The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, is an urban legend focused on a loosely defined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The idea of the area as uniquely prone to disappearances arose in the mid-20th century, but most reputable sources dismiss the idea that there is any mystery.
Cruising is a maritime activity that involves staying aboard a watercraft for extended periods of time when the vessel is traveling on water at a steady speed. Cruising generally refers to leisurely trips on yachts and luxury cruiseships, with durations varying from day-trips to months-long round-the-world voyages.
A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a yacht, as opposed to a boat, such a pleasure vessel is likely to be at least 33 feet (10 m) in length and may have been judged to have good aesthetic qualities.
SS Princess Alice, formerly PS Bute, was a British passenger paddle steamer that sank on 3 September 1878 after a collision with the collier SS Bywell Castle on the River Thames. Between 600 and 700 people died, all from Princess Alice, the greatest loss of life of any British inland waterway shipping accident. No passenger list or headcount was made, so the exact figure of those who died has never been known.
HMS Resolute was a mid-19th-century barque-rigged ship of the British Royal Navy, specially outfitted for Arctic exploration. Resolute became trapped in the ice searching for Franklin's lost expedition and was abandoned in 1854. Recovered by an American whaler, she was returned to Queen Victoria in 1856. Timbers from the ship were later used to construct the Resolute desk which was presented to the President of the United States and is located in the White House Oval Office.
A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped, as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves.
The 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race was the 54th annual running of the "blue water classic" Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. It was hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia based in Sydney, New South Wales. It was the most disastrous in the race's history, with the loss of six lives and five yachts. 55 sailors were rescued in the largest peacetime search and rescue effort ever seen in Australia.
The 1979 Fastnet Race was the 28th Royal Ocean Racing Club's Fastnet Race, a yachting race held generally every two years since 1925 on a 605-mile course from Cowes direct to the Fastnet Rock and then to Plymouth via south of the Isles of Scilly. In 1979, it was the climax of the five-race Admiral's Cup competition, as it had been since 1957.
A castaway is a person who is cast adrift or ashore. While the situation usually happens after a shipwreck, some people voluntarily stay behind on a desert island, either to evade captors or the world in general. A person may also be left ashore as punishment (marooned).
Forfarshire was a paddle steamer with brigantine rigging, built in Dundee in 1834, and which struck and later foundered on one of the Farne Islands on 7 September 1838, giving rise to the rescue for which Grace Darling is famed.
The Solway Harvester was a scallop dredger from Kirkcudbright, Scotland which sank off the coast of Douglas, Isle of Man in heavy seas on 11 January 2000 with the loss of all seven crew members. Following salvage, the damaged ship was taken to Douglas, where she remained until dismantled for scrap in January 2014.
SS Gothenburg was an iron-hulled sail- and steamship that was built in England in 1854 and sailed between England and Sweden until 1862. She then moved to Australia, where she operated across the Tasman Sea to and from New Zealand until 1873, when she was rebuilt. After her rebuild, she operated in the Australian coastal trade.
Marlborough was an iron-built two-decked merchant sailing ship which disappeared in 1890. She was built by the firm of Robert Duncan and Co., Port Glasgow and launched in 1876. First managed by James Galbraith for the Albion Shipping Company, she was registered in 1880 to the ownership of John Leslie of London, while continuing to operate within the fleet of Albion Line. Marlborough disappeared during a voyage in January 1890, and has not been seen or heard from in over a century. Searches and investigations have yielded nothing conclusive, and the ship's ultimate fate, and that of her crew, remains unknown.
Caister Volunteer Lifeboat Service, or Caister Lifeboat, is based at Caister-on-Sea in Norfolk, and operates one of only three offshore lifeboats in the UK that are independent of the RNLI.
HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a British merchant ship that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean in 1790. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
Booya was a steel-hulled three-masted schooner with an auxiliary oil engine built in the Netherlands in 1917 and originally named De Lauwers. The schooner was renamed Argosy Lemal in 1920 and carried that name until 1949. As Argosy Lemal the ship served as one of the early United States Army communications ships from 1942–1949. In 1949, on return to civilian use, the vessel was renamed Ametco, Clair Crouch and finally Booya in 1964. Booya was last seen anchored off Fort Hill wharf in Darwin Harbour at about 8.00pm on 24 December 1974, the evening Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. Nearly twenty-nine years later, in October 2003, she was discovered by chance in Darwin Harbour, lying on her starboard side in about 20 metres of water.
Anthony John Jones was an Australian man who disappeared while backpacking in North Queensland in November 1982. The case garnered substantial media attention, with critics charging that police mishandled the investigation into Jones' disappearance.
Bounty was an enlarged reconstruction of the original 1787 Royal Navy sailing ship HMS Bounty, built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in 1960. She sank off the coast of North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012.
The SS Andaste was a Monitor-class vessel, built in 1892 by the Cleveland Ship Building Company for the Lake Superior Iron Company. The vessel is best known for sinking on Lake Michigan on the night of September 9–10, 1929, with all hands; 25 men were lost. As of 2020, the wreck of Andaste has not yet been located.
