The Disappearing Ship by Umar Malek

 The Disappearing Ship by Umar Malek

December 5, 1872. The British ship Dei Gratia spots something odd near the Azores. The Mary Celeste, an American ship, was just drifting along. From a distance, nothing seems off. Sails up, ship floating steady. But as they get closer, it gets weirder; no one’s on deck. Actually, no one’s anywhere. The place is deserted. Food and water are still there. Supplies untouched. The whole crew just...gone.

Not long before, on November 7, the Mary Celeste had sailed out of New York, headed for Genoa. Captain Benjamin Briggs was in charge, bringing his wife, their toddler, and a crew of eight. The ship carried about 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol.

When the Dei Gratia crew climbed aboard, the whole scene felt like a dream. The ship isn’t wrecked. The cargo is fine, everything you’d need to survive is right there. But the lifeboat’s missing, along with some key navigation tools.

The captain’s log offers the last clue: November 25, near the Azores. Nine days before they found the ship, and about 500 miles off. The log says everything’s normal, still headed for Genoa. But after that, nothing. For eleven days, the ship just drifts, empty. No captain. No family. No crew. No bodies or wreckage. Not a single clue about what really happened.

Even now, nobody really knows why the Mary Celeste was abandoned. The ship was in good shape and had everything needed to make it to Italy. Still, ten people vanished without a trace.

Some people think the crew believed the ship was sinking. When the rescuers boarded, they found over three feet of water sloshing around below, not enough to sink her, but enough to terrify someone. A sounding rod for checking water was lying out on deck, and one of the pumps was taken apart, maybe broken. Possibly, Captain Briggs saw the water, thought things were worse than they were, and ordered everyone into the lifeboat. If the weather got bad or the pump gave out, most likely the lifeboat would be lost at sea. Meanwhile, the Mary Celeste just kept going, empty, with no one at the wheel.

History.com Editors. “The Mary Celeste, a Ship Whose Crew Mysteriously Disappeared, Is Spotted at Sea | December 5, 1872 | HISTORY.” HISTORY, 4 Mar. 2010, www.history.com/this-day-in-history/december-5/the-mystery-of-the-mary-celeste.

Tikkanen, Amy. “Mary Celeste | Ship.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 22 Aug. 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/Mary-Celeste.