SEA folklore is full of tales of ghost ships and nautical nightmares. The Flying Dutchman is the most famous and widely reported, but thousands more entertain sailors and landlubbers, from the Mary Celeste to the Cyclops and the Joyita. Since mankind first learned to cross water, there have been adventures and mysteries at sea.
One might think that in this modern age of GPS, radar, and advanced navionics, there was little room left for a phantom. Surely, science has chased away our ghosts of the sea. Not so fast. In 2018 a new phantom emerged, just as chilling as the Dutchman or Mary Celeste.
As local fishermen plied their trade and commented on how thick the fog was, a menacing shadow loomed upon them. They were not certain of its identity at first, especially since the trade papers said no large cargo ships would be in the area that day. As it crept stealthily toward them, they grew certain that it was a ship and just as certain it was not under command. The low, throbbing rumble of engines could not be heard, and she did not make headway necessarily, more like she drifted without a heading.
As the vessel emerged from the fog bank, it grew clear that this ship was an orphan. But who was she? Overcoming their own reluctance, the fishermen moved around her for a closer look. On the transom they read a name, Sam Ratulangi PB 1600. They hailed the vessel but got no response. Was no one on board? Where did she come from? How did she end up on this beach?
Local authorities searched the database for a ship by that name, and they found one matching its description. The Ratulangi 1600 was built in 2001 and was last seen off Taiwan in 2009. No one had seen her in nine years and everyone assumed she was lost at sea. The owner, a Malaysian businessman, surrendered claim to her years ago and she was stricken from ship’s registers.
Suddenly, after nine years, she was very real, very large, and thousands of miles from where she had last been seen. Did she really drift from Taiwan, south past the China coast and Vietnam, past Southeast Asia and through the Malacca Straits, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world? Or even more unbelievable, did she skirt around the island of Java, past Australia, and into the Indian Ocean by herself? Even if she had help, who moved her, why, and how did no one see her? She is as long as two football fields.
No one claimed her, so the navy of Bangladesh did some investigating. The countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh account for 90% of the world’s ship breaking business. Each derelict cargo ship can represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in scrap metal and other salvageable parts and equipment. Authorities suspected that someone was in the process of towing the Ratulangi 1600 to a breaking yard, so they searched the seas for a tow boat large enough to handle a ship of that size. Sure enough, they found one.
When the crew of the tow boat was interviewed, they were very vague about where they acquired the ship, but they admitted that they were towing the vessel to a breaking yard when foul weather forced them to cut her loose, as they had neither the manpower nor the horsepower to deal with such a large haul in rough seas. They assumed she was lost and left the area, but of course she did not sink. She made her way to Bangladesh without their help.
The Sam Ratulangi PB 1600 has since been broken apart and turned into scrap, one more mystery of the seas has been solved. Now, about the Flying Dutchman…
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for 20 years. He currently resides on the mainland U.S.
BC Cook
