MV Joyita MV " Joyita " was a merchant vessel from which 25 passengers and crew mysteriously disappeared in the South Pacific in 1955 . It was found adrift in the South Pacific without its crew on board . The ship was in very poor condition , including corroded pipes and a radio which , while functional , only had a range of about 2 miles due to faulty wiring . Despite this , the extreme buoyancy of the ship made sinking nearly impossible . Investigators were puzzled as to why the crew did not remain on board and wait for help . Vessel description and history . Construction . The 69 - foot ( 21 m ) wooden ship was built in 1931 as a luxury yacht by the Wilmington Boat Works in Los Angeles for movie director Roland West , who named the ship for his wife , actress Jewel Carmenille ; " joyita " in Spanish meaning " little jewel " . In 1936 ship was sold and was registered to Milton E . Beacon . During this period , she made numerous trips south to Mexico and to the 1939 - 40 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco . During part of this time , Chester Mills was the skipper of the vessel . Ship ' s hull was 2 - inch - thick cedar on oak frames . It was 69 feet ( 21 m ) long , with beam of 17 feet ( 5 . 2 m ) and a draft of 7 ft 6in ( 2 . 3 m ) . Net tonnage was 47 tons and gross approx . 70 tons . It had tanks 2 500 gallons ( US , 9 500 Litres ) of water and 3 000 gallons ( 11 400 L ) of diesel fuel . U . S . Navy service in World War II . Just before the attack on Pearl Harbor , she was acquired by the United States Navy in October 1941 and taken to Pearl Harbor , Hawaii , where she was outfitted as Patrol Boat YP - 108 . ( Another YP - 108 sank near Pearl Harbor , not the " Joyita " ) . The Navy used her to patrol the big island of Hawaii until the end of World War II . In 1943 it ran aground and was heavily damaged , but Navy needed ships and it was fixed . In this point new pipework was made from galvanized iron instead of copper or brass . In 1946 the ship was surplus to Navy requirements and most of its equipment was removed . Private purchase . In 1948 it was sold to the firm of Louis Brothers . At this point it was fixed and the cork lining was added onto it among with refrigating equipments . The ship had two Gray marine diesel engines , á 225 HP , and two extra diesel engines for generators . In 1950 William Tavares became the owner , who had little use to it , so he sold it 1952 to Dr . Katharine Luomala , a professor at the University of Hawaii . She chartered the boat to her friend , Captain Thomas H . " Dusty " Miller , a British - born sailor living in Samoa . Miller used the ship as a trading and fishing charter boat . The incident at sea . Overdue and disappeared . About 5 : 00 AM on October 3 , 1955 , the " Joyita " left Samoa ' s Apia harbor bound for the Tokelau Islands , about 270 miles ( 430 km ) away . The boat had been scheduled to leave on the noon tide the previous day but her departure was delayed because her port engine clutch failed . The " Joyita " eventually left Samoa on one engine . She was carrying 16 crew members and nine passengers , including a government official , a doctor ( Alfred " Andy " Denis Parsons , a World War II surgeon on his way to perform an amputation ) , a copra buyer , and two children . Her cargo consisted of medical supplies , timber , 80 empty 45 gallon ( 200 l ) oil drums and various foodstuffs . The voyage was expected to take between 41 and 48 hours . She was scheduled to return with a cargo of copra . The " Joyita " was scheduled to arrive in the Tokelau Islands on October 5 . On October 6 a message from Fakaofo port reported that the ship was overdue . No ship or land - based operator reported receiving a distress signal from the crew . A search and rescue mission was launched and , from 6 to 12 October , the Sunderlands of the Royal New Zealand Air Force covered a probability area of nearly 100 , 000 square miles ( 260 , 000 km² ) of ocean during the search . But no sign of the " Joyita " nor any of her passengers or crew were found . Sighted off - course without passengers or crew . Five weeks later , on November 10 , Gerald Douglas , captain of the merchant ship " Tuvalu " , en route from Suva to Funafuti sighted the " Joyita " more than 600 miles ( 1 , 000 km ) west from her scheduled route drifting north of Vanua Levu . The ship was partially submerged and listing heavily ( her port deck rail was awash ) and there was no trace of any of the passengers or crew ; four tons of cargo were also missing . The recovery party noted that the radio was discovered tuned to 2182 kHz , the international marine radiotelephone distress channel . Condition of the vessel . There was still fuel on " Joyita ' s " tanks ; from the amount used it was calculated she made some 243 miles ( 391 km ) before it was abandoned probably within 50 miles ( 80 km ) of Tokelau . The leak has probably started after 9 p . m . on the second night of the voyage , with nine hours of darkness ahead of them . Although the " Joyita " was found with her bilge s and lower decks flooded , her hull was sound . When she was moored back in harbour at Suva , investigators heard the sound of water entering the vessel . It was found that a pipe in the raw - water circuit of the engine ' s cooling system had failed due to galvanic corrosion , allowing water into the bilges . The first the crew would have known about the leak was when the water rose above the engine room floorboards , by which time it would have been nearly impossible to locate the leak . Also , the bilge pumps were not fitted with strainers , and had become clogged with debris , meaning that it would have been very difficult to pump the water out . Maritime inquiry . A subsequent inquiry found that the vessel was in a poor state of repair , but determined that the fate of the passengers and crew was " inexplicable on the evidence submitted at the inquiry . " An especially inexplicable point was that the three liferaft s the " Joyita " carried were missing , but it would not make sense for the crew and passengers to voluntarily abandon the vessel . Fitted out for carrying refrigerated cargo , the " Joyita " had of cork lining her holds , making her virtually unsinkable . In addition , further buoyancy was provided by a cargo of empty fuel drums . The inquiry was only able to establish the reasons for the vessel becoming flooded . It found that the vessel would have begun to flood due to the fractured cooling pipe . The bilge pumps were unserviceable due to becoming blocked . The " Joyita " lacked watertight bulkheads or subdivisions in the bilges . The water would have gradually flooded the lower decks . As the vessel began to sink lower into the water , the one remaining engine would not have been able to maintain enough speed to steer . The " Joyita " then fell beam - on to a heavy swell and took on the heavy list it was found with . While flooded to an extent which would sink a conventional vessel , the " Joyita " stayed afloat due to her cork - lined hull and cargo of fuel drums . The inquiry also placed much of the responsibility for the events on Miller . They found him reckless for setting out on an ocean - going voyage with only one engine and numerous minor faults , and negligent for failing to provide a working radio or properly equipped lifeboat . He was also in breach of maritime law , since he had allowed " Joyita ' s " license to carry fare - paying passengers to lapse . The inquiry made no mention of the used medical equipment found on board . Theories . The " Joyita " is sometimes referred to as the " " Mary Celeste " of the South Pacific " and has been the subject of several books and documentaries offering explanations that range from rational and conventional to supernatural and paranormal . Numerous theories for the disappearance of the " Joyita ' s " crew and passengers have been advanced . Many were circulated at the time of the event , and several others have been put forward since . Given the fact that the hull of the " Joyita " was sound and her design made her unsinkable , a main concern of investigators was determining why the passengers and crew did not stay on board if the events were simply triggered by the flooding in the engine room . Captain injured theory . Captain Miller was well aware of the vessel ' s ability to stay afloat , leading some to speculate that Miller had died or become incapacitated for some reason ( someone on board was injured - hence the bloodstained bandages ) . Without him to reassure the other people on board , they had panicked when the " Joyita " began to flood and had taken to the liferafts . However , this in itself would not account for the missing cargo and equipment , unless the vessel had been found abandoned and had her cargo removed . A friend of Miller ' s , Captain S . B . Brown , was convinced that Miller would never have left the " Joyita " alive , given his knowledge of her construction . He was aware of tension between Miller and his American first mate , Chuck Simpson . Brown felt that Miller and Simpson ' s dislike of each other came to blows and both men fell overboard or were severely injured in a struggle . This left the vessel without an experienced seaman and would explain why those remaining on board would panic when the ship began to flood . The " Japanese did it " and other theories . The Fiji " Times and Herald " quoted at the time from an " impeccable source " to the effect that the " Joyita " had passed through a fleet of Japanese fishing boats during its trip and " had observed something the Japanese did not want them to see . " " The Daily Telegraph " theorized that some still - active Japanese forces from World War II were to blame for the disappearances , operating from an isolated island base . There was still strong anti - Japanese feeling in parts of the Pacific , and in Fiji there was specific resentment of Japan being allowed to operate fishing fleets in local waters . Such theories suddenly gained credence when men clearing the " Joyita " found knives stamped ' Made in Japan ' . However , tests on the knives proved negative and it turned out the knives were old and broken - quite possibly left on board from when the " Joyita " was used for fishing in the late 1940s . Also there was a proposition that " the vessel ' s occupants were kidnapped by a Soviet submarine , with the world at the time in the midst of the growing Cold War . " Others theorize that modern sea pirates attacked the vessel , killed the 25 passengers and crew ( and cast their bodies into the ocean ) , and stole the missing four tons of cargo . Insurance fraud theory . It was also revealed that Miller had amassed large debts after a series of unsuccessful fishing trips on " Joyita " . However , it would have been difficult to see the events surrounding the " Joyita " as insurance fraud , given that no seacock s were found open and the ship would be almost impossible to scuttle . Also , Miller was relying on " Joyita " being chartered for regular runs between Samoa and Tokelau - these government charters would have quickly cleared his debts . Mutiny theory . One of " Joyita ' s " owners after the events of 1955 , travel - writer Robin Maugham , spent many years investigating his vessel ' s past , and published his findings as " The Joyita Mystery " in 1962 . Maugham agreed that events were started by the flooding from the broken cooling pipe and the failure of the pumps . The mattresses found covering the starboard engine were used either in an attempt to stem the leak or to protect the electrical switchboard from spray kicked up by the engine ' s flywheel as the water level rose . At the same time , the " Joyita " encountered increasingly heavy swells and squally weather . Miller , knowing the " Joyita " to be unsinkable and desperate to reach his destination to clear his debt , pressed on . However , Simpson , and possibly other crew members , demanded that he turn back . This effectively led to mutiny and Miller and the crew struggled , during which Miller sustained a serious injury . By now the ship was entering heavier weather , with winds around 40 mph ( 64 km / h ) , and with one engine and a flooded bilge , was beginning to labour . The flooding in the engine room would have eventually caused the starboard engine to fail , also cutting all the vessel ' s electrical power . Simpson was now in control and made the decision to abandon ship , taking the navigational equipment , logbook and supplies , as well as the injured Miller , with them . It still seems unlikely that Simpson would choose to abandon a flooded but floating ship to take to small open rafts in the Pacific Ocean . Maugham proposed that they sighted a nearby island or reef and tried to reach it , but in the strong winds and seas the rafts were carried out to sea , leaving the " Joyita " drifting and empty . The damage to the lightly built superstructure was caused by wave damage while the vessel was drifting in heavy seas . " Joyita " after 1955 . In July 1956 , " Joyita " was auctioned off by her owners for £2425 to a Fiji Islander , David Simpson . He refitted and overhauled her and she went to sea again that year . However , she was surrounded by legal disputes over the transfer of her registry from the USA to Britain without permission . In January 1957 she ran aground while carrying 13 passengers in the Koro Sea . She was repaired and in October 1958 began a regular trade between Levuka and Suva . She ran aground on a reef again in November , 1959 at Vatuvalu near Levuta . She floated off the reef assisted by high tide , but while heading for port , began to ship water through a split seam . The pumps were started , but it became clear that the valves for the pump had been installed the wrong way , meaning that water was pumped into the hull , not out . Now with a reputation as an ' unlucky ship ' and with a damaged hull , she was abandoned by her owners and beached . She was stripped of useful equipment and was practically a hulk when she was bought by Robin Maugham in the early 1960s ; he also wrote the book " The Joyita Mystery " ( 1962 ) . He sold the hulk in 1966 to Major J . Casling - Cottle who ran a tourist and publicity bureau at Levuka . He planned to turn it into a museum and tearoom , but the plan never saw daylight . The hulk disappeared piece by piece and the process of disintegration appears to have been complete in late 1970 ' s . On March 14 , 1975 The Western Samoa Post Office released a set of five stamps dealing with the mystery of the Joyita . In 2009 a walkway was named after Dr Alfred Denis Parsons near his former Torbay home in Auckland , New Zealand . In 2012 two memory stones of the event were erected in Apia , Samoa and in Fakaofo Village , Tokelau . Crew and passengers . In 2012 all these were still declared as " missing " . Passengers : ( 9 )