Sailors' Yarns & Tavern Tales: Vanishings, Ghosts and Spooky Ships

By Vicki Rutherford

Ships found drifting with no crew aboard. Lighthouse keepers haunted by the Grey Lady, searching for her lost babe. A wooden ship trapped in Arctic ice for 13 years traveling the Northwest Passage with a frozen crew. The ghosts of drowned sailors photographed swimming alongside a ship.

These are some of the stories told in Sailors’ Yarns & Tavern Tales. For most of the long history of humans at sea, thousands of primitive and not so primitive vessels must have gone missing, succumbing to the perils of the sea. We have no knowledge of those events as, for the most part, history was an oral tradition. Seafarers of those times doubtlessly talked of missing ships and other happenings at sea. And, being humans, seafarers embellished those stories as they were told and retold in port taverns.

Today, we build all manner of ships, equipped with modern navigation and communication aids. Yet, ships still run aground and are buffeted by hurricanes and other forces of nature. Yes, some have disappeared, too. Between 1984 and 2004, 200 large cargo ships, over 656 feet (200 meters) in length, were lost for various reasons, often unknown. Science is beginning to discover the natural forces behind some of these mysteries.

The mystery yarns of the sea in this book are from the past four centuries and from many sources. Some are fact, others based on fact but embroidered in the telling, and still others may only be figments of storytellers’ imaginations. Whatever their authenticity, sailors’ yarns are entertaining. Such tales also give those who live on land a glimpse into the world of those who follow the sea as a career. In a world of satellites and GPS, the oceans are still mysterious with secrets yet to be unraveled.

This entertaining book tells twenty strange stories of mysterious disappearances and weird happenings at sea. It also presents some of the natural causes behind such stories, which today's scientists and investigators are discovering.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vicki Rutherford
• Release date: Dec 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9780991839704

Vicki Rutherford

Vicki Rutherford joined the writing world later in life, after a business career. Writing about the oceans comes naturally to her. As a child, her grandfather's knowledge of the seas fascinated Vicki, as did his stories about sailing his sloop on Lake Superior. As an adult, she's lived near both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. She continues to enjoy learning about the seas and their mysteries.The stories in "Sailors' Yarns & Tavern Tales" are some of the unusual happenings at sea that Vicki has collected over the years. One of them, A Ship Crewed by Skeletons, is a piece of Bermuda history that inspired her soon to be released book, "Chad of the Cobra".Vicki Rutherford resides on Vancouver Island in British Columbia with husband Donald and daughter Susan.

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Sailors’ Yarns & Tavern Tales:

Vanishings, Ghosts and Spooky Ships

By Vicki Rutherford

Copyright 2012 Vicki Rutherford

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 978-0-9918397-0-4 [epub format]

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Chad of the Cobra by Vicki Rutherford. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

Cover design by S. Rutherford. Image is a pen and wash drawing by malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort, 1801, from the descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola. Acquired from Wikimedia Commons.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Britomart: Victim Of Piracy?

Cyclops: Lost In The Bermuda Triangle

Edmund Fitzgerald Takes On Lake Superior

Carroll A. Deering: Mutiny or Piracy?

Horror in the Strait of Malacca

Joyita: Victim of a Widow’s Curse?

Mary Celeste: Abandoned Without Explanation

A Ship Crewed By Skeletons

The Vanished Light Keepers of Flannen Isles

Secret of the White Rose

Marlborough: Wrapped In A Green Shroud

Baychimo: Ghost of the Arctic

Copenhagen: Ghost of the Roaring Forties

Ellen Austin’s Elusive Prize

Ghostly Encounters At Great Isaac Light

Watertown and the Swimming Ghosts

Five Shipwrecks in a Row—Jinx or Luck?

Revenge Of The Frigorifique

The Cruise of the Stalwart Derelict

General Grant: Lost In A Cave

Bizarre Maybe, But Not so Mysterious

Coming Soon: Chad of the Cobra – Free Chapter!

About the Author

Introduction

When did the first human being venture onto the surface of a lake or ocean, perhaps holding onto a log? Archaeologists believe that humans became mariners at least 50,000 years ago, probably in Southeast Asia.

From that beginning, people colonized Australia and, over several thousand years, the islands of the Pacific Ocean. By two thousand years ago, Phoenicians, Romans and Greeks regularly sailed the Mediterranean Sea in ships propelled by oar and sail. In recent years, marine archaeologists have located and excavated the remains of some of their ships that did not make it back to port, recovering not only parts of the ships but also cargo such as pottery amphorae, some still holding wine and olive oil.

For most of the long history of humans at sea, thousands of primitive and not so primitive vessels must have gone missing, succumbing to the perils of the sea. We have no knowledge of those events as, for the most part, history was an oral tradition. Seafarers of those times doubtlessly talked of missing ships and other happenings at sea. And, being humans, seafarers embellished those stories as they were told and retold in port taverns.

Following the Mediterranean sailors, many cultures explored the world’s oceans and used those waters for commerce and warfare. Notably, these were Vikings, Basques, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, Arabs, and Chinese. Coincident with this expansion of maritime trade and exploration, came the creation of writing and map-making in Europe and the Middle East. The Chinese were many centuries ahead in this respect. Through those years, ships saw nearly constant improvement, but the life of a sailor was ever dangerous. Ships and crews still vanished, often without a trace. News of ships that were overdue and missing began to appear in the written record. And sailors, being sailors, continued talking about their experiences at sea and about missing ships and shipmates.

The rumor mills of the time speculated as to why ships and sailors went missing. In the absence of hard facts and evidence, people created a mythology of sea monsters. Many medieval European maps showed artists’ depiction of such creatures. One such monster was the kraken, depicted attacking a ship on the cover of this book. Norse sailors originated tales of the kraken—but such tales might be based in fact. We now know of two varieties of huge squids that live in all the world’s ocean depths and rarely come to the surface. They can reach a length of almost 50 feet (15 m.). Certainly one could overwhelm a small vessel, but hardly the ocean-going one illustrated!

Despite modern technology, ships still succumb to the dangers of the seas. During the decades 1984 to 2004, over 200 large cargo ships were lost. These ships, known as ‘super carriers’, are over 656 feet (200 m.) in length! According to Wolfgang Rosenthal, of a research center in Germany engaged in materials and coastal research, Two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash. It simply gets put down to ‘bad weather’.

The mystery yarns of the sea in this book are from the past four centuries and from many sources. Some are fact, others based on fact but embroidered in the telling, and still others may only be figments of storytellers’ imaginations. Whatever their authenticity, sailors’ yarns are entertaining. Such tales also give those who live on land a glimpse into the world of those who follow the sea as a career. In a world of satellites and GPS, the oceans are still mysterious with secrets yet to be unraveled.

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Britomart: Victim Of Piracy?

Port authorities and bankers in Hobart, Tasmania anxiously awaited an overdue ship named Britomart. The 247-ton barque, commanded by Captain Glues, had left Melbourne on the fifteenth of December in 1839. In the cargo was a large shipment of gold coins for the Hobart banks. The banks waited in vain—the Britomart never arrived.

The Britomart’s course lay through Bass Strait between Australia and Tasmania. The dangers of the passage were well known. Foul weather, turbulent waters and clusters of islands off Tasmania‘s north coast were not the only dangers. Escaped convicts were occasionally encountered among the islands of Bass Strait. Some lived under the guise of seal hunters while others blatantly led the pirates’ life.

Tasmania was a young British colony with many new banks so it was no easy task to keep secret the shipments of coins and bullion. Did pirates force Britomart onto a reef? There were no survivors: were they murdered? What happened to the gold? As usual over the years, there were plenty of stories, doubtlessly exaggerated in the telling.

One of the tales recounts, that some months later, Captain Sheehan, master of the Sir John Franklin, was forced to shelter from