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Offline franksolich

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the Mary Celeste
« on: February 01, 2008, 01:35:53 PM »
This is a little early today, and Ptarmigan's not here yet, but I have to run to the "big city," and won't be back until this evening.

Anyway, today's shipwreck thread:

Quote
The Mary Celeste was launched in Nova Scotia in 1860. Her original name was the Amazon. She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed through a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed the Mary Celeste.

The new captain of the Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, 37, a master with three previous commands. On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with Captain Briggs, his wife, young daughter and a crew of eight. The ship was loaded with 1700 barrels of raw American alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy. The captain, his family and crew were never seen again.

A British Board of Inquiry in Gibraltar gathered evidence and testimony from the boarding party that had discovered the Mary Celeste as a drifting derelict. Lack of evidence of violence ruled out piracy or foul play, but no conclusions as to the fate of the mortals aboard was forthcoming.

Newspapers in America and England took little passing notice of the incident, and it soon faded from public interest as the loss of a small ship at sea was not not uncommon in those days.

The popular mystery of the Mary Celeste did not begin until 1884 when Arthur Conan Doyle (the future author of the Sherlock Holmes series) writing under a pseudonym published a story about a derelict ship which he called "Marie Celeste". It was titled "J. Habakuk Jepson's Statement". This tale recounted some of the actual events of the Mary Celeste with considerable added fictional and provocative detail which stirred up controversy and captured the public interest. Since then, and to this day, no two versions of the story are the same.

read more at http://www.fortogden.com/maryceleste.html



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Offline Chris_

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2008, 01:45:15 PM »
Quote from: franksolich on February 01, 2008, 01:35:53 PM
This is a little early today, and Ptarmigan's not here yet, but I have to run to the "big city," and won't be back until this evening.

Anyway, today's shipwreck thread:

Quote
The Mary Celeste was launched in Nova Scotia in 1860. Her original name was the Amazon. She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed through a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed the Mary Celeste.

The new captain of the Mary Celeste was Benjamin Briggs, 37, a master with three previous commands. On November 7, 1872 the ship departed New York with Captain Briggs, his wife, young daughter and a crew of eight. The ship was loaded with 1700 barrels of raw American alcohol bound for Genoa, Italy. The captain, his family and crew were never seen again.

A British Board of Inquiry in Gibraltar gathered evidence and testimony from the boarding party that had discovered the Mary Celeste as a drifting derelict. Lack of evidence of violence ruled out piracy or foul play, but no conclusions as to the fate of the mortals aboard was forthcoming.

Newspapers in America and England took little passing notice of the incident, and it soon faded from public interest as the loss of a small ship at sea was not not uncommon in those days.

The popular mystery of the Mary Celeste did not begin until 1884 when Arthur Conan Doyle (the future author of the Sherlock Holmes series) writing under a pseudonym published a story about a derelict ship which he called "Marie Celeste". It was titled "J. Habakuk Jepson's Statement". This tale recounted some of the actual events of the Mary Celeste with considerable added fictional and provocative detail which stirred up controversy and captured the public interest. Since then, and to this day, no two versions of the story are the same.

read more at http://www.fortogden.com/maryceleste.html





OK Frank, I'll bite....what's with the shipwreck threads?

Maritime history has been a passion of mine since I was in high school, and I've read the accounts of the Mary Celeste on a number of occasions....she has become the basis for virtually all of the "ghost ship" horror flicks.......which BTW, I watched one on the SciFi channel last night that was pretty good for a "made for TV" offering....

doc
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Offline Rebel

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2008, 01:48:35 PM »
Quote from: TVDOC on February 01, 2008, 01:45:15 PM
OK Frank, I'll bite....what's with the shipwreck threads?

Maybe it's one of dem metaphers as to where this country is heading if one of the two debating fools from last night win the '08 Presidential election.
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Offline Chris_

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2008, 02:02:48 PM »
Quote from: Rebel on February 01, 2008, 01:48:35 PM
Quote from: TVDOC on February 01, 2008, 01:45:15 PM
OK Frank, I'll bite....what's with the shipwreck threads?

Maybe it's one of dem metaphors as to where this country is heading if one of the two debating fools from last night win the '08 Presidential election.

If that is the case, perhaps a better metaphor might be to start a Titanic thread....

doc
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Offline franksolich

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2008, 05:09:36 PM »
Quote from: TVDOC on February 01, 2008, 01:45:15 PM
OK Frank, I'll bite....what's with the shipwreck threads?


When this site first got started about five weeks ago, for a while Ptarmigan was posting a daily thread about some sort of natural or human disaster, and I followed his lead.

Ptarmigan is cool; he's a lot like that one eyeglassesed guy on that ancient television half-hour comedy, Barney Miller, Sergeant Whatshisname, the guy who was a walking encyclopedia, who knew all arcane and obscure facts about just about anything.

I've always been amazed at the sheer depth of knowledge Ptarmigan has about things, and I'm sure he's going to have some new illumination about the Mary Celeste when he shows up.

It's great; and so my daily "maritime disaster" thread.
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Offline Mary Ann

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2008, 08:58:21 AM »
Quote from: franksolich on February 01, 2008, 05:09:36 PM
Quote from: TVDOC on February 01, 2008, 01:45:15 PM
OK Frank, I'll bite....what's with the shipwreck threads?


When this site first got started about five weeks ago, for a while Ptarmigan was posting a daily thread about some sort of natural or human disaster, and I followed his lead.

Ptarmigan is cool; he's a lot like that one eyeglassesed guy on that ancient television half-hour comedy, Barney Miller, Sergeant Whatshisname, the guy who was a walking encyclopedia, who knew all arcane and obscure facts about just about anything.

I've always been amazed at the sheer depth of knowledge Ptarmigan has about things, and I'm sure he's going to have some new illumination about the Mary Celeste when he shows up.

It's great; and so my daily "maritime disaster" thread.
Sgt. Detrich. He was my favorite character on that show.
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Offline Ptarmigan

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #6 on: February 02, 2008, 03:13:12 PM »
There are various reasons why Mary Celeste was abandoned. They range from mutiny to alcohol in which the crew killed the captain to get their alcohol. Also it could of ran into a waterspout, which would explain why it was wet when it was found abandoned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Celeste
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Offline Lisa

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Re: the Mary Celeste
« Reply #7 on: February 02, 2008, 08:17:24 PM »
I used to watch "In Search Of" religiously when it was on. I remember one time they did a show on the Mary Celeste; they included the lurid report that one of the "official" investigators had written, in which he claimed all kinds of violence and mayhem had occurred and everyone had killed everyone else, just by virtue of what he thought was a small bloodstain on the rail and a few items being scattered here and there (the "bloodstain" was, in all liklihood as the thinking is now, not a bloodstain at all, but something much more innocuous).

In Search Of re-enacted its own theory of what may have happened, making it clear that it was just a theory based on all known current evidence and certainly not to be taken as factual. Their experts thought that there may have been problems with the raw alcohol on board the ship, and that it may have given off fumes that smelled as if fire was going to break out and the ship was going to explode. So, they may have all piled into the rafts that were on board the ship for emergencies and paddled away from it to get away as quickly as they could have. Being without much food and water, and having left the ship so quickly that they likely didn't have time to grab any other needed supplies, they likely didn't last too long after that and they probably didn't find any land in time. Who knows, it's certainly possible. We'll never know for sure.
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