Sunday: The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste

[bystander]

The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste
Sunday Magazine | 17 Sept 2010

[i][b]New York Times Sunday Magazine[/b] (18 Sept 1910)[/i] ([url=http://www.sundaymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/19100918-3-the.pdf]PDF[/url])

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The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste

The Marie Celeste was a merchant ship found floating in the Atlantic Ocean in December 1872 with nobody on board. The ship was in good shape, had plenty of food and water, and the crew’s personal belongings were still on board. Nobody from the ship was ever heard from again.

The mystery has been written about in several works of both non-fiction and fiction, including a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle which you can read online. It is even the subject of a computer game you can try out in your browser.

This Sunday Magazine article gives one theory for the ship’s disappearance, but if the mystery intrigues you, check out the Wikipedia entry for a lot more information, and the website maryceleste.net.

[neufer]

I thought this pertained to your sister, Celeste, bystander. =>

The Mystery Of The Marie Celeste
Sunday Magazine | 17 Sept 2010

<<The only lifeboat on the Mary Celeste, a yawl located above the main hatch, was also missing.

The most plausible explanations are all based on the barrels of alcohol. Captain Briggs had never hauled such a dangerous cargo before, and did not trust it. Nine of the 1,701 barrels of alcohol in the hold were later discovered to be empty. They had been made of red oak, not white oak as the others. Red oak is more porous and thus more likely to emit vapor. This would have caused a buildup of vapor in the hold. Poorly-secured barrels could rub against each other, and friction between the barrels' steel bands could cause sparks. The possibility of explosion, however remote, might have panicked the crew.

Historian Conrad Byers believed Captain Briggs ordered the hold to be opened, resulting in a violent rush of fumes and steam. Believing his ship was about to explode, he ordered everyone into the lifeboat, failing to properly secure it to the ship with a strong towline. The wind picked up and blew the ship away from them. Those in the lifeboat would either have drowned or died of hunger, thirst and exposure.

A refinement of this theory was proposed in 2005 by German historian Eigel Wiese. At his suggestion, scientists at University College London created a crude reconstruction of the ship's hold to test the theory of the alcohol vapor's ignition. Using butane as the fuel and paper cubes as the barrels, the hold was sealed and the vapor ignited. The force of the explosion blew the hold doors open and shook the scale model, which was about the size of a coffin. Ethanol burns at a relatively low temperature with a flash point of 13°C or 55.4°F. A minimal spark is needed, for example from two metal objects rubbing together. None of the paper cubes was damaged, nor even scorched. This theory may explain the remaining cargo being found intact and the fracture on the ship's rail, possibly by one of the hold doors. Perhaps this fire in the hold would have been violent enough to scare the crew into lowering the boat, but the flames would not have been hot enough to leave burn marks. A frayed rope trailing in the water behind the ship is suggested as evidence that the crew remained attached to the ship, hoping the emergency would pass. The ship was abandoned while under full sail and a storm was recorded shortly thereafter. It is possible that the rope to the lifeboat parted because of the force from the ship under full sail. A small boat in a storm would not have fared as well as the Mary Celeste. This is perhaps the simplest and most convincing explanation that was expounded in a 2008 investigation and television documentary that both featured and satisfied one of the descendants of the original ship's captain.>>

[bystander]

I thought this pertained to your sister, Celeste, bystander.

No, not my sister. Although Celeste is her middle name, Marie is not her first.