The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste

[EnolaGaia]

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. ...

An additional note ... The engraving even depicts the Mary Celeste's orientation when discovered by the Dei Gratia. She was sighted off the port bow, heading roughly north / northwest - toward the Dei Gratia.

The Mary Celeste was drifting quite out of control. She was noticeably yawing (partially rotating horizontally as if to go end-around-end).

The wheel (and / or other steering gear) had not been lashed or otherwise locked down.

I take this as a probably significant clue. Various theories positing an evacuation caused by something amiss on board presume the people off-loaded into the longboat with the intent to remain connected (via a hawser) to the ship until the situation was resolved and they could re-board her.

Some accounts claim multiple lines - including a sizable hawser - were found draped over the side of the Mary Celeste. I'm not sure this claim is anything more than a gloss motivated by the presumption the longboat was launched.

The transcripts from the salvage proceedings don't support this claim. Another of the Dei Gratia's crew who manned the Mary Celeste from the point of discovery to Gibraltar - John Wright - specifically testified he'd seen no ropes or other clear evidence of a boat having been launched or a tow rope being employed.

IMHO it makes no sense to temporarily off-load into the longboat (in expectation of re-boarding) without lashing the wheel so as to ensure the ship stayed on course during the temporary abandonment. Because the ship was under partial sail, she could have been turned / driven by the wind any which way, and the evacuees in an untethered longboat would be challenged in keeping up with her if she (e.g.) zigzagged.

Furthermore, leaving the steering gear free / unbound elevated the risk of turns or twists that could snap the hawser and leave the longboat adrift on its own.

The absence of both (a) steering gear lock-down and (b) witness corroboration of any possible tow line makes me suspect any evacuation into the longboat may well have been undertaken as a final - as opposed to temporary - exit from the ship.

This notion of a final rather than temporary exit is consistent with the fact the primary navigation aids (sextant, chronometer, and navigation manuals) were missing.

 

[Waymarker]

..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..

Aha, in that case I feel another theory coming on!-
Most of the crew, knowing there was alcohol aboard, couldn't resist sneaking a few mugfulls, but because it was the coarse stuff it sent them temporarily blind, and before they could recover, the ship hit rough weather and began rolling like crazy because the crew were too incapacitated to handle the sails so everybody abandoned it, assuming it was about to capsize, with the intention of making for the Azores in the longboat.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Aha, in that case I feel another theory coming on!-
Most of the crew, knowing there was alcohol aboard, couldn't resist sneaking a few mugfulls, but because it was the coarse stuff it sent them temporarily blind, and before they could recover, the ship hit rough weather and began rolling like crazy because the crew were too incapacitated to handle the sails so everybody abandoned it, assuming it was about to capsize, with the intention of making for the Azores in the longboat.

As mentioned earlier, there was no evidence of radical rolling. There was also no evidence that any of the barrels among the cargo had been opened, and Deveau specifically mentioned finding no evidence of beer, wine, or spirits on board.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's another illustration of the Mary Celeste's sails and the condition in which they were found. This diagram comes from Paul Begg's Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea (2005 / 2014), p. 6.

An online / limited version of this book is available for searching online at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=81YSBAAAQBAJ

To summarize:

- There were 13 sails overall;
- Seven of the sails were furled at the time of discovery;
- One more sail (the Main Staysail) was dropped but not furled / secured;
- Three sails on the foremast were either ripped / fragmented or partly gone;
- Two of the most forward-mounted sails were set.

Of the 13 total sails, only 3 were damaged / missing / whatever. There was plenty of remaining canvas for sailing the ship. It is not the case that the Mary Celeste had suffered a catastrophic de-sailing.

The lowering / furling of the rear (main) mast's sails while leaving foremast and jib sails set is consistent with reducing speed and conserving sails against (e.g.) significant winds, as might be done in response to a gale.

Dropping, but not securing / furling, the Main Staysail (the only unfurled sail on the main mast), suggests (but merely suggests ... ) this action may have been one of the last sail / rigging maneuvers accomplished before the ship was abandoned. I don't know whether it could have collapsed on its own after the people had fled.

 

[AlchoPwn]

Dropping, but not securing / furling, the Main Staysail (the only unfurled sail on the main mast), suggests (but merely suggests ... ) this action may have been one of the last sail / rigging maneuvers accomplished before the ship was abandoned. I don't know whether it could have collapsed on its own after the people had fled.

Does anyone know the state of the anchors? For example, was the sea anchor deployed?

 

[EnolaGaia]

Does anyone know the state of the anchors? For example, was the sea anchor deployed?

According to Deveau's testimony at the salvage hearing, the anchors and chains were in place (retracted) and in good shape. Either he or Wright testified there was no indication the Mary Celeste had been moored and slipped its mooring.

Some accounts mention minor surface damage or wear to the bow area, which led to speculation the ship may have hit something front-on.

This apparently turned out to be ordinary wear from using the anchors and chains.

I've seen no mention of any sea anchor, deployed or otherwise ...

 

[Naughty_Felid]

Aha, in that case I feel another theory coming on!-
Most of the crew, knowing there was alcohol aboard, couldn't resist sneaking a few mugfulls, but because it was the coarse stuff it sent them temporarily blind, and before they could recover, the ship hit rough weather and began rolling like crazy because the crew were too incapacitated to handle the sails so everybody abandoned it, assuming it was about to capsize, with the intention of making for the Azores in the longboat.

So if they were all blind how did they abandon ship?

 

[Mikefule]

<<...with her valuable cargo intact and no distress signal raised...>> from the article on Channel 5's website, quoted early in the thread. Typical sensationalist journalism, adding "exciting details" for emphasis.

1) Where would the valuable cargo have gone? In order to steal a bulky cargo from a ship, you need to arrive with a ship that has plenty of empty hold. Pirates did not wander about the ocean in empty ships, transferring bulky cargo from prize vessels. If you capture a ship with a bulky valuable cargo, you put a prize crew aboard and sail it to a friendly port. Alternatively, the crew of the Mary Celeste could not have taken the cargo with them on a lifeboat. Therefore, if the ship was deserted and drifting, of course it had its cargo onboard.

2) No distress signal raised. This was not a time when a radio signal could be sent, or a call put out by satellite phone, or an EPIRB set off. A distress signal was just a flag or a shape hoisted in the rigging. If you're in distress within sight of land, or another ship, it is a worthwhile exercise to hoist one. If you're in distress in the wide and empty ocean, hoisting a flag is way down your list of priorities.

There is reference later in the thread to an area known for seismic activity and "seaquakes". The word seaquake conjures up an image of the sea thrashing and splashing and the ship being tossed this way and that. However, seismic activity under the sea causes a tsunami. The safest place to be is in the open sea. There, all you will experience is the water getting deeper: somethign that you would need modern satellite/GPS technology to spot. The seismic activity causes a long wavelength wave of water which piles up and becomes destructive when it reaches shallow water or the shore. So a "sea quake" would not have alarmed the crew unless the boat had been in shallow water or inshore, and if one had happened sufficiently severe to alarm a ship's captain, it would have been experienced along many miles of shoreline.

Also in the thread, there are many references to the boat heeling or being tossed about so badly that the skipper and crew felt that the safest thing to do was abandon the ship. If you are in the middle of the ocean, and conditions get rough, if you have a 30 metre long ship, you stay in it, because you will certainly not be safer or more comfortable in a ship's open boat. You only abandon ship if it is holed and sinking or in imminent danger of being holed and sinking. There are countless known examples of ships running aground on lee shores where the crews have stayed aboard too long and perished. Only a fool would abandon a ship prematurely if their reason was that the sea was too rough or the wind too strong.

The theory I read something like 40 years ago was that fumes from the alcohol had built up to the extent that an explosion appeared likely. The hatches were opened for ventilation and the crew took to the ship's boat to sit at a safe distance until the fumes had cleared. This is superficially plausible, but I wonder why the sails were left up. Perhaps the emergency developed so quickly that there was no time to lower them. Perhaps the sails were set to "heave to" (where the sails at the front and back of the ship, and the rudder, are set to work against each other to hold the ship steady in a "parked position".) If they were set badly, or conditions changed, this may explain why they were found to be set in an unusual manner.

However, the remaining "loose end" (ho ho) is why the lifeboat was not attached to the ship by a safety line. The writer whose explanation I read back in the 1970s/80s suggested that the ship was becalmed and that the captain was complacent in assuming they could row back to her once the fumes had cleared. A short period of unexpected breeze could then have moved the Mary Celeste away faster than the crew could row. As a small boat sailor myself, I am familiar with the wind that comes from nowhere, puts you in a difficult position, drops just as suddenly and leaves you in the sh**. However, this explanation would require the Captain to make a series of bad decisions: let's abandon ship leaving some sails up, but not use a safety line because we will assume that there will be no wind and we can just row back.

I tend to this general explanation. 40 years in the workplace has taught me that it is not unusual for a senior manager to make stupid decisions that fly in the face of experience and normal procedure. Why should a sea captain be any different?

 

[marhawkman]

Mary Celeste is a weird case because of how many would be researchers don't actually research the case and instead scrutinize a work of fiction.

Also, this guy points out that there's a detail often overlooked, sure the ship was found in the middle of the ocean far from land... but where was it when abandoned? Well, we know the path she'd sailed and have log entries to give us a good idea of where she was and when. Apparently, it was quite close to the Azores, and perhaps within visual range of land when abandoned.. If so, evacuating via rowboat makes a lot more sense. Obviously, the crew didn't make it to land, but, they thought they could for a reason.

 

[MrRING]

More...

http://www.maryceleste.net/part1.htm

That link doesn't work for me, but I think this is the same website:
https://www.maryceleste.net/index.htm

 

[Robbrent]

It's a story beloved of the mystery books, and I've long felt there were large parts in it that were left out or put in for the benefit of drama

 

[marhawkman]

It's a story beloved of the mystery books, and I've long felt there were large parts in it that were left out or put in for the benefit of drama

Well, it's been this way for most of the time the story has been around. pay attention to whether people use Mary Celeste or Marie Celeste.... one is not the actual name. It's a misspelling used in one of the oldest fictionalized versions of the event, and the inspiration for some of what makes the story "exciting"... when in reality it was probably boring.

 

[Robbrent]

Was there a list of crew ?

I'm just thinking if it was some kind of fraud, they might have rowed to the nearest land point, got paid off and disappeared into the night, I know it's a little far fetched but it was quite easy to do back then we have someone in our family tree (a bigamist) who disappeared off the face of the earth in the 30s we've looked everywhere for records after he was released from clink but he vanished with no record

 

[marhawkman]

Was there a list of crew ?

I'm just thinking if it was some kind of fraud, they might have rowed to the nearest land point, got paid off and disappeared into the night, I know it's a little far fetched but it was quite easy to do back then we have someone in our family tree (a bigamist) who disappeared off the face of the earth in the 30s we've looked everywhere for records after he was released from clink but he vanished with no record

Well, we don't know every deck hand's name, but the Captain and his family is certainly known. Probably some of the others, not sure which ones without looking it up. Could they have lived in the Azores somewhere? hm.... interesting idea.

 

[Robbrent]

Well, we don't know every deck hand's name, but the Captain and his family is certainly known. Probably some of the others, not sure which ones without looking it up. Could they have lived in the Azores somewhere? hm.... interesting idea.

The Azores was a main stop over at the time they could have gone anywhere