disappearing. This same scenario applies to Derrick Smith. His yacht was found off South Carolina in 2001, its throttle wide open and his wallet found aboard, indicating he too either pushed his vessel to full speed or was trying to escape something.
   This scenario about clothes or wallets and money being found aboard derelicts is nothing new. In 1974 two such incidents happened off Miami in which the clothes and money of the occupants were found and, moreover, the boats were splattered with blood, indicating that whoever did this was not interesting in money, the value of the boat, just the people.
   Other vessels have been found derelict simply because they broke their moorings and drifted to sea, like the Ruth in 1997 or the Rubicon in 1944. Yet others are found and mystery remains, like Scarlet, 1994, Fou de Bassan III, 1995, off the Windwards; a British yacht found within a month of John Thomas’ derelict vessel Penetration in August 1982 and only 100 miles away. An old sailboat ghosted along the Florida Straits in 1999 with sails set and in sinking condition, though it was thought the owner simply wanted to junk it. It sank soon after the Coast Guard brought it to port. As one guardsman expressed: “It’s unusual to see someone try and junk a boat with its sails set, but there’s a first for everything.”
   The greatest mysteries are those on which there were many crewmen, like the Gloria Colita, in February 1940, which was abandoned by force or by choice in between changing sails since the Coast Guard found the vessel was stopped in mid-rigging. Storm came along later and swamped the vessel, but what had happened before that?
   Though not a Triangle case, the Mary Celeste is one of the greatest mysteries of the sea. Her 10 persons aboard vanished without reason, and the vessel was found 11 days later in a position where, according to the way her sails were set and how the winds had been blowing, she could not have drifted. It could not be explained, as one involved in the inquiry trenchantly observed, “unless it had been picked up and dropped hundreds of miles from where it had happened.” Although she did not encounter her problem near the Triangle, she did travel north of there on her course before turning up at the Azores. Her bow seemed damaged by something, deep scratches and scars which the Court could not explain but which, considering her course, could not have been caused by reefs or a landfall. Whatever happened, the crew left the vessel in such a fit of terror they did not wait to launch the lifeboat properly but pushed it against the rail and broke it out of the way.
   The summation of Horatio Sprague, the US consul at Gibraltar, to where

  There is no denying that a derelict ship presents its own unique mystery to challenge the mind of mankind. Traveling at sea is not traveling on land, or anything like it. It is a different medium with which most humans are not familiar. Yet even when we hear of abandoned vehicles

on land, the people strangely missing and never found, our imaginations are excited with any number of plots that might have happened.

   In an abandoned car the mystery surrounds the “why” not the “how” of disappearance— there is no particular awe that a car is found empty; it ran out of gas; a person parked along the side to take a picture, to investigate something more closely; it was pulled over by another car. But for a boat none of this applies. To find a boat lifeless requires immediate explanation. Curiosity cannot make one abandoned a boat, nor running out of gas, nor the desire to explore the beauty of the ocean. “Why” is compounded here with “How?”
   There are only 3 reasons: by fear; by force; by accident.

   Great mystery does not usually follow when a vessel with only one known person on board has been found derelict. It is assumed that he fell over. Although tethering is a standard and recommended practice, a sudden wave may have lurched the vessel; a sheet may have required immediate attention and the pilot slipped and fell over while rushing to attend it. For a power boat, the same applies, only it may have been

Many derelicts have been found by passing freighters.

engine trouble, whatever. This may explain Southern Cross found off the east coast in 1969; Vagabond found by the Azores, Penetration in 1982, and perhaps even Coyote in 1991 found in the North Atlantic Drift. In this case Michael Plant, its sole occupant, was last heard while north of Bermuda to report he was losing electrical power and his long range radio. Months later his vessel was found capsized in he North Atlantic Drift. Had Plant been removed or did he simply fall over? Rough weather no doubt came later and swamped the unattended vessel.

   The may explain the appearance of barnacles on some that are later found, keeled over and without explanation. Many are found near the Azores. They may have been abandoned near the Triangle, and as usual with the Gulf Stream they are carried in the current to the Azores or into the North Atlantic Drift. How many people were on 2 yachts found in this condition in 1969 nobody will know, but by their appearance they have been derelict and floating a long time.
   But then there are incidents in which there were more than 1 person known to be aboard. How does one explain the Lucky Edur in which three fisherman vanished in 1971? The boat was found intact, its throttles full open and out of gas, indicating that the skipper pushed it to full speed before

In 1969 the Cotopaxi sounded its horn to a 35-foot speeding power cruiser, but no one ever came up on deck and the boat sailed away over the horizon.

   Then there are modern examples, like the 5 members of the Connemara IV, found derelict near Bermuda in 1955. She lasted 3 hurricanes in succession while derelict and then conveniently sank while under tow of the freighter which found her, Olympic Cloud.
  While tales of the odd and unusual are not hard to find anywhere in the world, their presence in the Triangle sheds a fascinating light on fate’s paradox in sailing incidents. John Waters in Rescue at Sea (1966, Van Nostrand), relates the case of two Bermudans aboard a 2o-foot fishing boat that possessed a maximum of 8 inches of freeboard. The boat was last seen about 40 miles off the island in 1954 just before a big storm hit. Not surprisingly, the boat disappeared. After looking for the vessel for 5 days, the search was abandoned. Waters recounted how he had told the press that the boat couldn’t last out there for ten minutes in the storm. Yet two weeks later an airplane sighted a 2o-foot boat east of Bermuda, and the Coast Guard went out and towed it in. It was the missing boat. The men had survived on rain water and two cans of pumpkins! Such examples place yet another question mark on strange cases like Connemara IV or other derelicts and missing boats.Why were they abandoned? What frightened them off?
   For incidents such as the Evelyn K. there is a frightening element which is echoed in other derelicts where it seems the crew was frightened or forced off. In March 1948 Al Snyder took 2 friends for a fishing trip into the Bay of Florida. When the yacht was found abandoned in the lee of one of the Keys no great worry was expressed since its skiff was gone. It was the thought the 3 took the launch to do some closer-to-shore fishing. But when this turned up derelict weeks later across the bay, it was found in an unusual condition; the motor had been ripped off and it appeared as if one had tried to tie himself down to prevent being taken.
   Boats continue to be found derelict along the waterways of the “Four Triangles,” “Limbo of the Lost,” or whatever alternative triangle or shape the reader may wish to accord the “Triangle.”  In most instances there is only one aboard, in some cases two, that went fishing for the day. Their outboard is found swamped or, as in one case, in 1999, the Coast Guard pulls up along side a cabin cruiser because the only survivor left is a barking dog attracting their attention.    

Connemara IV

she had been towed and where all the controversy unfolded during her investigation, is perhaps still the best. Recalling it years later to Worthington C. Ford of the State Department, in an official letter, he said:

  The case of the “Mary Celeste,” as you justly remark, is startling since it appears to be one of those mysteries which no human ingenuity can recreate sufficiently to account for the abandonment of this vessel, and the disappearance of her master, family and crew, about whom nothing has ever transpired. Believe me.” 

   The strange case of the Carroll A. Deering is so complex no one can really explain all that has happened. But unlike the Mary Celeste, it may not be as truly mysterious, since more evidence was found to indicate treachery than was ever proved in any other case of a deserted ship.

  What of the many others in the annals of sea legends which remain illusive in official registers,  like Seabird which coasted up upon the Jersey coast, or the James B. Chester found in the Sargasso Sea in 1855, or the details of the Rosalie, built in October 1838 France of 222 tons wood but which was brought into Havana a derelict and later confused with another ship? What about the derelict found by Ellen Austin? Was it the Orion? What happened to her crew and to Ellen Austin’s prize crew?

Benjamin Spooner Briggs, her captain.

Tales of the Sea

Drifters . . .