The truth and mystery about Flying Dutchman

The myth of The Flying Dutchman is believed to have occurred in 1641 when a Dutch ship sank off the coast of the Cape of Good Hope. The myth of the Flying Dutchman deals about a ghost ship that could not make a port, condemned to sail the oceans endlessly. It perhaps originates from 17th century nautical folktale. Sightings in the 19th and 20th periods report the ship shining to be with ghostly light. It is said that if hailed by another ship, its crew will try to send messages to land or to people long dead.

This apparition of the ship has its roots in both Dutch and German folklore. The most collective is the account about a Captain Hendrick Vanderdecken, who set sail in 1680 from Amsterdam to Batavia, in Dutch East India, and disappeared in a gale while circumnavigating the cape. It has been told that Vanderdecken disregarded the danger and pressed on into the fangs of the cyclone. The ship sunk, sending all onboard to their deaths. As castigation for his imprudence Vanderdecken and his ship are condemned to spend eternity fighting the tempest at the Cape.

Poignantly the dame Vanderdecken means “on deck” in Dutch. There is another version of the tale. It is about Captain Bernard Fokke who was recognized for the uncanny haste of his trips from Holland to Java and people said he was in coalition with the devil. A third version replaced the name to van Straaten, and however a fourth account claims the captain’s name was Ramhout van Dam. Among all versions of the stories, the ship was never named. The source to the “Flying Dutchman” seems to label the cursed captain and not the ship itself. From different claims, the captain refuses to withdraw amidst the face of the storm. In yet other stories, some dreadful crime happens on the ship, or the crew is hit by the plague and is not permitted to enter any port. For whatever the caused, the ship and its crew are doomed to sail forever. While there is wide-ranging covenant that the Lost Dutchman is simply a fable, there have been genuine reported sightings of a 17^th Century sailing ship battling the elements at the Cape of Good Hope over the years. Possibly the first publicly testified sighting occurred in 1835 when a crew of a British ship was rounding the cape and witnessed a “ghost ship” heading in the cloak of a severe storm. The British crew said the ship seemed to be on a collision path, but then it abruptly vanished.

Flying Dutchman, Selected Sightings

Many people would suggest that the Flying Dutchman is just a legend and folklore, but there were reliable claims that the Dutchman was sighted and was agreed by most witnesses. All of these were in the Cape of Good Hope. Lighthouse keepers reported seeing her.

• 1823: HMS Leven skipper, Captain Owen logged two sightings in his log.

• 1835: Crew on a British ship saw a sailing ship heading towards them in the middle of a storm. It appeared there would be a collision, but the ship suddenly no where to be found.

• 1881: Three crew of HMS Bacchante including King George V, saw the ship. The next day, one of the men who saw it fell from the rigging and died.

• 1879: The crew of SS Pretoria saw the apparition of the ghost ship.

• 1911: A whaling ship nearly struck with her before the ghost ship vanished.

• 1923: British Navy crew saw the ghost ship and sent documentation to the Society for Psychical Research, SPR. Fourth Officer Stone wrote the findings of the fifteen minute sighting on January 26th. Second Officer Bennett, a helmsman and cadet also witnessed the ship. Stone drew a picture of the phantom. Bennett verified his explanation.

• 1939: People aground seen the Flying Dutchman. Admiral Karl Doenitz of the German submarine kept the recorded sightings by the U-Boat crews.

• 1941: People at Glencairn Beach sighted the apparition ship that disappeared before she collided into rocks.

• 1942: Four observers saw the ghost ship arrive Table Bay, and then disappeared. Second Officer Davies and Third Officer Montserrat, HMS Jubilee, saw the Flying Dutchman. Davis recorded it in the ship’s log.

• 1959: The Straat Magelhaen ship nearly collided with the ghost ship.

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