Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Miroslav

Miroslav, February 1886.

The "243-foot Austrian clipper Miroslav bound for Fiume, Italy, from Delaware via the Bahamas… disappeared in February 1886." (Quasar, p. 57.)

Fiume actually was part of Austria-Hungary at that time; today it's Rijeka in Croatia. As for the Miroslav, possibly she vanished in the notorious Bermuda Triangle, or (as only a small part of her course was in the Bermuda Triangle) possibly she vanished in the notorious Rijeka Triangle, or possibly she never vanished at all.

The Young America was built by William H. Webb of New York. She was launched in 1853, at the height of the clipper construction boom. She sailed in the California trade, on transatlantic routes, and made voyages to Australia and the Far East.


In 1883, the Young America was sold to an Austrian by the name of Austman, renamed Miroslav, and used in the transatlantic case oil trade.

"1886 February 17. Passed the Delaware Breakwater outward bound from Philadelphia for Fiume under command of Captain Vlassich and was never heard of again. The cargo consisted of 407.306 gallons of crude oil in 9700 barrels at a total value of $26.965."

Another source states that "the Young America was last seen lying off Gibraltar as a coal hulk."


Well, if nothing else, a case involving a name like Miroslav at least adds a Dracula dimension to the Bermuda Triangle. Like the Demeter from Varna. Maybe the Miroslav didn't vanish in the notorious Rijeka Triangle, but in the notorious Transylvania Triangle. Maybe Dracula was on board and drank the crew. Cheers.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Miramon

Miramon, 1884.

"The Italian schooner Miramon, bound for New Orleans, vanishes in the Bermuda Triangle." (Nash, p. 367.) Some call her the Miramonde. (Sanderson, p. 124.)

Kusche could not find any records that this ship vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, vanished outside the Triangle, or even existed in the first place. (Kusche, Bermuda Triangle Mystery, p. 46.)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Derelict Found by the Ellen Austin

Derelict found by the Ellen Austin, 1881.

Last, and queerest of all, comes the case of the abandoned derelict, in seaworthy condition, which the British ship Ellen Austin encountered, in mid-Atlantic, in the year 1881. She put a small prize-crew on board the stranger, with instructions to make for St. John's, Newfoundland, where she was bound herself.

The two ships parted company in foggy weather — but a few days later they met again. And the strange derelict was once more deserted. Like their predecessors, the prize-crew had vanished — for ever. (Gould, p. 30.)

The greedy captain of the Ellen Austin then forced another prize crew onto the derelict. Again the ships were parted in the fog — and neither the derelict nor the second prize crew was ever seen again in this world!

"A comparison suggests itself here between the abandoned ship and a trap…" (Berlitz, Bermuda Triangle, p. 70.) A trap by which the Martians capture their human specimens, to say out loud what Berlitz implied.

This story originated with Gould's account given above. The vanishing of a second prize crew and any further embellishments are fiction.

As for Gould's original story, Gould was a serious researcher, so he likely didn't make it up, but he didn't give any sources. Kusche searched in The New York Times, in the London Times, at Lloyd's, and in Newfoundland papers, but didn't find anything. (Kusche, Bermuda Triangle Mystery, p. 45.)

Until Gould's source is found, nothing can be said about the veracity of this tale. He may just have been relating some yarn he heard from an old sailor.

Berlitz claims that the sails of the derelict were furled and her rigging was intact and the ships were parted by squalls, not fog. Of course, a guy like Berlitz won't let you off the hook at less than two prize crews.

Chaplin claims the derelict could not be identified, as she had no logbook or trail boards (p. 36) and that the captain of the Ellen Austin was called Baker (p. 37). Maybe that's true, or maybe it's just Chaplin's way of getting around the embarrassing fact that the original story doesn't have the good grace to name the derelict, without having to make up a name that could be debunked. (Storm and fog, two prize crews.)

Winer finds the following fascinating facts (Devil's Triangle, pp. 160.):

The derelict's "teak decks betrayed traces of recent holystoning."

The head- and foresails of the schooner had been furled so carefully that it must have been done at leisure. The "mainsail was luffing wantonly…" "It was evident that she had been hove to…"

"The two dories lashed down atop the main cabin appeared to have been the only small boats ever carried aboard." (OK, now we "know" that the crew of the derelict didn't take to the boats, so they must have been beamed away.)

"The open galley door banged in cadence with the ship's movement." (A-one, an-a-two…)

The captain was called Baker. (So that's where Chaplin found the captain's name. Chaplin didn't have the good grace to give sources for his individual claims, but he listed Winer's book in his bibliography. Some bibliography: Star, Enquirer, Tattler…)

Captain Baker led a boarding party of four crewmen. (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and — yes, the redshirt.)

"[H]e smashed his boot down[,] pulverizing a thumb-sized cockroach into the deck…" (Yes, he's bad. I'd hate to be that roach… Hey, at least he didn't hit the redshirt.)

He was carrying a Colt revolver. (Did I say he's badass? And he still didn't hit the redshirt.)

His mating call was, "Halloo thar… anybody aboard?" ("Sure thing, love. Come right down — I'll suck for a buck." That's by the way why no one ever left the suck boat.)

He was thinking of the Mary Celeste. (The ship, not the suck for a buck lady.)

"The two sailing vessels had been becalmed within sight of each other for several days before they drifted to within hailing distance on August 20, 1881."

The derelict carried a cargo of lumber that looked like mahogany. She (the derelict, not the suck for a buck lady) had apparently sailed from Honduras or some such Central American lumber-producing country, was found halfway between The Bahamas and Bermuda, and may have been bound for Britain or the Mediterranean.

Her logbook and the trail boards with her name were missing. There was nothing to identify the ship or her crew. (Oh, come on. Just make up a name for her, so that I can debunk it.) Otherwise, there was no damage and no trace of violence. There were plenty of provisions.

The Ellen Austin was Boston bound, but had to detour south due to headwinds. (Ah, that's how she got into the Bermuda Triangle.) Baker decided to take his prize to Boston.

After two days of calm, a storm struck right on time for the witching hour. The crew of the Ellen Austin could see the derelict's navigation lights all through the night, until early in the morning, when the rain was blown horizontally into their faces from that direction so they couldn't look there anymore.

After two dark and stormy days, fair weather returned, but the derelict had vanished. Three days later at dawn, she was sighted once more.

She was sailing so erratically that it took almost an hour to board her. Of course, she was deserted once more.

But that's not all. The food was untouched, the bunks had not been slept in, and the new logbook had vanished. The navigation lights had burned out. The crew of the Ellen Austin had filled them with whale oil to last three days straight — and now they were dry again! Had they really burned out — or was it like nobody had ever been on board?

Spooky, huh? But whether it's spooky already or not, Winer won't let you get up from the campfire after just one prize crew!

Yes, another prize crew is placed on board. All of them are armed. A lifeboat is towed behind the derelict. The prize crew is ordered to abandon ship at the slightest sign of trouble.

After two days of sailing, the ships get separated in a haze. When the Ellen Austin gets back to the spot where the derelict was last seen, she's gone! And neither she nor any of the prize crews is ever seen or heard from again!

Winer's account being so very vivid and detailed, there are three options: He was there (doubt it), he located the mother of all sources (please tell us, Richard), or his account is largely fictional. I tend to think the last option is the right one.

In one of Quasar's better efforts, he researched the following facts: The American schooner Ellen Austin was a New York to London [sic] packet with the Blue Swallowtail Line of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., a big ship of 1,812 tons, 210 feet long, built of white oak at Damariscotta, Maine, in 1854. She last sailed under the American Flag under Captain A.J. Griffin.

Something would appear to be amiss here. The Blue Swallowtail Line linked New York to Liverpool; the New York to London service was the Red Swallowtail Line.

Unfortunately for a true believer like Quasar, this is where the story really starts to fall apart. According to his research, the Ellen Austin made only one voyage in 1881 under that name, before she was renamed the Meta. The Ellen Austin left London on December 5, 1880, and arrived in New York on February 11, 1881.

Quasar notes that this was an unusually long voyage, and that the delay could have been due to her searching for the prize-crew-snatching derelict. But he also, quite reasonably, assumes that the captain of the Ellen Austin would have had to account for a loss of crewmen. Yet Quasar could find no casualty report at Lloyd's for that year. Besides, the legendary Ellen Austin was allegedly bound for St. John's or Boston (depending on whether you believe Gould or Winer), not New York.

So if the incident occurred in 1881, the destination or the name is wrong. If it occurred before 1881, the year is wrong. If it occurred after 1881, the year and name of the ship are wrong.

Quasar speculates that the old salt that told Gould this yarn had forgotten the right year, as the incident had happened many years before. Also, that illiterate old salt would have identified ships by their beakheads or figureheads, as sailors traditionally did. So that hypothetical old sailor would still have identified the ship as the Ellen Austin, never noticing that the name had been painted over.

Any way you slice it, the facts don't match. There's at least one error even in the least sensational version of the story, Gould's. So it looks like whoever originally told the story was at least in one respect an unreliable witness.

"However, as with all second or third hand information, there is room for mistakes," observes Quasar. Yet, as with all second or third hand information, there is also a good chance it never really happened. Without a credible contemporary source, the story seems to be just that — a story.

So what we do not have is a good source for this story, which would indeed be very mysterious (though not necessarily supernatural) if it were true. The only source we have, Gould, while good as in reasonable, recorded the "incident" (if an incident it was) about half a century after it allegedly happened.

What we do however have is a 1911 short story by British maritime writer William Hope Hodgson, "The Mystery of the Water-Logged Ship," which describes a very similar incident of a repeated loss of salvage crews on a derelict. (Spoiler: In the story, the recurrent salvage crew vanishings are due to the derelict being a trap by pirates. The pirates hide in a secret compartment accessible through hollow masts.)

So we have two options: Either there was a real incident, which inspired both Hodgson's fictional short story and Gould's allegedly factual account later on. Or someone who knew Hodgson's short story attached the name of a real ship, Ellen Austin, to it and sold it to Gould as the real McCoy. Until someone finds a contemporary historical account of the incident, like in a newspaper, a logbook, or a casualty report, one has to assume that this story, fascinating as it may be, is nothing but a sailor's yarn run amuck.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

HMS Atalanta

HMS Atalanta, January 31, 1880.

The HMS Atalanta was built in 1844 as the 26-gun frigate HMS Juno. She was converted into a training ship and on January 10, 1878, renamed HMS Mariner and on January 22, 1878, HMS Atalanta. On January 31, 1880, she sailed from Bermuda to Portsmouth, only to vanish in the Atlantic with 290 cadets and officers. She is presumed lost in a storm.

Your friendly neighborhood mystic would try to mystify the vanishing like this:

The report of the investigating committee on the loss of the British training ship Atalanta was published on December 29, 1880, and stated no reliable trace had been found. The committee said they considered the Atalanta a very stable ship, except at the large angles of the heel, and that the alterations in her rig only tended to increase her safety. The committee spoke favorably of her officers and crew, and pointed out that at the time of her loss exceptional storms proved fatal to a number of merchant vessels. The only exception was that survivors or debris in the other cases were always found.

Experts agreed that the Atalanta must have encountered stormy weather, but so did scores of other vessels that crossed the Atlantic Ocean at the same time; yet the other vessels met with no mishaps other than slight delays. They pointed out that a British naval vessel was much safer than a merchant ship.

If military men could not manage a well-equipped sailing vessel in storm, what would happen to them if they found themselves in mid-ocean on board a disabled ironclad? (Spencer, pp. 91.)

Kusche quotes extensively from the coverage of the London Times (Kusche, Bermuda Triangle Mystery, pp. 36.):

April 13, p.6: First the store ship Wye and then the whole Channel Squadron were sent to search the Atalanta.

April 14, p. 2:
When the Atalanta left Bermuda there were 109 tons of water on board, and an ample supply of provisions. The ship was in all respects sound, possessed of unusual stability, and commanded by an officer of good judgment and high professional qualifications; but the unexpected delay in her arrival affords cause for anxiety for her safety, bearing in mind the many disasters which have occurred during the past two months, consequent on the very severe weather which has been experienced in the Atlantic.

The easterly gales had been blowing for nearly a month. The Tamar is rumored to have seen a capsized copper-bottomed ship. This, however, cannot have been the Atalanta, as the weight of her water tanks and her forty-three tons of ballast would not have allowed her to float once capsized.

April 15, p. 10: The captain of the Tamar sent a telegram saying he did not pass a ship bottom upwards. Great excitement in Portsmouth because the Atalanta docked in Falmouth. It was, however, the merchant vessel Atalanta, not the HMS Atalanta.

April 19, p. 6:
On Saturday a report was bruited abroad to the effect that a lifeboat had been found, with the name Atalanta painted on the stern. This was not confirmed, and even if it had been the boat could not have belonged to the missing ship, as it is not a custom in the navy to paint the names of the men-of-war to which they belong on the stern or anywhere else.

April 20, p. 12: The gunboat Avon arrived in Portsmouth and reported immense quantities of floating wreckage in the vicinity of the Azores.

April 21, p. 8:
There can be no question of the criminal folly of sending some 300 lads who have never been to sea before in a training ship without a sufficient number of trained and experienced seamen to take charge of her in exceptional circumstances. The ship's company of the Atalanta numbered only about 11 able seamen, and when we consider that young lads are often afraid to go aloft in a gale to take down sail… a special danger attaching to the Atalanta becomes apparent.

April 26, p. 8: The Channel Squadron found nothing in the Azores.

April 27, p. 10: The crew of the Tamar arrived in Portsmouth. Among the passengers was an able seaman, John Varling, who had been invalidated from the Atalanta on January 3.

Varling's account of the performance of the training ship is far from reassuring, though the question will, of course, arise as to the value of his opinion. She is reported as exceedingly crank, as being overweight… and as having aroused the distrust of Captain Stirling… She rolled 32 degrees, and Captain Stirling is reported as having been heard to remark that had she rolled one degree more she must have gone over and foundered. During the trying situation the peculiar weaknesses of the ship's company were brought prominently into notice. As, with the exception of two, the officers were almost as much out for training as the crew, Captain Stirling scarcely ever left the deck, and the work of shortening sail and sending down the spars was left to the able seamen on board, who, including marines (mostly servants) petty officers, and cooks, only numbered about 50 in a crew of 250… The young sailors were either too timid to go aloft or were incapacitated by sea-sickness… Varling states that they hid themselves away, and could not be found when wanted by the boatswain's mate. It took the ship 31 days to go to Barbados from Tenerife… or about nine days [extra]…

May 10, p. 8: The Channel Squadron arrived in Bantry Bay and still had heard or picked up nothing from the Atalanta.

May 18, p. 10: A letter from a master mariner by the name of Allen Young recounts captains reporting "a storm of unusual violence… in the probable track of the Atalanta" and lists a litany of ships that were wrecked or missing on account of that storm.

There continued to be sightings of capsized wrecks and finds of messages in bottles and on barrels staves, which were discounted as inauthentic.

So where does that leave us?

"The committee said they considered the Atalanta a very stable ship" — how stable she really was is disputed.

"The committee spoke favorably of her officers and crew" — how many of them deserved to be so spoken of is disputed.

"The only exception was that survivors or debris in the other cases were always found." It is dishonest to say that no wreckage of the Atalanta was found. There was plenty of debris, and some of it was very possibly from the Atalanta. It's just that all of it was unmarked, including Royal Navy lifeboats, so one can't be sure either way.

"Experts agreed that the Atalanta must have encountered stormy weather, but so did scores of other vessels that crossed the Atlantic Ocean at the same time; yet the other vessels met with no mishaps other than slight delays." If Allen Young is to be believed, this is a barefaced lie.

Plus, "pointed out that at the time of her loss exceptional storms proved fatal to a number of merchant vessels" flies straight in the face of "the Atalanta must have encountered stormy weather, but so did scores of other vessels that crossed the Atlantic Ocean at the same time; yet the other vessels met with no mishaps other than slight delays." Did those vessels meet with no mishaps other than slight delays or did exceptional storms prove fatal to them? You can't have both, and particularly not in back-to-back paragraphs.

They pointed out that a British naval vessel was much safer than a merchant ship.

If military men could not manage a well-equipped sailing vessel in storm, what would happen to them if they found themselves in mid-ocean on board a disabled ironclad?

Well…

The young sailors were either too timid to go aloft or were incapacitated by sea-sickness… Varling states that they hid themselves away, and could not be found when wanted by the boatswain's mate.

Duh.

And again, only a short part of the course of the Atalanta was in the Bermuda Triangle. She may have been lost far outside it, yet she is inevitably chalked up as a victim of the Triangle.