Mary Celeste

Mary Celeste

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The Mary Celeste (often incorrectly referred to as Marie Celeste) was a brigantine merchant ship notably discovered in December 1872 in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and apparently abandoned, despite the fact that the weather was fine and her crew had been experienced and able seamen. The Mary Celeste was in seaworthy condition and still under sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar. She had been at sea for a month and had over six months' worth of food and water on board. Her cargo was virtually untouched and the personal belongings of passengers and crew were still in place, including valuables. The crew was never seen or heard from again. Their disappearance is often cited as the greatest maritime mystery of all time.

The fate of her crew has been the subject of much speculation. Theories range from alcoholic fumes, to underwater earthquakes, to waterspouts, to paranormal explanations involving hypothetical extraterrestrial, unidentified flying objects, sea monsters, and the hypothetical phenomena of the Bermuda Triangle, although the Mary Celeste is not known to have sailed through the Bermuda Triangle area. The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship, since she was discovered derelict without any apparent explanation, and her name has become a synonym in British culture for similar occurrences.


!THEORIES !

Piracy

One reporter suggested that the Mary Celeste may have fallen victim to an act of piracy, the crew murdered and thrown overboard, as Ottoman pirates had been known to operate in the area.
This is extremely unlikely. There had been no reports of piracy in the waters around the Azores or the Straits of Gibraltar for decades, most likely due to Britain's Royal Navy station at Gibraltar. No piracy attacks were reported in the area at the time. Moreover, there were no signs of violence on the Mary Celeste and only common navigation equipment was missing; it is unlikely that pirates would fail to remove the cargo or the crew's valuables after killing the crew.


The crew of the Dei Gratia as suspects

Some writers suggest that the crew of the Dei Gratia murdered those on board and then fabricated the story of the ghost ship to secure the salvage rights. However, once again there was no sign of struggle and nothing of value had been taken. When the Dei Gratia presented the Mary Celeste to the British authorities in Gibraltar, the ship was intact and her manifests and inventories full and accounted for.
Further, the captain of the Dei Gratia was an old friend of Captain Briggs, which makes his murdering Briggs, his wife and their two-year-old daughter unlikely. The Mary Celeste sailed one week before the Dei Gratia and Moorehead would not have been able to overtake the Mary Celeste. The Court Inquiry praised the crew of the Dei Gratia for their courage and seamanship in effecting the salvage.


Insurance fraud

Insurance fraud has been cited as a possible explanation. This requires that Briggs and Morehouse colluded and that Captain Briggs assumed a new identity. However, the insurance premium to be paid was not a great amount of money. Moreover, the ship belonged mainly to James Winchester, not Benjamin Briggs. A staged incident would have required much risk for a very modest profit.


Storm

The Mary Celeste may have encountered a storm. Perhaps water began to flood the ship and the crew left in the lifeboat, thinking the Mary Celeste was sinking. When she was discovered, two of her three water pumps had been disassembled. She was sailing with a much larger quantity of water in the bilge than usual, but it was hardly enough to make Briggs order evacuation, although it could be argued that the presence of his wife and daughter made him unusually cautious.
Unfortunately for this theory, no storms were reported in the area at the time, only mildly choppy weather. The waters were calm when the Mary Celeste was discovered. A storm did hit later, when the Dei Gratia was sailing to Gibraltar, and there is a possibility that the Mary Celeste was hit by freak weather conditions.


Seaquake

An explanation offered by a modern sailor, Captain David Williams, who encountered earthquakes at sea, is that a seaquake erupted below the ship and jarred open nine barrels of alcohol (~450 gallons) which leaked into the bilge. The earthquake also dislodged the fuel for the hot stove on deck and caused embers from the fire to drift into the rigging. Williams suggests this caused the crew to panic and abandon the ship and the Mary Celeste sailed on without the crew. The crew then decided to try to catch her in the small sailing dingy, but did not succeed and died at sea. Seismic activity is indeed common in the area, and this theory has been cited frequently.Notwithstanding, the log made no mention of underwater rumblings, nor did the crew of the Dei Gratia report any tremors or aftershocks, nor did any other vessel in the area. Most importantly, the inhabitants of the nearby Portuguese islands of the Azores did not report any rumblings.


Tidal Wave

Another theory is that a tidal wave was caused by an earthquake or perhaps a landslide in the Canary Islands or the Azores. The crew may have been washed overboard or a giant oncoming wave may have scared them into evacuation. This would have explained why the Mary Celeste had taken on so much water. Again, no tidal wave, earthquake or landslide was reported either on land or at sea. Tidal waves are relatively unnoticeable in deep water and do not present a threat to shipping, and only become dangerous as they approach the shoreline. This theory would also require passengers and crew to have been on deck at the time. However, a rogue wave might be a plausible explanation.


Waterspout

A similar scenario is that the ship encountered a waterspout, a tornado-like storm with a funnel cloud that occurs at sea. The water surrounding the ship may, in being sucked upwards, have given the impression that the Mary Celeste was sinking.[citation needed] This would explain why the Mary Celeste was soaking wet when discovered by the crew of the Dei Gratia. A mass panic among the crew would probably explain the scratched railing and the broken compass, as well as the missing lifeboat.
Lower air pressure resulting from a waterspout might have thrown off measurements of how deep the water level was in the ship's hull. A dipstick-like device was used to monitor water levels in the bilge. Low pressure could pull water up the tube around the stick, creating the impression of a sinking vessel. This explanation was first put forth by Dr. James H. Kimble and author Gersholm Bradford. Although unlikely, it is still one of the most logical theories put forward.


Ergotamine

Yet another theory claims that ergotamine sometimes found in ergot fungus from possibly contaminated flour aboard the ship and had serious effects of ergotism on the crew. Ergotamine in large quantities can have similar hallucinogenic effects to LSD, and can also cause immense pain in instances of both convulsive symptoms and gangrenous symptoms, ultimately resulting in them perhaps losing their sanity and murder, or them throwing themselves overboard. Mania, delusions, psychosis and suicidal tendencies can be caused by eating such fungus. However, this theory seems very unlikely since high doses are usually needed and usually over some time. Most importantly, the flour aboard the Mary Celeste was not stated as being contaminated; in fact, quite the opposite, it was said to be fine, and the sailors from the Dei Gratia were not affected after eating it.


Mutiny

Another theory has suggested there was a mutiny among the crew who murdered a tyrannical Briggs and his family, then escaped in the lifeboat. This theory is strongly discredited by the fact Briggs had no "tyrannical" history to suggest he was the type of captain to provoke his crew to mutiny. By all accounts, he was well respected, fair and able. First Mate Albert Richardson and the rest of the crew also had excellent reputations and were experienced, loyal seamen.


Drunkenness amongst the crew

After the admiralty court proceeding, Solly-Flood QC proposed that the crew, after consuming the alcohol from the kegs that were recovered empty, murdered the Briggs family in a drunken stupor. The mutinous crew are then presumed to have deliberately damaged the vessel to give the illusion of having been forced to abandon it, then they would have left in lifeboats.

However, the captain was a believer in abstinence and unlikely to tolerate drinking on board or a crew inclined to drink alcohol. Besides, in the raw form in which the alcohol was transported, consumption without proper preparations would have caused irreparable physical damage to its consumers instead of intoxicating them. Finally, there was no trace of struggle or violence aboard the vessel, and the crew had good records. But still, theri dissapearance remains an unsolved mystery.