The Maritime Mystery of The Mary Celeste

**"The Maritime Mystery of The Mary Celeste"** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on November 13, 2020. It was the fifth episode of the seventh season of *BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime*, and the one hundredth and ninth episode overall. You can find it here.

## Description

What happened to the missing crew of the Mary Celeste?

## Background

On May 18, 1861 the merchant vessel, the Amazon was launched from Spencer's Island in present day *Nova Scotia*. The ship was about 100 feet long over 25 feet wide and made from spruce, pine, birch and beech woods. After difficulties launching the ship
during which some reports claimed the boat refuse to budge from its perch. The Amazon's maiden voyage was an inner spacious one. In what might be seen as an omen for the ships future. The captain caught pneumonia from which he would die.

Over the next few years, the ship was damaged on several occasions. Eventually in 1867, running a ground in Cal-Bay Cape Breton Island. This time the ship was so banked up that its investors couldn't afford to have it repaired or even transported off the rocks. A man, named Alexander McBean managed to pull the wreckage from the rocks and refloat her. Ownership of the Amazon then passed to one John Howard Beatty who sold the badly damaged boat to American Richard W. Haines. Haines replaced the keel and the entire bottom of the boat, added new spars, rigging and sails and renamed the boat, *The Mary Celeste*, which was then seized by his creditors as Haines was unable to pay his loans.

Eventually, the ship was sold to a New York Shipping Company and put under the captainship of Benjamin Spooner Briggs, a man whose life as a boat captain, seemed predetermined by that name. An experienced captain with a reputation for being responsible, respectable and deeply religious Briggs had been a full-time sailor for over 18 years. As he prepared for his first journey at the helm of *the Mary Celeste*, he wrote, "our vessel is in beautiful trim and I hope we shall have a fine passage but I have never been in her before and can't say how she'll sail. We seem to have a very good mate and steward and I hope I shall have a pleasant voyage."

On November 7, 1872 loaded with 1700 barrels of industrial alcohol meant for routine delivery, *the Mary Celeste* left New York city bound for Genoa, Italy. On board was Briggs, his wife, Sarah, their two year old daughter Sophia and a crew of seven. In the early afternoon on December 4, a British merchant vessel *the Dei Gratia* spotted the Mary Celeste about 400 miles East of the Azores an archipelago in the mid Atlantic off the coast of Portugal. When *the Mary Celeste* didn't respond to attempts to signal it. Three members of *the Dei Gratia* were sent to board her.

The three men found the ship totally abandoned. There was no trace of struggle and the little damage the vessel showed was not severe enough to make a veteran crew of sailors abandoned ship. The ships cargo was basically intact with only nine of the barrels of alcohol found empty and there was still a six month supply of food and water on board. The ships one lifeboat was missing along with its chronometer sextant, navigation book and register. No sign of the lifeboat or anyone on board was ever found. The ship's last log recorded at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, November 25th, 10 days before she was discovered by *the Dei Gratia* said they were about six miles off of Santa Maria, the Southern most Island of the Azores as records were generally logged on an hourly basis. It's presumed whatever happened to the Mary Celeste and its crew happened shortly thereafter.

With no clear explanation for what caused the crew to abandon the Mary Celeste, *the Dei Gratia* brought the ship to Gibraltar
about 800 miles East of where it was found. A judge conducted a salvage hearing, and despite the disappearance on her seemingly doomed to record, the boat was sold to new owners.

## Theories

* **Pirates.** It's generally believed that Captain Briggs abandoned the ship purposefully though why is still unclear. Briggs was not only the captain but also an investor in the boat. Since the boat was not discovered to have any catastrophic damage pirates, forcing everyone off the ship might make sense.
	+ Indeed, when *the Dei Gratia* showed up to Gibraltar with *the Mary Celeste* some suspected the crew of the Dei Gratia itself are of foul play, since finding an abandoned fine conditioned ship with a full undisturbed cargo was so rare. There were theories that *the Dei Gratia* crew could have pirated the ship and slaughtered everyone on board. After three months of investigation, however, the court found no evidence that this was what happened. Despite the ruling the company that insured the ship paid the crew of *the Dei Gratia* only one sixth of the policy amount, suggesting the insurers were not convinced of an absence of foul play.
	+ There's another theory that pirates could have come from inside the ship. It's been posited that the crew could have consumed too much of the alcohol they were transporting and become a mutinous. Two crew members in particular German brothers Volkert and Boye Lorenzen were seen as suspicious, as unlike those aboard, none of their belongings were discovered on the ship. Later testimony, however, would reveal that was because their belongings had actually been lost any prior ship wreck earlier that year.
* **Everyone abandoned ship due to a panicked miscalculation by the captain.** This theory gets a bit into the seaweeds about boat maintenance.
	+ One of the first things the crew of *the Dei Gratia* did once onboard *the Mary Celeste* was attempt to sound the pipes to help make sure the boat was still seaworthy. This involves using a sounding rod to determine how much water had accumulated in the bilges. Something, however, was a mess with the Mary Celeste sounding rod. The second mate of *the Dei Gratia*, John Wright explained, "there was no sounding rod but a piece of iron with a piece of line attached to it. I found no proper sounding rod, I was able to sound with the piece of iron and line attached to it. It was found lying on the deck near the cabin." The fact that the sounding rod or at least its jerry rig replacement was not found in its proper place has led experts to theorize that the rod had been dropped shortly before abandoning ship.
	+ When John Wright sounded the abandoned *Mary Celeste* he discovered that the hold of the ship was filled with about three and a half feet of water. There was also a considerable amount of water between the decks. Though this would have been a relatively large amount of water in proportion to the size of the boat, it still would not indicate a level of leakage that should have caused a panic in an experienced crew.
	+ Additionally, if the barometric pressure was low from a sudden weather change, for instance, in the presence of a water spout, it could have affected the pumps and caused the sounding reading to seem like there was more water in the ship than there actually was. Thinking the ship was taking on too much water and sinking, the captain may have thought he was erring on the side of caution when he evacuated his wife daughter and crew to the lifeboat.
* **A seaquake.** According to the US Naval Research Laboratory, the area around the Azores is one of the most seismically active in the world.
	+ There is evidence that an 8.5 magnitude seaquake occurred within a month after *the Mary Celeste* was found abandoned and it's possible if foreshock struck the boat and went unrecorded. An earthquake at sea could have caused the ship to be severely shaken and perhaps breaking open the nine barrels discovered empty, filling the bilges with alcohol and fumes. If there were ominous rumblings in the cargo that could signal an imminent gas explosion, it could explain the hasty departure.
	+ Admittedly, there are some problems with this theory. The nine empty barrels did not necessarily indicate they had been broken. Instead, those nine barrels had been made of red Oak, rather than white Oak, like the rest of the cargo and were more likely emptied by natural seepage. If this was the case, there would be no fumes or cause for an explosion. Additionally, the rest of the ship was not found in a huge amount of disarray. Instead, the majority of the personal belongings left behind seemed to be undisturbed and in place.
* **The crew of the Mary Celeste was abducted by aliens or attacked by a giant sea monster, perhaps an octopus with giant limbs.**