in 1969, 38 years after she was abandoned. This is the last recorded sighting of Baychimo.
Abandoning a ship in distress may be considered a crime that can lead to imprisonment. Captain Francesco Schettino, who left his ship in the midst of the Costa Concordia disaster of 2012, was not only widely reviled for his actions, but received a 16-year sentence including one year for abandoning his passengers.
The Mary Celeste
A month later, they should have arrived, but the British ship Dei Gratia caught sight of the boat drifting in the Atlantic. The crew went onto the Mary Celeste to help anyone onboard but found it completely empty.
Dei Gratia was a Canadian brigantine built in Bear River, Nova Scotia in 1871. The brigantine was named after the Latin phrase for "By the Grace of God". She became famous in 1872 when, under the command of David Reed Morehouse, she discovered the ghost ship Mary Celeste without any crew near the Azores.
Written with the suspense of a thriller and the vivid accuracy of the best popular history, Ghost Ship tells the unforgettable true story of the most famous and most fascinating maritime mystery of all time.
This legend may refer to the same ship as the Lost Galleon, but its own story has always placed it in a distinct location, closer to the sand hills west of El Centro, California.
In 2018, a Greek merchant ship dating back more than 2,400 years was found lying on its side off the Bulgarian coast - and was hailed as officially the world's oldest known intact shipwreck. Also in 2018, dozens of shipwrecks were found in the Aegean sea dating back to the Greek, Roman and Byzantine eras.
Between 2013 and 2022, some 807 vessels were lost at sea. The majority of ships lost during this period—around 311—were cargo ships. In 2022, the most perilous regions included the waters off the Southeast Asian coast, as well as the Baltic Sea.
The Extremely Ancient Dokos Shipwreck
Among them, the Dokos wreck is thought to be the oldest shipwreck found to date. It dates before c. 2200 BCE, judging by the pottery cargo it carried. It was discovered by Peter in 1975 at a depth of fifteen to thirty meters near the Greek island of Dokos.
What is the most popular unfound shipwreck in the world? Flor de la Mar is the most famous shipwreck, filled with diamonds, gold and other riches.
The wartime sinking of the German Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 in World War II by a Soviet Navy submarine, with an estimated loss of about 9,400 people, remains the deadliest isolated maritime disaster ever, excluding such events as the destruction of entire fleets like the 1274 and 1281 storms that are said to ...
In 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) database listed 438 ships worldwide, with 5,767 crew members, abandoned since 2004; not all cases are referred to the IMO, so the actual number is larger, but unknown.
In fact, it's thought the shipwrecks that have been documented only represent a small fraction of the total. According to an analysis by Unesco, there are over three million resting undiscovered in the world's oceans.
Ernest Shackleton's lost ship, Endurance, has been found after 107 years. This 4k footage shows the preserved vessel 3008 metres below the ocean surface, discovered just four miles south of the location recorded at the time by ship's captain, Frank … Worsley.
The Endurance, the lost vessel of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, was found at the weekend at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. The ship was crushed by sea-ice and sank in 1915, forcing Shackleton and his men to make an astonishing escape on foot and in small boats.