George A. Lawry

George A. Lawry, December 17, 1913.

The schooner George A. Lawry was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of six. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

On December 17, 1913, it was reported that "several days ago" the battleship USS Vermont had one of her propeller shafts broken and the other cracked by a "heavy storm." As the battleship USS Delaware was towing her to Hampton Roads, that storm must have been in the Atlantic. (In fact, the battleships were on their way back across the Atlantic from the Mediterranean.) "The storm had abated when the dispatch was sent [December 17, the day the George A. Lawry was lost], and there was a fresh northwest breeze and a moderate sea." ("Tug to Meet the Vermont," The New York Times, December 18, 1913.)

Again, Berlitz gives us very little information. We don't know whether December 17 is the date the George A. Lawry was reported missing or the date she sailed, whether she hit or missed that storm. Anyway, knowing that there was a storm in the Atlantic makes the whole affair look a lot less mysterious.

Update: According to Singer, December 17 was the day the George A. Lawry left Jacksonville, bound for New York. That would mean she ran into the abated or abating storm. Now we'd have to know whether abated means the storm had blown over or whether it just had abated at the position of the battleships but had moved to the position of the George A. Lawry. At 108 tons, she wasn't exactly an ocean liner, either. (Singer, p. 227.)

Annie Hendry

Annie Hendry, December 16, 1911.

The "cargo schooner Annie Hendry, which left Turks Island in cargo of salt on December 16, 1911," allegedly vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. (Quasar, p. 57.)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11. — An advisory storm warning was issued by the Weather Bureau at 11 AM to-day, denoting the approach of a severe disturbance in the vicinity of Turks Island, one of the Leeward Islands, about 700 miles from Miami. The direction and movement of the storm had not been definitely determined, but caution was advised to those vessels heading toward Southern Florida. ("Warning Out for a Coast Storm," The New York Times, December 12, 1911.)

NEW ORLEANS, La., Dec. 20. — Damage far exceeding the original estimate has been done by the storm, which last night swept the Gulf Coast east of here, extending far inland at places.

…

At Pensacola, Fla., three ships went ashore, and a steamer rammed another. Serious washouts and damage to minor shipping are reported from Gulfport, Miss.; Mobile, and the West Florida coast.

…

("Gulf Storm Brings Ruin," The New York Times, December 21, 1911.)

Arkadia

Arkadia, October 1910.

The "steamer Arkadia, of over 2,200 tons, which left Louisiana in October 1910," allegedly vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. (Quasar, p. 57.)

A new name was added yesterday to the list kept at the Maritime Exchange of vessels lost at sea. It was the name of the steamer Arkadia of the New York and Porto Rico Navigation Company. On the list the Arkadia is posted simply as "missing," but "missing" on the Maritime Exchange list reads "lost" to every seaman who scans the record, for the entry of the steamer's name means that all hope for her has been abandoned.

Richard D. Wrigley, acting manager of the steamship company, conceded as much in the company's offices at 12 Broadway yesterday. He fears that the steamer was lost in the hurricane which swept the Gulf and the Atlantic off the Southern coast last October.

"The Arkadia was stanch, and on our lists we had no more capable skipper than Capt. Richard F. Griffiths, but I am certain now that the hurricane proved too much even for his skill," said he. "The only hope for those on board is that the steamer may have gone down far out of her course and yet within reach of some sailing vessel. Had she foundered anywhere in her course it seems as though we must have got some word of the accident through other steamers. If a sailing vessel rescued her crew and passengers, however, it may be that they now are being carried to some out-of-the-way port, and in such an event it might be weeks still before we could get word from them. The chance is remote, however, and one on which we, at home here, have ceased to count."

The Arkadia carried four passengers, and forward and aft she had a crew of thirty-seven men. All forty-one have been lost, so the company officers here believe.

…

"SS Arkadia, New Orleans, Oct. 11, for San Juan, missing," is the way the notice at the Maritime Exchange reads, for it was from New Orleans that the Arkadia set out, and it was to San Juan that she was bound. She sailed on Oct. 11, and since that day not a word has been heard of her.

It was bright and cloudless, so the Weather Bureau records show, when she sailed out of the Mississippi River from New Orleans on what should have been a short cruise. Her holds were packed with a cargo of flour, rice, and other food products. From her decks her crew and passengers waved to friends ashore as the steamer drew away from New Orleans, and pointed down into the Gulf, and then the Arkadia dropped out of sight.

After Oct. 11 not a single vessel spoke the Porto Rican liner. A day before that the hurricane which swept away many ships had begun to blow over the Gulf, but its force was not even suspected when the Arkadia sailed. Off shore, however, shipping men here think now, the Arkadia probably encountered its full force, and after a time went down before it, perhaps within a few hours, perhaps not until the steamer had been blown miles out of her course and out of the course of any other vessel.

For five days the storm continued, and when it finally died down it had cost scores of lives and caused thousands of dollars of damage to shipping. From every Southern seaport came reports daily from Oct. 10 to 15 of damaged vessels creeping into port, many of them with news of some less fortunate craft that had foundered. One of these, her owners now believe, must have been the Arkadia.

But Capt. Griffiths had passed through more than one hurricane, his wife declared yesterday, and that is why she refuses to believe that he met death in the October storm.

…

The Arkadia was a steel steamer, schooner rigged, of 1,636 tons. Her length was 280 feet, her beam 41.1 feet, and her depth 21 feet. She was built in Stockton, England, in 1895, by Craig Taylor & Co., and was considered able to outlive the strongest seas and winds. ("Steamer Missing with 41 Aboard," The New York Times, December 10, 1910.)

Again, Quasar "forgot" to tell us about the hurricane. It's called the 1910 Cuba Hurricane or the Cyclone of the Five Days.

"James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season."

— Hugo Drax

"Curses! Foiled again!"

— Snidely Whiplash

Charles W. Parker

Charles W. Parker, March 26, 1910.

The steamship Charles W. Parker was lost (vanished?) east of the southern Jersey coast, with a company of seventeen. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

If the Charles W. Parker was lost off the Jersey coast, it might not be unreasonable to expect that The New York Times would have covered it. Yet so far the only article I have been able to find is this one:

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ, April 23. — The fishing schooner Charles W. Parker, Capt. Walter Lawson, and eleven men went ashore on the Inlet bar late this afternoon, and is a total wreck. The heavy seas which were running sent the vessel over on her beam end and she started to break up before the life savers could reach her.

Capt. Lawson and his men took to their dories and fought their way through the heavy surf to the shore. All were saved, and the only life lost was that of the craft's mascot, a black dog, which was washed overboard and drowned while the men in the dories were trying to rescue it. The vessel was just starting on a fishing cruise. ("Fishing Craft Wrecked," The New York Times, April 24, 1907.)

Date is off by about three years, type of vessel is wrong, and so is the number of the company. Yet, it's the only article on a lost vessel by that name, and the position is right. Given the shoddy research we've seen from Berlitz & company, I'd hazard a guess that this is the wreck he meant, until I find an account of a wreck that fits better.

USS Nina

USS Nina, March 15, 1910.

The USS Nina was an iron screw steamer built for the US Navy in 1865. She spent much of her life as a tugboat, though she also served as a torpedo boat, a torpedo boat tender, and a submarine tender.

On March 15, 1910, the navy tug, USS Nina, departed Norfolk Navy Yard. She was bound for Havana, Cuba, where she was to serve as one of the support ships during the salvage operation of the battleship Maine. The tug was seen off Savannah, Georgia, steaming south. She was never seen or heard from again. She was the first steam-powered navy vessel to disappear in the "Devil's Triangle." (Winer, Devil's Triangle, p. 66.)

Berlitz calls her the first steamship to vanish in the Bermuda Triangle, deservedly not counting the City of Glasgow and the City of Boston, and gives the same position. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

And this is where the story begins to fall apart.

Iron screw steamer USS Nina, last sighted off the Capes of the Chesapeake in a gale. 33 drowned. 15 Mar. 1910.

As usual, the sensationalists got the position wrong and forgot to mention the storm. The course was wrong, too:

At 0630, 6 February 1910, Nina departed Norfolk for Boston and was last sighted off the Capes of the Chesapeake in the midst of a gale. She was never heard from again. The warship was declared lost and struck from the Navy List 15 March 1910, the 30 crewmen and one officer on board being listed as having died on that day. Her loss is one of the continuing mysteries of the sea.

But it is not a mystery. At least not anymore. Her wreck has been found and is a popular dive site now. And as her wreck lies off the Delaware coast, Winer and Berlitz were indeed wrong re course and position.

If a ship is seen vanishing in a storm and the wreck is later found sitting on the bottom of the sea, that is not a mystery, no how, no, sir, no way. Occam's razor.

This explains why the likes of Winer and Berlitz cannot solve any mysteries. It's not that they lack pencil-thin mustaches. It's as The Donald would say: location, location, location.

If they would spend more time in the library and less time with photos ops on their yachts on "expeditions," they'd find some wrecks and could solve some mysteries, too.

Anna R. Bishop

Anna R. Bishop, December 25, 1909.

The schooner Anna R. Bishop was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of seven. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

The Hamburg-American liner Amerika arrived yesterday from Hamburg and Channel ports bringing a record number of passengers. …

An old derelict is again reported by Capt. Knuth. On July 31, in latitude 48 degrees 46 minutes, longitude 22 degrees 4 minutes, he sighted the abandoned American schooner Anna R. Bishop. She was lying very low in the water, with only the stump of a mast standing.

The Anna R. Bishop, from Jacksonville to Elizabeth, NJ, was first reported abandoned on Feb. 28. She was then about 240 miles northeast of Bermuda. She was about 700 miles due east [sic, obviously, west] of the French coast when the Amerika sighted her on Sunday. She had drifted since her crew left her 600 miles to the north and 1,500 miles to the east. She has been sighted several times by passing craft, always moving north and east, a constant menace to navigation. ("Amerika Sights Derelict," The New York Times, August 7, 1910.)

The Martha S. Bement, the Maggie S. Hart, the Auburn, and the Anna R. Bishop — the great Charles Berlitz Jacksonville Christmas schooner bash of 1909. Four more for the Bermuda Triangle.

Well, either the Martians/Atlanteans were swarming, or there was a storm. Looks like Berlitz happened upon four schooners that sailed straight into the Christmas Day Blizzard of 1909.

Auburn

Auburn, December 23, 1909.

The schooner Auburn was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of nine. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

The Martha S. Bement, the Maggie S. Hart, the Auburn, and the Anna R. Bishop — the great Charles Berlitz Jacksonville Christmas schooner bash of 1909. Four more for the Bermuda Triangle.

Well, either the Martians/Atlanteans were swarming, or there was a storm. Looks like Berlitz happened upon four schooners that sailed straight into the Christmas Day Blizzard of 1909.

Maggie S. Hart

Maggie S. Hart, December 18, 1909.

The schooner Maggie S. Hart was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of eight. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

The Martha S. Bement, the Maggie S. Hart, the Auburn, and the Anna R. Bishop — the great Charles Berlitz Jacksonville Christmas schooner bash of 1909. Four more for the Bermuda Triangle.

Well, either the Martians/Atlanteans were swarming, or there was a storm. Looks like Berlitz happened upon four schooners that sailed straight into the Christmas Day Blizzard of 1909.

Martha S. Bement

Martha S. Bement, December 16, 1909.

The schooner Martha S. Bement was lost (vanished?) east of Jacksonville, Florida, with a company of seven. (Berlitz, Without a Trace, p. 22.)

Group lists her as a derelict and cites the The New York Times, but without any particulars. (Group, p. 139.) He must have meant this article, though.

ROTTERDAM, March 23. — The British steamer St. Nicholas, arriving from Savannah, reports having passed on March 12 in latitude 41 degrees north, longitude 46 degrees west, the American schooner Martha S. Bement, dismasted and with her decks awash. The derelict is in the path of transatlantic steamers and is a dangerous obstruction to navigation.

* * *

The Martha S. Bement, a three-masted wooden schooner, sailed from Jacksonville on December 16 for New York, and had been many weeks overdue. She carried a crew of seven men, and was owned by F. & A.L. Heidritter of Newark, NJ. She was built at Bath, ME, in 1881, and registered 375 tons net. ("American Ship a Derelict," The New York Times, March 24, 1910.)

The Martha S. Bement, the Maggie S. Hart, the Auburn, and the Anna R. Bishop — the great Charles Berlitz Jacksonville Christmas schooner bash of 1909. Four more for the Bermuda Triangle.

Well, either the Martians/Atlanteans were swarming, or there was a storm. Looks like Berlitz happened upon four schooners that sailed straight into the Christmas Day Blizzard of 1909.

Martha S. Dement, more like.

Spray

Spray, November 14, 1909.

In 1892, unemployed veteran sailing-ship captain Joshua Slocum was given a ship that "wants some repairs." Slocum found that that "ship" was the wreck of an old oyster sloop named the Spray, rotting in a field. This old salt took that prank as a challenge and totally rebuilt her.

Then, between 1895 and 1898, he proceeded to sail the Spray around the world, to become the first person to circumnavigate the world single-handed. (He re-rigged her as a yawl along the way.)

In November 1909, Slocum sailed in the Spray from Vineyard Haven, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, for South America via the West Indies. He may have been on his way to explore Orinoco, Rio Negro, and Amazon.

Slocum stopped in Miami for supplies, from where he set sail on November 14. (Sources disagree on whether that was the day he sailed from Martha's Vineyard or from Miami.)

After that, neither he nor his trusty boat were ever heard from again. Along with the Spray, he vanished in the Bermuda Triangle. (Winer, Devil's Triangle, pp. 124.)

Slocum was the best sailor who ever lived or shall live, and his Spray was the best sailboat ever built or conceivably possible to build. Therefore it's unthinkable that he could have fallen victim to any ordinary accident.

As nothing short of supernatural powers could have defeated a superman like Slocum, the fact that he vanished with his Spray in the Bermuda Triangle proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there are supernatural powers at work in said Bermuda Triangle. That's at least the mystics' line.

Winer gets extra points for including the story how Slocum passed out sick on his voyage around the world and awoke to find at the helm, holding the Spray steady in the storm, a ghost in old-fashioned clothes that introduced himself as the pilot of the Pinta. You know, Pinta as in Columbus.

Nothing to do with the Bermuda Triangle, but some added mystery at no charge. Oh, I forget, it was between the Azores and Gibraltar, so it was "on the fringe of the 'Devil's Triangle,' " Winer's enlargement of the Bermuda Triangle, a trapezium four times the size of the Bermuda Triangle conveniently running to Cape Hatteras, the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," including half the Caribbean, and stretching almost all the way to the Azores. Silly me.

Winer truly got all bases covered. The fringe of that Devil's Triangle takes us well-nigh to Africa, and the fringe of the fringe no doubt to China, in case anything mysterious has been going on there. I'm sure we can fit The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor somewhere in here. Then of course, sailing single-handed, Slocum is the only witness that it ever happened.

Opinions are divided on whether the Spray was a terrific or a terrible design. Some say Slocum completed his voyage around the world not because of, but in spite of the Spray. (Kusche, Bermuda Triangle Mystery, p. 52.) Maybe a bit of both is true:

Iconoclast designer John G. Hanna, known as the sage of Dunedin but perhaps better known as the designer of the Tahiti ketch, said of Spray, "I hold that her peculiar merit as a single-hander was in her remarkable balance of all effective centers of effort and resistance on her midship section line." Hanna nevertheless felt it necessary to warn prospective circumnavigators looking for a suitable vessel that "Spray is the worst possible boat for anyone lacking the experience and resourcefulness of Slocum to take offshore.

Slocum was sixty-five years old when he vanished, and some felt he was getting old. So he may not have been up to the demands of this peculiar vessel anymore, no longer able to by his skills keep her from turning from a dreamboat into a deathtrap:

Slocum's mental health deteriorated during his later years. Visiting Riverton, New Jersey, in May 1906, Slocum was charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. After further investigation and questioning, it became apparent that the crime was indecent exposure, but Slocum claimed to have no memory of any wrong-doing and that, if anything had happened, it must have occurred during one of his mental lapses. Slocum spent 42 days in jail awaiting trial. At his trial he pleaded "no contest" and was released for time-served. The judge at his trial told him, "upon request of the family, I can deal leniently with you."

The Spray, too, was going downhill:

A few weeks after his conviction in New Jersey, Slocum and the Spray visited Sagamore Hill, the estate of US President Theodore Roosevelt on the north shore of Long Island, New York. Roosevelt and his family were interested in the tales of Slocum's solo circumnavigation. The President's young son, Archie, along with a guardian, spent the next few days sailing with Slocum up to Newport aboard the Spray, which, by then, was a decrepit, weather-worn vessel.

So the Spray may simply have rotted away from under Slocum. Which would have been no good at all: "Despite being an experienced mariner, Slocum never learned to swim and considered learning it to be useless."

Or Slocum may finally have found a storm that could defeat him. He may have died of old age or blacked out again and fallen overboard, with the pilotless Spray foundering later, self-steering into a storm or onto some rocks. His oil-burning lamp may have set the Spray on fire. (Group, p. 35.) He may have fled his wife to spend his final years on some island in the sun.

Or the Spray was run down by a big ship at night. A sailboat's already dim lights were sometimes obscured by its own sails, and the crew of a big steamer would not even have felt a bump from that tiny tub. (Kusche, Bermuda Triangle Mystery, pp. 50.)

According to Edward Rowe Snow, that is exactly what happened. Slocum was indeed seen one last time after he sailed from Miami, when he visited Turtle Island in the Lesser Antilles and its owner, planter Felix Meinickheim. Meinickheim later told the story to one "Captain Charles H. Bond of Wollaston, Massachusetts, a master mariner whose statements are unimpeachable," in Snow's opinion, at least.

Before Slocum sailed from Turtle Island, he told Meinickheim of his plans to sail to South America, up the Orinoco River, into the Rio Negro, all the way into the Amazon, and down that river.

It is indeed possible to sail from the Orinoco into the Rio Negro / Amazon, via the Casiquiare Canal or Casiquiare River:

The Casiquiare river is a distributary of the upper Orinoco, which flows southward into the Rio Negro, in South America. As such, it forms a unique natural canal between the Orinoco and Amazon river systems. It is the largest river on the planet that links two major river systems, a so-called bifurcation.

Two nights after Slocum's departure, Meinickheim was about to board a 500-ton, 125-foot mail steamer. Then and there, "he noticed a deep cut in her stem, just above the water line." The captain told him that the ship "had run down a native boatman the night before." The captain felt sure it had been a native: "Who else could it be?"

Meinickheim now had a terrible, ominous feeling. He inquired as to when the incident had taken place. He was told it had been during the graveyard watch, the midnight to four AM watch always taken by the second mate.

Meinickheim then interviewed the second mate, who admitted that it had been an unusually dark night, overcast, and at the moment of contact with the other craft, there definitely was no one at the wheel of the other vessel. As for the Captain's claim that they had run down a native boatman, the second mate made the following statement:

"In the few seconds when I saw the other craft, I made out that she was not a native of this area."

As Slocum "was the only outsider anywhere in the immediate vicinity," everybody, including Snow, jumped to the conclusion that it was Slocum who had been run down. (Snow, Mysterious Tales of the New England Coast, pp. 182.)

Now, obviously this assumption is not much better than what you get to hear from the mystics, even though it is used to propose as rational explanation. Did all the outsiders have to sign in before they entered those waters? How can they know there was not another? Thus, this solution far from solves the case, although it remains a possibility, though unproven.

Anyway, there are plenty of reasonable explanations possible for the vanishing of the Spray. Unfortunately, Kusche feeds the mystics by concluding his relevant chapter: "The fate of Joshua Slocum and the Spray is truly a mystery of the sea." Of course the mystics latch onto that: "See, it's a mystery after all, so the Bermuda Triangle mystery is not in fact solved." One should add that it's another "we don't know which one of the many possible rational solutions is true" mystery, not a "no rational explanation is possible, so we got to drag in the Martians or the Atlanteans" mystery.