Numerous ships have been lost at sea, and many, like København, quickly became ghost ships.
København was an immense five-masted barque, the largest of its time, that disappeared in December 1928.
After its disappearance, people began seeing what had become a ghost ship, and here is a report on one of the sightings:
Report Another “Flying Dutchman”
Buenos Aires — Another “mystery ship” of the seas, missing for 14 months, has again been sighted.
Thirteen months ago the Danish training ship København, which vanished mysteriously in December of 1928, appeared like a bedraggled wraith in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, heading toward the polar seas of Antarctogea.
This is the weird news brought here by Philip Lindsay, a British missionary, the first man to reach civilization from the Tristan da Cunha island group since January of 1929.
The Tristan da Cunha are in the South Atlantic, just north of the extreme limit of floating ice, and about midway between Buenos Aires and Cape Town.
According to Lindsay, the København, like a specter, passed the Tristanda Cunha on January 21, 1929. Her mainmast was missing and her rigging was flying loose in the wind.
The only recognizable feature of the ship was her back hull, around which a white band had been painted.
When last heard of the København sailed from La Plata, Argentina, for Australia, on December 14, 1928. Sixty naval cadets were aboard, including scions of some of Denmark’s most prominent families. Several staff officers of the Danish navy were also aboard.
Source: The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.), 18 April 1930.
