Ghost Ships

US Coast Guard photo.

When the Ryō Un Maru was sunk off the coast of Alaska last week, many news reports referred to her as a “ghost ship.” The 150-ton squid-fishing vessel was bound for the scrap yard when the March 2011 earthquake hit Japan, resulting in a tsunami that swept the Ryō Un Maru and millions of tons of other ships and debris into the Pacific. But was Ryō Un Maru really a “ghost ship,” or is that just a colorful term the media glommed on to?

Ghost ship has three different but related meanings:

• A vessel that is haunted or is itself ghostly. The most famous example of this is the legendary Flying Dutchman.
• A vessel drifting but with no crew. The most famous example of this is the Mary Celeste, an American brigantine found under sail off Portugal in December 1872 with all her crew and passengers and one life boat missing, but otherwise completely intact. More recently, the Tai Ching 21, a Taiwanese fishing vessel with a crew of 29, was found floating off Kiribati in November 2008. There had been a fire, and several lifeboats and rafts were missing, but there was no sign of the crew.
• A vessel decommissioned but not yet scrapped. The most notorious example of this may be the French aircraft carrier Georges Clemenceau, decommissioned in 1997 but not dismantled until 2010 due to environmental concerns.

The Ryō Un Maru probably falls into this last category. She might also be referred to as a derelict, which the Dictionary of Maritime and Transportation Terms defines as “an abandoned vessel at sea.” Ryō Un Maru might also be referred to as flotsam, the floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo (distinguished from jetsam, which is intentionally abandoned or discharged equipment or cargo).

The Ryō Un Maru’s origins and history are known, but this is not always true for “ghost ships.” In 2006, the Jian Seng, a tanker of unknown origin, drifted into Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria. Except for a cargo hold full of rice, the vessel had been stripped of anything valuable, Some broken towing lines indicated the Jian Seng may have been under tow at the time she was lost, but no one ever stepped forward to claim her. The Australian government sank her later that year.

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