"We must be ready to dare all for our country. For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. We must acquire proficiency in defense and display stamina in purpose." - President Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address
RELATIVES of the skipper of a mystery yacht found off the coast of north Queensland believe they have a spiritual link with the missing man, that he may have been kidnapped and is still alive.
Hope Himing, niece of Derek Batten, 56, said today there were many unusual circumstances surrounding the yacht, which was found off the coast of Townsville last Wednesday.
Ms Himing said she and her mother had both felt spiritual contact from Derek, whom they believed was still alive but fighting for his life.
"My mum and I are both Spiritualists. My mum's had a really strong feeling from Des that he's somewhere dark and he can't see and I don't feel that he's dead either," Ms Himing said.
"I don't think he's got a lot left in him but I actually don't think he's dead, and so everything we can do to get (people) out there looking again is a huge thing."
Arrow on map points to general vicinity of yacht when found. Don't kidnappers generally contact the families and demand something - like, oh, say, ransom? Wouldn't they take valuables, just like pirates would?
Previous post (with an update) on this mystery here.
THREE men who disappeared from their yacht last week were most likely washed overboard in a violent squall or freak wave, according to police.
The “ghost yacht”, Kaz II, was found listing in Queensland waters with the table laid for dinner, the global positioning system and laptop humming, and the engine idling - yet with no crew.
Original post on this boat here. Although, if the original report was right, how does a boat lose its crew in a squall or wave, but keep food on the table?
Adding to the mystery were neatly folded clothes at the stern of the luxury boat. The only sign of distress was a tattered sail. *** Sailors point out that a table laid for a meal and neatly folded clothes don't jibe with the rough seas that Webber says may have tipped the trio overboard.
David Dellow, a Townsville sailor, told Australia's ABC Radio that he suspected the boat had been boarded by pirates.
"How do you get three guys to disappear at once?" he asked.
His scepticism about a weather-related catastrophe was echoed by Whitsundays Yacht Club chief Jeremy Cooper.
"Even two is explainable, with perhaps one going in after the other. But three? You just can't imagine why that would happen," Cooper said.
Unless one got into trouble swimming and the other two went in to rescue him and somehow the boat drifted away....but it does seem silly for all of them to get off the boat at once, under any conditions, without a line tied to the boat for self-rescue or going swimming where the bost couldn't e anchored... and going swimming with the sails up as they clearly were.
Australian rescuers were on Friday trying to solve the "Mary Celeste" style mystery of a yacht found floating off the coast with its engine running, food on its table ready to eat, but no crew.
The 12-metre (36 feet) catamaran was found 80 nautical miles off Townsville on the northeast coast, but there was no sign of the three crewmen who had set sail from Queensland state bound for Australia's west coast on Sunday.
"What they found was a bit strange in that everything was normal, there was just no sign of the crew," Jon Hall from emergency management in Queensland told local radio on Friday.
Hall said the yacht's sails were up but one was badly shredded. He said the engine was running, there was food on the table, a laptop was turned on, and the radio and global positioning satellite (GPS) were working.
Halloween was yesterday, but . . . why not a follow up with a nautical connection?
When I was in grade school you could buy "Scholastic" books at school and I once ordered a book about "true unsolved mysteries" - I can't remember its title, but it was full of tales of spontaneous human combustion, the disappearance of a man walking across a field in full view of witnesses and much more of interest to a 10 or 12 year old.
Among the "much more" were tales of ships found a sea, sails fully set, food on the table and not a crewman aboard.
About a year and a half ago there was the report of an Australian yacht found - you got it - fully operational with computers, GPS and absolutely crewless. (See also here and here)
Before that mystery, there have been several mysterious ghost ships reported from across the world.
Among the more famous - the Mary Celeste:
An example of an "occult" version of the ship's odd situation here.Before you get too excited, there was a hearing with a sensible result.
AS STRANGE AS THE “MARY CELESTE,” AND ONE OF THE MOST ACTED UPON MYSTERIES OF the sea, is the case of the deserted five-masted schooner Carroll A. Deering. Returning to Maine from Rio de Jenairo, the Deering stopped over at Barbados on January 9, 1921. She was next to be seen off the North Carolina coast by the Cape Lookout Lightship on January 29 at 4:30 p.m.. On the morning of January 31, the Carroll A. Deering was found hard aground on Diamond Shoals, North Carolina. The ship was in a strange state of desertion; the eleven crew had vanished.
Cape Hatteras is home to many maritime legends but perhaps none is as curious as the real-life story of the massive schooner, Carroll A. Deering. Lost on the Outer Shoals in 1921 and discovered completely abandoned by the Coast Guard, this historical event has all the makings of a Hollywood ghost story.
On January 29, 1921, the Carroll A. Deering was making a return trip to Hampton Roads, Virginia from Barbados when she passed the Cape Lookout Lightship. According to the lightship keeper, the crew was milling about and a crewman, who did not look or act like an officer, reported that the ship had lost its anchors. The following day, the ship passed the SS Lake Elon southwest of the Diamond Shoals Lightship at approximately 5:45 pm. The Deering seemed to be steering a peculiar course. This was the last report of the ill-fated Deering before she was found run aground and abandoned.
At 6:30 am on January 31st, C.P. Brady of the Cape Hatteras Coast Guard Station spotted a five-masted schooner in the morning light, aground and helpless on the shoals. It was reported that the ship’s decks were awash, sails were set, lifeboats were missing, and she appeared abandoned. Due to heavy seas, the surf boats failed to reach the wreck. Finally, the wrecker Rescue arrived on the morning of February 4th and, with the cutter Manning, reached the battered ship around 9:30 am. Captain James Carlson of the Rescue boarded the ship and confirmed its identity as the Carroll A. Deering. Upon investigating the ship, it was discovered that all personal belongings, key navigational equipment, certain papers, and the ship’s anchors were missing. Furthermore, food was laid out as if in preparation for a meal. But there was no sign of the crew.
Wreckage of the Carroll A. Deering. No remains of the ship can be seen on the seashore's beaches today.
The wrecked and battered hull of the Deering was all that was left to signify the vessel’s strange passage. In March of 1921, with the vessel breaking apart on the shoals, it was towed away then dynamited. In April, Christopher Columbus Gray, a Buxton, N.C. resident, reported finding a note in a bottle, which told of the capture of the Deering by pirates. Handwriting experts authenticated the note as being written by engineer Herbert Bates. Later examination, however, by federal government experts proved the letter was a hoax, written by Gray himself. In May, Mrs. Lula Wormel (wife of the ship’s master), Captain Merritt (the former master), and Rev. Dr. Addison Lorimer visited Washington and convinced Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to commence an investigation.
The ongoing lure of the Deering mystery may be due to the many historical threads uncovered in the investigation of this amazing story. Agent Thompson of the FBI visited Dare County in July of 1921. Among the leads he followed were stories of Bolshevik sympathizing pirates, rum-running gangsters, and mutiny. When he asked local Coast Guardsmen about the theory that the crew had mutinied and abandoned ship before striking the Shoals, “Impossible!” was the answer - the coast was too rough for lifeboat landings. “I believe they abandoned her after taking everything of value,” said Captain Ballance of the Cape Hatteras station, “and ran her up on the Shoals intentionally….”
In the end, the investigation proved fruitless. No trace of the crew, the ship’s log, or the navigation equipment was ever discovered. A true maritime mystery began…and continues to this day.
In February 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia. The SOS calls came from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The signals claimed, "All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead." This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then, "I die."
Within hours of the first distress signals, the first rescue ship arrived on the scene. Upon arrival, the rescue vessel tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response to their hand and whistle signals. A boarding party was sent to the ship and what they found was astonishing. All the crew and officers of the Ourang Medan were dead, their eyes open, faces looking towards the sun, arms outstretched and a look of terror on their faces. Even the ship's dog was dead, found snarling at some unseen enemy. When nearing the bodies in the boiler room, the rescue crew felt a chill though the temperature was near 110°F.
The decision was made to tow the ship back to port. As the ship was prepared to be towed, smoke began rolling up from the hull. The rescue crew left the ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.
What happened the the crew of the Ourang Medan? Was it a UFO? Some other paranormal event that scared everyone to death? There is some speculation that the Ourang Medan was carrying illegal chemical weapons (this was post WWII). Could something they were secretly transporting leaked, killing everyone aboard?
THE strongest winds had passed the area where three WA men who disappeared off the north Queensland coast were sailing when they made their final radio call.
Bureau of Meteorology records for the region show that while wind speed was 20 knots at 9am on Sunday, April 15, and the next day, the winds peaked at 46 knots at about 5pm, nearly two hours before the final recorded call at 6.45pm.
Further records show that winds were consistently around this mark from about 1pm on that day, although there is no record of any rain or other events to indicate a storm. The strong winds also meant there was a high degree of visibility in the waters. *** Queensland Volunteer Marine Rescue yesterday defended itself against allegations it was slow in informing police the men had radioed their position at 6.45pm on the day they left Airlie Beach, hours after police initially thought they had gone into the water.
The Australian revealed this week the VMR told police about the radio contact only on Monday, causing anguish to the families of the missing men who are continuing their own search of waters between Airlie Beach and Townsville.
A couple of guys found floating in a lift raft under mysterious circumstances, the crew of the fishing boat they chartered missing, the boat found adrift and the guys in the raft saying "pirates" did it - as recapped here with a look at the effects on the charter business (which is another one of those areas that might need a little more security checking by the Homeland Security Department):
The captains also are trying to divine the motives of the two men who were found in a life raft Monday several miles from the abandoned Joe Cool: Kirby Archer, 36, accused of stealing $92,000 from a Wal-Mart in his home state of Arkansas, and Guillermo Zarabozo, 19, Hialeah. They are jailed on federal charges of fleeing to avoid prosecution and lying to a federal agent, respectively. The two claimed the boat was hijacked by pirates, who then killed the crew.
In light of the event, skippers across South Florida say prospective charter clients likely will undergo more scrutiny in the future.
"I think that captains will research their parties a little bit more now," said Tom Williams, captain of the Out There, a 38-foot Rampage based in North Palm Beach.
Boat hijackings are rare off South Florida waters. "It's very uncommon. We don't worry that much about it," said Brady. "You could get hijacked at a red light."
But there have been instances. One eerily similar to the current case involved a captain and mate who in 1995 accepted $4,000 cash to take two men to the Bahamas. Once near land, the hijackers commandeered the vessel at gunpoint. The captain jumped overboard and swam to shore. The attackers spared the mate when the ship grounded and escaped in a life raft. They were caught, but skipped bail.
In 1992, two Cuban men chartered a fishing boat in the Keys, forced the captain into the water at knifepoint and tried to sail to Cuba. They were arrested when their boat ran out of fuel, and later convicted for the murder of the captain, who drowned.
Still, charter boat skippers enjoy a romantic, near idyllic existence, doing what they love, fishing in the sun, cruising the sea.
Of special concern, the old passport dodge employed by one of the suspects, as set out in court filings:
On or about September 22nd, at about 3:15 p.m., ARCHER and ZARABOZO anived at the Miami Beach Marina. The two men spoke with Sissy Baby's owner. ARCHER stated that he and ZARABOZO worked for a survey company and that they had finished early. According to ARCHER, the pair were planning to meet with their girlfriends on a yacht at the Big Game Resort and Yacht Club in Bimini. ARCHER stated that he was unable to fly to Bimini because his girlfriend had packed away his passport. ARCHER said that he planned to meet his girlfriend at the dock in order to retrieve the passport.
Whatever the legal complexities, people who fish or patrol the waters of the Florida Straits express doubts about the hijack story.
''In my 20 years, I've never heard of any private vessel being involved in an act of armed high-seas piracy off the coast of Florida,'' said Zachary Mann, senior special agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Miami, which monitors the Straits.
And myriad boaters and fishing captains have pointed out that the story defies an inescapable fact of the Gulf Stream: It flows north, about 4 mph on average.
If hijackers killed the crew as they crossed to Bimini, current would have carried the boat northward. Instead, the abandoned boat, and the survivors in a life raft, wound up nearly 100 miles in the opposite direction -- closer to Cuba.
Then, said Dean Panos, a veteran charter captain who runs the Double D out of the Keystone Point Marina in North Miami, there's the question of what hijackers were after. Agents seized a wad of cash from Archer.
''They walked away with $2,200 in their pockets,'' Panos said. ``Don't you think the hijackers would have maybe wanted that?''
Of course there is also another mystery of a missing boat captain here:
An unexperienced boater tried his best to let rescuers know his vessel's captain had gone overboard in a distress call released by the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday.
Lindsay Forde, 48, of Hollywood, was reported missing about 6:40 p.m. Saturday in an area 75 miles west of Bayport, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Bayport is a beach town about 60 miles northwest of Tampa. *** The men, who had not filed a plan, made a few port stops in Florida, Tully said. She did not know their destination port. On Saturday afternoon, Swindle went below decks for a while, leaving Forde to his steering, Tully said. At the time, waves were 6 to 8 feet and winds were a blustery 27 knots. Tully said such conditions would fiercely rock any small boat.
When Swindle returned topside, Forde had disappeared, he told the Coast Guard when he called for help.
No foul play suspected in the latter case.
Photo is of a Bertram yacht, but not the one involved in either matter.
Coroner Michael Barnes said evidence put before him during a four day inquest led him to conclude that "an unfortunate series of events," befell the trio, who were all relatively inexperienced sailors, only a few hours after they set sail.
Well, I guess ending up dead after watching your boat sail away qualifies as "unfortunate," sure enough.
Since then, despite searches and forensic investigation, no evidence has been found to establish what befell the three crew. "There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that violence or foul play were involved," said Chief Superintendent Roy Wall, who commanded the sea and air search from Townsville. "Something — we don't know what — went badly amiss."
