History is fill with stories of ghost ships. This particular story was publishing in a newspaper back in 1894. One thing I found fascinating about the story is that the sailor tells us that if men see a ghost ship while out on the sea, as soon as they hit port, they abandon the ship. It would be bad luck to venture back out in a ship that met with a ghost ship. Perhaps because the real ship was now marked for certain disaster.
Ghosts of the Sea
Sailors Dread to See the Ships That Never Sailed
Published in The Star. November 14, 1894.
“These tales of the ships that never came back are sad enough, but it’s the ship that never went out, the ghosts of the sea, that give the sailor man a creepy feeling when he meets them out where the waves are rolling high and the winds are singing funeral songs.”
The speaker was Mate Bob Alling, who has followed the sea as boy and man for nearly 50 years. Surrounded by a group of interested listeners in the public room of the Sailors’ Happy home in South street, Mate Bob, as all the sailors call him, was telling stories of strange sights that he has witnessed at sea. Alling is now mate of a coastwise fishing schooner, but in the old days he sailed in some of the largest trading ships and the strongest whalers that ever sailed out of an American port flying the stars and stripes.
“As I said, boys,” the old man went on, “it’s the ships that never went out from any port that a sailor never forgets when he sees one of them. We may remember the ships that went out and never came back for a time if we had a shipmate aboard, but we can forget. But there’s no forgetting a ghost of the sea.
“It was back in the early fifties that I saw my first sea ghost, and today I can shut my eyes and see it just as plain as I could see it then. I was a sailor on a fishing schooner, and we were catching cod off the coast of Newfoundland. We had been out ten days and were almost ready to start for home with a full cargo when a nasty off shore breeze came on late one evening. We stood out to sea, for there was a heavy fog along with the wind. It was a stiff and steady blow, so we rode the waves under bare poles during the night, waiting for daylight and the fog to lift before shaping our course for home.
“All through the night we sent up rockets at intervals and kept the ship’s bell going; because we could not see ten feet ahead at times on account of the fog. But it was nearly morning before we heard or saw an answering signal to warn us that another vessel was near.
“I was on the early morning watch, and about half an hour before daylight I made out a signal light a short distance ahead on our port bow. It was a strange light, a pale blue in color, and it flashed up and down at intervals. The fog was still thick, and it was impossible to tell how near we were to the vessel.
“I called the mate on deck and pointed to the strange signal light. He looked at it a long time, and, with a shake of his head, said he could not make it out at all. The lights showed that the vessel could not be far away, so we changed our course a little, and then fired a gun. There was no answer, and we fired again and again with the same result.
“By and by I saw that the mate was very grave and queer looking. He was pacing back and forth on the deck, not minding the cold, misty rain that was falling, and all the time he kept his eyes fixed on that queer looking bluish light that flashed up out of the fog and darkness ahead. At last I made so bold as to ask the mate what he thought of it.
“‘It’s a ghost!’ he said, looking at me with a pitying look.
“‘A ghost?’ says I.
“‘Yes, a ghost of the sea. Wait will the fog lifts. You may see it then.’
“The fog lifted a bit when daylight came, and then I saw the ghost, as the mate said I would.
“Rising grim and white out of the fog and waves that were rolling high, I saw a full rigged ship of queer design. The wind was blowing half a gale, but not a mast or pole of the ghost ship bent an inch, and not one of the broad white sails seemed to strain at the ropes.
“The phantom was close on our port bow, and as the fog cleared away we had a splendid view from her water line to the top of her masts. With the waves pitching and rolling mountain high, and the wind howling around our poles, the ghost ship was riding out the storm as steady as a painted ship on a painted canvas ocean.
“Every man on board crowded on deck, and while they had to hold on to the railing to keep from being washed overboard they stood and gazed at the phantom ship as long as it was in sight. some of them that were a bit religious-like made the sign of the cross, and others tried to say a bit of a prayer.The fact is that every man on board thought the phantom ship a warning of death.
“The captain went below and drank hot grog till he was that reckless no ghost had any terrors for him. Then, as the wind went down a bit, he ordered us to make sail and bear down on the phantom ship.
“Up went our sail in a jiffy, and we flew along before the wind, but we could get no nearer the phantom ship. Suddenly we saw the white ghost ship lurch forward, her sails trembled for an instant, and then she seemed to sink straight down into the sea. Ten seconds from the time we saw the first quiver of her sails the ship vanished, and we never saw her again.
“During the day the storm went down, and patting about we made port in safety. But when that schooner sailed for the fishing banks again it was with an entirely new crew from the captain to cabin boy. Not a man who saw the ghost ship from her deck would sail on that schooner again.
“Such is the old sailor belief in the ghosts of the sea as warnings of danger. The men who see one of them will never sail again on the same ship if they live to see port.”
