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minordrag

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jan 21, 2002
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(From a query about "ghost ships" in general ...)

Hello - I would like to get some answers out of you lot about things that i can't really remember
Who was the English King/Prince who saw it?
Any other accounts?
Any Other ghost ship stories
are there any around the british coast?
Can i lump the marie celeste in, as well?

I don't think the Marie Celeste qualifies as a ghost ship, as it has never reappeared.
 
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No, the Mary Celeste was a derelict, not a ghost.
 
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Apparently it first became the Marie Celeste in a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, no less.
(Incidentally, the italics are a convention when using titles or names of ships, rather than for emphasis, so I'm not being pointedly pedantic:p )
 
http://www.things.org/music/al_stewart/history/life_in_dark_water.html

"Fiction writers of the time had a field day. Arthur Conan Doyle, writing under a pseudonym, published an article in the January 1884 "Cornhill Magazine" entitled "J Habalick Jephson's Statement" which featured a fictional ship called "Marie Celeste". The fictional tale bore enough resemblance to the actual events surrounding the Mary Celeste that the two are often confused and intertwined."
 
The Marie Celeste was'nt a ghost ship it was an insurance job!
 
Re: Insurance Scam

FraterLibre said:
The original Marie Celeste mystery was eventually more or less proven to have been an insurance scam gone partially awry, and this one may be simply a case of piracy, maybe drug smuggling gone sour, or something equally mundane.

I always thought it was assumed that one of the casks of alcohol on board started giving off vapors, which made the crew think the ship was about to explode. So they hastily got into the lifeboats and were lost in a squall.
 
As the Mary (Marie) Celeste story has been mentioned here, I thought I'd drop this one into the mix: it mentions the insurance scam when the ship was finally sunk, as well as the better known disappearance of the crew years earlier:

Eerie, empty ship which sailed into legend
Nov 7 2003




Catrin Pascoe, The Western Mail


THE ill-fated Mary Celeste sailed from New York 131 years ago today.

The ship, at the heart of what has become one of the world's most puzzling mysteries, was bound for Italy with a cargo of almost 2,000 barrels of fortified wine worth ,000.

Less than a month later, on December 5, 1872, the Canadian-built brigantine was discovered deserted and drifting off the Azores.

Her teetotal captain Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah, two-year-old daughter Sophia Matilda and a crew of seven had disappeared forever without trace.

The 282-ton wooden vessel was in seaworthy condition and oil skin boots and pipes left aboard indicated the crew had left in a hurry.

There were no signs of violence, which led British authorities to dismiss any suggestion of piracy.

The ghost ship was then immortalised in a tale of the same name by Dr Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, which mixed fact with fiction.

Explanations today range from mutiny or insurance fraud to underwater earth tremors or alien abduction.

There is also a theory the crew launched a lifeboat, fearing her cargo was about to explode, and died at sea.

In August 2001 the wooden ship's final resting place was found by an expedition group led by author Clive Cussler and film producer John Davis.

Its coral-covered remains were found lying on the Rochelais reef, off the Caribbean island of Haiti.

"After the eerie abandonment, the ship sailed under different owners for 12 years, until her last captain attempted to sink her for an exorbitant insurance claim," said Mr Cussler.

He had tried to scuttle the 103ft ship by loading her with a cargo of rubber boots and cat food before running her into a reef. When the claim was investigated, the cheap cargo was discovered.

The captain and first mate were convicted on charges of what was then known as "barratry".
 
Mary Celeste still mystifies, intrigues

By Chris Orchard/ Correspondent
Thursday, March 25, 2004



SHERBORN - Last Thursday at the Sherborn Library, Faith Tiberio confronted a 131-year-old mystery of the sea - a mystery that's puzzled generations of historians, ghost hunters, armchair detectives (including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and above all, Tiberio's great-grandparents.

Tiberio, president of the Sherborn Historical Society, is the great-granddaughter of Isaac Hall, a New York ship-owner of 22 vessels. Emma Hall, Tiberio's great-grandmother, kept a series of diaries that have been treasured in the family for generations - diaries that describe the Halls' shipping business and daily lives.

It was in the voice of Emma Hall that Faith Tiberio told the story:

On Dec. 5, 1872, halfway between the Azores and Portugal, Capt. Morehouse of the merchant vessel Dei Gratia came upon a ship he recognized: the Mary Celeste.

What Morehouse found was shocking and puzzling. The Mary Celeste was completely abandoned, yet, for the most part, untouched. Nothing was stolen; there was no blood or signs of violence. Below was soaked with water, and items were strewn about. One of the pumps wasn't working, but otherwise the ship was in good shape. The ship's boat was gone, along with the chronometer, sextant, and ship's papers.

A month earlier, the Mary Celeste had sailed from New York Harbor, only a week before Dei Gratia. The merchant marine in New York those days was a tight-knit community, said Tiberio, and Capt. Morehouse knew the Mary Celeste. It belonged to the shipping fleet of J.H. Winchester & Co. Isaac Hall, a friend of J.H. Winchester and a partner in the company, owned part of the Mary Celeste along with the ship's master, Capt. Benjamin Briggs.

Briggs was a top-notch seaman, highly respected in the shipping industry. His first mate, Albert Richardson (a distant cousin of Isaac Hall), was also a top seaman, and the entire crew was known to be skilled and affable.

How could such a professional and skilled crew disappear at sea? What happened to this seemingly happy ship? They're questions that have baffled generations of mystery seekers.

Some people suggest piracy or mutiny. Others suggest insurance fraud. It's possible a seaquake washed the entire crew overboard. Maybe the ship was cursed. Maybe the crew drank itself to death (the Mary Celeste was holding gallons of industrial-grade alcohol destined for Genoa, Italy.)

Yet none of these theories seem to hold water. There were no signs of piracy. Mutiny wouldn't make sense in such a professionally run ship on a short voyage. Insurance fraud is also unlikely because the cargo was worth little.

A natural disaster, like a seaquake, could have occurred. Yet the clues indicate that, while the crew left in haste, they left by choice.

Tiberio has her own opinion. "I think something struck the ship," she said, whether it was a large wave, an object or something else.

The collision jostled the ship, shaking a sailor from the rigging. She suspects the fallen sailor must have been seriously injured.

The collision, coupled with an untimely change in barometric pressure and a faulty pump, probably convinced Briggs that the ship was sinking, said Tiberio. (A change in barometric pressure, thought Capt. Morehouse at the time, would play folly with the ship's pumps, making it appear that the ship was sinking.)

The entire crew, along with the injured sailor, got into the ship's boat (a yawl), ready to abandon ship. Briggs grabbed his sextant, chronometer and ship's papers just in case.

The yawl was attached to the Mary Celeste by a halyard, which snapped, dropping the yawl into the Atlantic (a snapped halyard was found at the top of the mainmast).

At this point, thought Tiberio, the crew struck out for land. They found uninhabited land, which they ultimately tried to leave. The injured crew member, now dead, was put on a raft and wrapped in an American flag. The rest of the crew struck out on another raft.

But they didn't make it. Years later, two rafts washed up on the Spanish shore. One had the dead body of a man wrapped in an American flag; the other had five dead bodies. These people, thought Tiberio, were the crew of the Mary Celeste.

The American flag in question would have been similar to one from Emma Hall's ship, the Betsy Perkins. Tiberio still has this original flag, which she showed at the library. It's a little worn from years of use at sea, and later at family Fourth of July celebrations.

Tiberio owns several artifacts from her family's shipping past, including Emma Hall's diaries. Yet much has been lost.

"We had bushels and bushels of paper" from the different ships, said Tiberio. Over the years, they've been lost and mistakenly thrown out. History disappears over time.

After anchoring for the night off Staten Island, the Mary Celeste sailed from New York Harbor on Nov. 7, 1872. It was the last time that fateful ship was seen by Tiberio's ancestors. Tiberio, speaking as Emma Hall, said, "It sailed on November 7, 1872 into history." At the same time, as its topsails dipped below the horizon, the Mary Celeste also sailed out of history, its crew disappearing like so much of the past.

http://www.townonline.com/dover/news/local_regional/ds_covdsmarycele03252004.htm
 
The Mystery of the Mary Celeste.

This was on Channel 5 tonight and I thought it presented a plausible reason for the Mary Celeste. However, I am wary as Channel 5 have been known to be selective in the evidence they display!

What did others think?

Paul
 
I didn't see it so really can only comment on the blurb from Channel 5's website:

Discovered adrift in the middle of the ocean without captain or crew, with her valuable cargo intact and no distress signal raised, the Mary Celeste is one of the greatest mysteries of the sea. What could have happened to turn her into a ghost ship? In this intriguing documentary, Celeste Fowles - a descendent of the ship's captain - joins historian and author Brian Hicks in a search to discover what became of her family and learn what really happened all those years ago.

On December 5, 1872, British cargo ship the Dei Gratia was crossing the Atlantic when its skipper, Captain Moorhouse, spotted a drifting ship on the horizon. First mate Oliver Deveau decided to board the mysterious vessel, thinking that if it could be sailed back to Gibraltar they could make some good money selling it for salvage. However, once on board, Deveau soon realised that nothing made any sense. The hatches were open, but the valuable cargo of industrial alcohol appeared to be untouched. The ship's instruments were abandoned, as were the captain's charts and crew's belongings; the sails were oddly set and there was no lifeboat. The captain, Benjamin Briggs, his wife Sarah and their baby girl and a six man crew were all missing - and would never be seen again.

It was not unusual for derelict or damaged ships to be brought into port as items of salvage. But what would make the Mary Celeste's case so strange was an extraordinary court hearing after she was brought back to Gibraltar - which turned an ordinary salvage case into a murder investigation. Deveau and his crew were expecting a routine hearing and a salvage award, but one man soon put paid to that idea. Frederick Solly Flood, Advocate and Queen's Proctor to the Admiralty in Gibraltar, was suspicious from the start and set out to prove that foul play had taken place. He mounted his own investigation, and found an ornamental sword in the captain's cabin which he believed was stained with blood. Analysis proved that there was no blood there, but Flood still hoped to trick Deveau into a confession. When this failed, Flood turned to the missing crew, hoping to prove that they had drunkenly overpowered the captain. But there was no evidence to support this theory either, and Flood ended up leaking his version of events to the press. And 20 years after the hearings, an article by Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Homes, spun the story into legend.

Now, 130 years later, the facts are clearer. If Deveau and Briggs were innocent of wrong-doing, what could explain the mystery? Why would an experienced skipper have left a sea-worthy ship? A vital clue could be held in the Mary Celeste's last known position, near the island of Santa Maria - an area where three converging tectonic plates cause massive releases of seismic energy, which pose a real danger to shipping in the form of 'sea-quakes'. Could the terror of a sudden and violent seaquake, in an age when they were unknown, have alarmed Captain Briggs so much that he gave the order to abandon ship?

Without records to indicate that a sea-quake occurred on the relevant date, this theory is thrown into some doubt. But if the ship didn't run aground, suffer a pirate attack or become overwhelmed by a freak wave, what caused the captain and crew to abandon ship in such a hurry? German historian Eigel Weise believes the answer may lie in the volatile vapours from the industrial alcohol on board. Could they have caused a terrifying explosion, leaving no trace, which prompted Briggs to abandon ship?

Celeste Fowles hopes that this latest development may be a chance to finally know what happened. Will the she find the answers her family has been seeking for more than a century?

Assuming this is the same theory mentioned in an earlier documentary (can't remember when or where, sorry), the Captain and crew had never had a cargo of alcohol before (and presumably didn't know anyone who had) so didn't understand the potential consequences of a leaking barrel or how the exploding vapours would react (having obviously never set fire to the brandy on a Christmas pudding).

It's plausable - a seemingly uncontrollable fire below decks combined with a raging storm would, I imagine, panic even the most hard-headed Captain, and a man with his wife and baby on board would, perhaps, be more likely than most to abandon ship... although you would expect someone to remember to tie the lifeboat to the ship, just in case.

Jane.
 
I saw a bit of this, and have heard the alcohol theory before. Seems likely, except that the barrels were all OK when they were found.

The thought of those poor people adrift in a little boat, knowing they were already beyond help, is horrible. :(
 
Around 1988 or so, I was scrounging through the Horror section of the local video store and I came across Phantom Ship from 1935. Didn't know until years later that the original title was The Mystery of the Marie Celeste. Their theory was a crazed crewman (if you look at the credits you can guess which one) murders the crew and is then swept overboard by a swinging jib during a storm.

Not factually accurate, but atmospheric as hell. I thought it was decent.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026759/
 
Solved: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste

It is a riddle that has fascinated us for more than 100 years – what really happened to the crew of the legendary ghost ship? Now one scientist claims to know. …

Attention … focused on the highly volatile cargo. It seemed highly possible that the leaking alcohol caught light, sending Captain Briggs into a panic and prompting the dreaded cry: ‘Abandon ship!’ It was a plausible explanation but has always been discounted because there was no sign of fire, or explosion. A blast of sufficient magnitude to persuade an experienced captain to take the last resort of abandoning ship would surely have left at least a few scorch marks on the wooden barrels, or in the hold.

Now, however, 21st century scientific techniques have been used to finally solve the 19th century mystery. An experiment, conducted by a scientist at UCL for a Channel 5 documentary which will be screened next week, shows that an explosion may indeed be the key to the fate of Captain Briggs, his family and crew.

Dr Andrea Sella [UCL Chemistry] built a replica of the hold of the Mary Celeste.

Using butane gas, he simulated an explosion caused by alcohol leaking from the ship’s cargo.

Instead of wooden barrels, he used cubes of paper. Setting light to the gas caused a huge blast, which sent a ball of flame upwards. Surely the paper cubes would be burned or blackened or the replica hold damaged.

Remarkably, neither happened.

“What we created was a pressure-wave type of explosion,” says Dr Sella. “There was a spectacular wave of flame but, behind it, was relatively cool air. No soot was left behind and there was no burning or scorching.

“Given all the facts we have, this replicates conditions on board the Mary Celeste. The explosion would have been enough to blow open the hatches and would have been completely terrifying for everyone on board.

Such a massive explosion could have been triggered by a spark caused when two loose barrels rubbed together, or when a careless crew man, pipe in mouth, opened a hatch to ventilate the hold during the long crossing from New York to Italy. Records show that 300 gallons of alcohol had leaked – more than enough to create a terrifying explosion.

“It is the most compelling explanation,” says Dr Sella. “Of all those suggested, it fits the facts best and explains why they were so keen to get off the ship.” …

As the Mythbusters would say - Plausible.
 
Zilch5 said:
Solved: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste

It is a riddle that has fascinated us for more than 100 years – what really happened to the crew of the legendary ghost ship? Now one scientist claims to know. …

Attention … focused on the highly volatile cargo. It seemed highly possible that the leaking alcohol caught light, sending Captain Briggs into a panic and prompting the dreaded cry: ‘Abandon ship!’ It was a plausible explanation but has always been discounted because there was no sign of fire, or explosion. A blast of sufficient magnitude to persuade an experienced captain to take the last resort of abandoning ship would surely have left at least a few scorch marks on the wooden barrels, or in the hold.

Now, however, 21st century scientific techniques have been used to finally solve the 19th century mystery. An experiment, conducted by a scientist at UCL for a Channel 5 documentary which will be screened next week, shows that an explosion may indeed be the key to the fate of Captain Briggs, his family and crew.

Dr Andrea Sella [UCL Chemistry] built a replica of the hold of the Mary Celeste.

Using butane gas, he simulated an explosion caused by alcohol leaking from the ship’s cargo.

Instead of wooden barrels, he used cubes of paper. Setting light to the gas caused a huge blast, which sent a ball of flame upwards. Surely the paper cubes would be burned or blackened or the replica hold damaged.

Remarkably, neither happened.

“What we created was a pressure-wave type of explosion,” says Dr Sella. “There was a spectacular wave of flame but, behind it, was relatively cool air. No soot was left behind and there was no burning or scorching.

“Given all the facts we have, this replicates conditions on board the Mary Celeste. The explosion would have been enough to blow open the hatches and would have been completely terrifying for everyone on board.

Such a massive explosion could have been triggered by a spark caused when two loose barrels rubbed together, or when a careless crew man, pipe in mouth, opened a hatch to ventilate the hold during the long crossing from New York to Italy. Records show that 300 gallons of alcohol had leaked – more than enough to create a terrifying explosion.

“It is the most compelling explanation,” says Dr Sella. “Of all those suggested, it fits the facts best and explains why they were so keen to get off the ship.” …

As the Mythbusters would say - Plausible.


Hardly a new theory I first read about this around 12 years ago and that was from a 2nd hand book I've since misplaced.
 
Sorry if this is the wrong section to post it, but I'd like to hear FT members theories, guesses and hunches about what might have happened.
My own theory is that in rough weather the ship rolled 90 degrees onto its beam ends, causing everybody to abandon ship in a near-panic because they assumed it was sinking.
However it righted itself and sailed on its way without them.
When it was spotted by another ship later, it was in a wet and bedraggled battered state which would tie in with it being temporarily tipped over.
It's a matter of record that she'd had some work done to expand the rear superstructure, which possibly made her top heavy.
A similar tipping over occurred with the Pamir (below) but she never righted herself and she sank. The inquiry found that the Pamir's captain had incorrectly stowed the cargo, making her top heavy and unstable-

shipwreck-pamir_zpspbnigoks.jpg~original

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/community/threads/pamir-german-sail-training-ship.25077/
 
Sorry if this is the wrong section to post it, but I'd like to hear FT members theories, guesses and hunches about what might have happened.
My own theory is that in rough weather the ship rolled 90 degrees onto its beam ends, causing everybody to abandon ship in a near-panic because they assumed it was sinking.
However it righted itself and sailed on its way without them.
When it was spotted by another ship later, it was in a wet and bedraggled battered state which would tie in with it being temporarily tipped over.
It's a matter of record that she'd had some work done to expand the rear superstructure, which possibly made her top heavy.
A similar tipping over occurred with the Pamir (below) but she never righted herself and she sank. The inquiry found that the Pamir's captain had incorrectly stowed the cargo, making her top heavy and unstable-

shipwreck-pamir_zpspbnigoks.jpg~original

https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/community/threads/pamir-german-sail-training-ship.25077/

Correct section, but surprisingly little coverage of the case previously on the board. I've merged some earlier posts with yours.

More ideas here:
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/ghost-ships.6213/#post-288571
 
The main thing to bear in mind about the Mary Celeste is that it was victim to a lot of mythmaking - early news reports overstated the condition of the ship (fires still lit, sails set, logbooks up to date, meals laid out), and from Arthur Conan Doyle's "Marie Celeste" story, from whence we get the idea that the ship was in perfect condition, with all lifeboats present. In reality, the ship's lifeboat was missing, several sails were missing or otherwise in poor condition, and so on.

Waymarker's theory sounds plausible - though not being a remotely nautical type myself, I don't know how likely it is that experienced seamen would mistakenly think a ship was sinking, to such an extent that they would abandon it. Perhaps a combination of that, the belief that the ship was taking on more water than it really was, and fear of explosions from volatile cargo.
 
The main thing to bear in mind about the Mary Celeste is that it was victim to a lot of mythmaking - early news reports overstated the condition of the ship (fires still lit, sails set, logbooks up to date, meals laid out), and from Arthur Conan Doyle's "Marie Celeste" story, from whence we get the idea that the ship was in perfect condition, with all lifeboats present. In reality, the ship's lifeboat was missing, several sails were missing or otherwise in poor condition, and so on. ... .

Agreed ... The sometimes overly-romanticized descriptions of the ship's state when discovered serve to make its abandonment seem weirder than it probably was.

Here are a few factoids about the overall ships' paths that don't often get mentioned in recent decades ...

The Mary Celeste set sail some 8 days prior to the Dei Gratia (the vessel which discovered her). Both were headed toward the Mediterranean, and hence toward Gibraltar.

The two vessels took different routes around the Azores. The Mary Celeste passed south of the islands, whereas the Dei Gratia passed to the north.

Here's a chart obtained from one of the many websites addressing the story. It's apparently from a book, but it's not attributed on the webpage where I found it. This chart illustrates the relative courses of the two ships.

mc_chart.jpg

The last entry on the Mary Celeste's log slate mentioned passing by the island of Santa Maria / St. Mary - the easternmost of the Azores, clearing its eastern point at 0800 on 25 November, at an estimated distance of 6 miles. The Dei Gratia discovered the derelict on 4 December (civil time*) - 9 days later.

*NOTE: This incident occurred prior to the adoption of GMT as the timekeeping standard for logs. It was customary to timestamp log entries with 'civil time', which was the equivalent date / time at the port of departure (in this case, New York). Mate Deveau's testimony to the Vice Admiralty count refers to 'sea time' (celestial time at the ocean location), under which the date of discovery was 5 December.

The advantage in transiting the Azores to the south is that it routes a vessel into reliable eastward currents leading toward Gibraltar.

However, there's a risk in making this southerly transit while steering north of Santa Maria. Circa 20 miles northeast of Santa Maria's eastern end lies the Dollabarat Shoal / Reef:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollabarat

... which is a navigational hazard (discovered in 1788 by wrecking upon it).

This means the last entry on the log slate represented the state of affairs immediately (within an hour or so) prior to approaching the hazard.

It also implies the Mary Celeste could have been abandoned in response to a perceived imminent grounding on the reef, some 9 days prior to being discovered adrift.

Is it possible the ship was abandoned that early, and drifted another week and a half (and hundreds of miles) to where the Dei Gratia discovered her? Apparently so ... Oceanographer Phil Richardson, working with historian Anne MacGregor and drawing on weather data from the period, concluded it was entirely possible for the abandoned Mary Celeste to have drifted that far, even without a crew:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abandoned-ship-the-mary-celeste-174488104/
 
Some factoids about the cargo that aren't commonly mentioned ...

Yes, there was alcohol leakage / loss in the Mary Celeste's cargo hold. There were a total of 1,701 barrels in the hold. When the cargo was eventually unloaded, it was found that 9 barrels had lost their contents.

In other words, the demonstrated leakage resulted from only one half of one percent of the barrels in the hold, and the overall cargo was circa 99.5% intact.

This doesn't rule out panic over a known alcohol leak, but it constrains the scale of the perceived risk to the point one might well wonder if it was an issue to the people onboard.

It turns out that the 9 barrels that leaked were the only 9 barrels made of red oak (rather than the white oak used on all the others). Red oak is more porous than white oak, and it's less preferred for making barrels because it can leak thinner liquids (like alcohol).

Deveau testified the cargo was stowed, secured, and showed no signs of shifting.
 
Another common item in the story's endless re-tellings concerns the bilge pumps. The Mary Celeste apparently had 2 such pumps. It's often mentioned that one of these pumps was found 'disassembled'. Some authors have interpreted this 'disassembly' liberally so as to imply the pump was malfunctioning and torn down for repairs. Some suggest panic ensued when the ship was found to have taken on substantial water, half the pumping capacity was out of service, and the crew gave up on trying to get the disassembled pump operational again.

In light of Deveau's testimony, I think this 'pump disassembly issue' has been overblown.

The bilge pumps of the day drew water up from the bilges where it had collected. In the late 19th century such pumps were most likely of the piston variety, analogous to an old farmstead pump.

Checking ('sounding') the level of water in the bilges was done with a rod which was lowered down the vertical pipe / tube leading down into the bilges. Because the pump apparatus was a sealed system, one had to remove the 'box' (outer casing, or at least its top / head component(s)) to lower the rod down the pipe / tube.

Deveau's testimony mentions only that the 'box' had been removed, and that a rod with a line attached - the only workable sounding rod he found - was lying on the deck. He used this rod to determine there was circa 3.5 feet of water in the bilges - an amount that was significant but not 'fatal'. This is the extent of the 'disassembly' he noted.

Deveau also noted that good practice dictated the bilges should be regularly checked (e.g., at least once every 2 - 4 hours) to allow for logging that they were 'carefully attended to'. This means that the minor disassembly necessary to sound the bilges would have been a recurrent and ordinary task - a task that could have been interrupted by whatever emergency caused the folks aboard to abandon the ship (as opposed to something undertaken in response to the emergency).

Another interesting point is that Deveau testified that during the subsequent journey to Gibraltar the Mary Celeste took on only about 1 inch per 24-hour period. This means the ship wasn't dramatically leaking.

Deveau further opined that the significant amount of water that had gotten into the ship's interior had entered through the open hatches (fore hatch; lazarette hatch), most probably after it had been abandoned.
 
... My own theory is that in rough weather the ship rolled 90 degrees onto its beam ends, causing everybody to abandon ship in a near-panic because they assumed it was sinking.
However it righted itself and sailed on its way without them ...

There was stormy weather during the period of the voyage, but ...

In his testimony to the Vice Admiralty court, Mate Deveau denied there was any evidence the Mary Celeste had rolled onto its beam ends. The cargo showed no signs of shifting, and Deveau claimed the (removed) fore and lazarette hatches would have been washed overboard if such a radical roll had occurred.
 
The main thing to bear in mind about the Mary Celeste is that it was victim to a lot of mythmaking ... from whence we get the idea that the ship was in perfect condition, with all lifeboats present. In reality, the ship's lifeboat was missing, several sails were missing or otherwise in poor condition, and so on. ...

Some notes on the state of the Mary Celeste when discovered ...

The state of the sails and rigging has been described in various ways - many of which give the impression of considerable damage or loss.

As it turns out, this impression isn't all that justified.

Here's how Deveau described the sails and rigging:

(Overall)

... [T]he hull of the ship was apparently new, the masts were good, the spars all right, the rigging in very bad order, some of the running rigging carried away gone, the standing rigging was all right ...

(Specific Points About the Sails; spacing inserted to make a more readable list)

... [T]he upper foretopsail and foresail gone apparently blown away from the yards.

Lower foretopsail hanging by the four corners.

Main stay sail hauled down and laying on the forward house loose as if it had been let run down

jib and foretop stay sail set

all the rest of the sails being furled.
 
I found an old engraving of the Mary Celeste. It seems to be a faithful depiction of the derelict ship at the time of initial discovery, choppy sea and all.

I can't determine the original source for the engraving image. It's used widely on the 'Net, but nobody provides a source attribution for it.

I've augmented the engraving image to illustrate how well it reflects Deveau's description of the sails.

MC-SailsAsFound.jpg
 
For the sake of comparative reference ...

Here's a painting of the original ship (then named Amazon) illustrating the full complement of sails she carried.

mary-celeste-1.jpg

 
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