Here are some recent documentations of my favourite ship, the Flying Dutchman.

• 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.

"On 11 July 1881, the Royal Navy ship, the Bacchante was rounding the tip of Africa, when they were confronted with the sight of The Flying Dutchman. The midshipman, a prince who later became King George V, recorded that the lookout man and the officer of the watch had seen the Flying Dutchman and he used these words to describe the ship:


"A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief


It's pity that the lookout saw the Flying Dutchman, for soon after on the same trip, he accidentally fell from a mast and died. Fortunately for the English royal family, the young midshipman survived the curse."