Carroll A. Deering – The Ghost Ship

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Carroll A. Deering

Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted commercial schooner.  The schooner was built in Bath, Maine in the year 1919 by G.G. Deering Company.

The Deering is one of the most written-about maritime mysteries in history, with claims that it was a victim of the Bermuda Triangle, although the evidence points towards a mutiny or possibly piracy.

On January 31, 1921, the Deering was sighted run aground on Diamond Shoals, an area off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, that has long been notorious as a common site of shipwrecks.  Rescue ships were unable to approach the vessel owing to bad weather.

The ship was not boarded until February 4, and it became clear that the ship had been completely abandoned.  The ship’s log and navigation equipment were gone, the crew’s personal effects and the ship’s two lifeboats were gone as well.  In the vessel’s galley it appeared that certain foodstuffs were being prepared for the next day’s meal at the time of the abandonment.

The Coast Guard vessel Manning attempted to salvage the Deering, but found this impossible.  The vessel was scuttled, using dynamite, on March 4 to prevent her from becoming a danger to other vessels.

The U.S. government launched an extensive investigation into the disappearance of the crew of the Deering.  The investigation was closed in late 1922 without an official finding on the incident.  There were a number of popular theories about the incident.  It seemed at first that an external force was responsible for the disappearance of the crew.

Source: Wikipedia