Rating: 
Summary: Truth or Theory, You Be the Judge!
Review: "Ghost ship" is an old mariner's term for any vessel found sailing without a crew. Usually, there is an explanation for the disappearance of a ships's crew, either from mutiny or piracy; on occasion, crews were kidnapped and forced to work on other ships as slaves. However, none of these are appropriate for the fate of those aboard the MARY CELESTE prior to December 4, 1872.
Likened to the doomed skeletal ship in the classic poetic verse of Samuel Taylor Colelridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' this abandoned vessel appeared 'out of nowhere' 400 miles from the coast of Portugal on that date, to go down in infamy as being a 'ghost ship.' Other nautical anomalies included the FLYING DUTCHMAN, apparition off Africa's Cape of Good Hope in the 1580s, a legend which baffled historians, and Edgar Allan Poe's "Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym', both with supernatural connotations.
One hundred thirty years after the sailing, this author found his 'theme' as he read old letters preserved in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MASS. He'd visited six or more states doing his research in museums, libraries, newspapers, the National Archives, even Nova Scotia.
The MARY CELESTE was a small merchant ship in the Fall of 1872 and had only four seamen, first and second mates, cook, and the Captain (also his wife and daughter) on board. The son, Arthur, was left behind in school. Seems like a small crew but turned out to be rather large to all fit in a small lifeboat -- if Mr. Hicks' theory is true.
Built by Joshua Dewis as AMAZON, the name was later changed to the MARY CELESTE. Robert McLellan was Amazon's first captain. Gilman C. Parker was the final captain of the Mary Celeste. When discovered floating adrift, there was no trace of a struggle, and yet the decorative sword in the captain's cabin had a reddish stain on its blade. Strange.
The last entry in the left-behind logbook was made ten days before and placed the ship more than 300 miles west of the spot in the North Atlantic where seaman John Johnson on board the Nova Scotia freighter, DEI GRATIA, discovered an empty vessel, bobbling erratically in the ocean. The crew had vanished without a clue as to the tragedy onboard, a puzzle as to how it could have traveled so far on its own.
Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, was the second of four sons and two daughters born to Nathan, patriarch of a notorious seafaring family, and Sophia Cobb Briggs. Others of the sons had suffered similar fates in their ocean voyages. Born in 1835, he would have been 37 years old at the time of his disappearance and the father of two children, one on board with her mother, Sarah Elizabeth. Little Sophia Matilda, 2 years old, named after her grandmother, Sophia Cobb, was lost. The form of a sleeping child was imprinted in the wet mattress of one bunk.
No one could figure where the crew had gone, or why. It's as if they had been swallowed by Jonah's Whale. Letters home showed Briggs' despair with the profession his family had fostered, and he longed to give up sailing. Personal belongings (even pipes) were left behind like perhaps they'd decided to explore an island or go for a swim. They clearly expected to come back!
Their foul-weather gear which would have been worn during a storm was still there, and other peculiar things, such as the opened barrels of alcohol. Could the crew have gotten drunk and killed the family? Hardly. Thus, a mystery was born. Some said that there was an abandoned cat on board. Lord, have mercy. There was evidence that 450 gallons (nine barrels) of alcohol had burst open and flooded the ships's bilge. This is surmised to be a type of combustible industrial chemical for use as fuel or solvents or methanol, for medical uses. It's 94% pure leads to that conclusion (a whisky 90% has only 45% alcohol by volume). Such a thing would have caused serious physiological effects on the crew: light-headedness, nausea, hallucinations, even strong odors like ammonia to affect the senses.
This 'mystery' evokes the sailors' most primordial fears of the sea, of vanishing 'without a trace' beneath the turbulent waves. The old proverb that the sea never gives up its secrets may be proven wrong with this book. They left New York sailing for Italy to deliver this load of alcohol. This was a small cargo ship (see the good likeness on the cover of the book), owned by a major N. Y. shipping company, just another anonymous brigantine which became sensationalized by newspapers in America and Europe in 'tabloid-fashion.'
It was a 3,000 mile trek from N. Y. Harbor off Staten Island to Europe. Bad weather, storms and savage gales, with winds of 40 mph near the Azores, prevailed that November, especially during the two weeks Mary Celeste was at sea. When found, all the hatches, skylight, etc. had been left open, a ship left to 'air out.' The rope they used as a towline had broken, leaving the nine adults and one child in a 20-foot lifeboat at the mercy of God and the elements. Theory is that the old rope "snapped" during a fierce storm all described in 'Without A Soul" in this book. It began its bizarre journey into infamy and the occult on a desolate beach in Nova Scotia more than 140 years ago.
Arthur Conan Doyle, who later penned the Sherlock Holmes stories, wrote about the Mary Celeste riddle (J. Habakuk Jephson) in such detail (he even mentioned the untouched lifeboats and a spool of thread balanced on a table -- pure fiction) that it sparked investigations by the U.S. and British governments.
Other books have been written about this subject: THE SAGA OF THE MARY CELESTE: AN ILL-FATED MYSTERY SHIP by Stanley T. Spicer, THE SHADOW OF THE MARY CELESTE by Richard Rees, and LOST AT SEA by A. A. Hoehling, all in the 1990s. Numerous magazine articles in the eighties and other treaties back to the fifties. Books published in the 1920s and 1940s also proliferated and expanded on the mystery, odyssey, hoax, shadow, ad infinitum.
This author recommends, as valuable resources, these three: MARY CELESTE, written by an executive of the ship's insurance company in 1942, and MYSTERY SHIP -- both contain accounts from sources which no longer exist, he says. Also, IN THE WAKE OF THE MARY CELESTE (1944) by James Franklin Briggs, which was published by the Old Dartsmouth Historical Society; it is packed with many 'gems' otherwise unpublished. He says that 90% of newspaper accounts of this mystery are good only for documenting the growth of a 'legend' -- most of them inaccurate.
Oliver Cobb, cousin of the captain (younger by 32 years), seemed obsessed and haunted by what had happened so that he wrote a 'memoir' of this doomed family which had a curse on it. ROSE COTTAGE is his account as he was there when the last of these seafaring bothers disappeared. Could be, they all hated the sea.
Clive Cussler speculated on the Mary Celeste in THE SEA HUNTERS (1996) and THE SEA HUNTERS II (2002). His crew from the National Underwater and Marine Agency located the final resing place (the wreck) off a coral reef in Haiti (where voodoo is the dominant religion) in 2001.
Brian Hicks is a reporter for THE POST and COURIER in Charleston, SC. He researched and co-authored a book about the Confederate submarine, RAISING THE HUNTLEY. Could this finally be the 'truth' or just another (albeit well documented) 'theory'? How will we ever know?
Rating:
Summary: Plausable, for sure
Review: As and engineer and a sailor, I was skeptical that the author could convince me that he could explain the mystery after all the attempts to do so by so many. The conclusion is reasonable and will be discussed no further for fear of messing with the mystery in front of possible readers. By the way, the discrepancy between the plans, page 49 and the model, page 180, jumps out in the placement of the foremast (through or forward of the cabin) and the gaff rig on the mizzen in the model, but not on the plans or the picture on page 160. Worth reading
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Story Stretched Out
Review: Brian Hicks does a satisfying job in Ghost Ship in presenting all angles of the mystery surrounding the Mary Celeste and her missing crew. Particularly interesting is the author's examination of the how this true tale of terror morphed into an almost legendary event as various myths began to attach themselves to an historical occurence, starting with a story by Arthur Conan Doyle. The ship's name even changed from Mary Celeste into Marie Celeste in common usage as if in tribute to its own new iconic status. The book, at times, feels a little padded as the author veers into somewhat related spheres (such as the Bermuda Triangle). The author, though, does provide a solution that seems to answer many of the unanswered questions and seems far more reasonable than anything put forward previously. A nice summer beach read as one looks out at the ocean.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Story Stretched Out
Review: Brian Hicks does a satisfying job in Ghost Ship in presenting all angles of the mystery surrounding the Mary Celeste and her missing crew. Particularly interesting is the author's examination of the how this true tale of terror morphed into an almost legendary event as various myths began to attach themselves to an historical occurence, starting with a story by Arthur Conan Doyle. The ship's name even changed from Mary Celeste into Marie Celeste in common usage as if in tribute to its own new iconic status. The book, at times, feels a little padded as the author veers into somewhat related spheres (such as the Bermuda Triangle). The author, though, does provide a solution that seems to answer many of the unanswered questions and seems far more reasonable than anything put forward previously. A nice summer beach read as one looks out at the ocean.
Rating:
Summary: Fun reading, but be prepared for some wading
Review: Ghost Ship is the detailed history of the Mary Celeste, a ship found abandoned in the late 1800s. It's considered one of history's greatest maritime mysteries, since nothing was found out of order on the ship. All the foul weather gear was intact, all the crew's belongings were still in their proper places - in other words, there wasn't the slightest hint of foul weather or piracy. The crew had simply vanished with no mention of anything out of the ordinary in the captain's log. Brian Hicks first gives a broad overview of the ship's bizarre past, and then launches into one of the most detailed accounts of anything I've ever read on any topic. He begins with the ship's construction, including not only the man who built it but a brief history of the town he lived in and the economic impact it had on his community. From here he traces the Mary Celeste, then known as the Amazon, through its first captain's strange death while on his first sailing, up to its second captain, Benjamin Briggs. At this point the Briggs family history is given - everything you could possibly want to know about the Briggs' is included here. From the patriarch, Nathan Briggs and his marriage into the Cobb family, to the birth of every Briggs child and each of their own marriages and eventual deaths at sea, Hicks covers minutia at an almost unparalleled depth. It's at this point that I got slightly annoyed with the book. Since the Mary Celeste is shrouded in mystery, Hicks adopts sort of a "well this is what we *do* know" attitude, and every detail - and I mean every detail - that we actually know of from diaries and newspapers is included in his early chapters. For the next couple hundred pages this continues, as the history of the Mary Celeste's actual discovery is chronicled, the trial that ensued, and eventually the hoaxes and theories that sprung up, mostly after Conan Doyle's fictional account appeared in Cornhill Magazine. At times the reading is very slow and dense and Hicks refuses to give any hints of what he proposes actually happened, although you know it's coming. While Hicks effectively utilizes the technique of building suspense, he does it to an almost annoying level. Ultimately the excruciating detail that fills this book isn't really enough to satisfy until the anti-climactic ending, where Hicks almost sheepishly reveals his own theory of what happens. With all the tension he tries to create throughout the earlier chapters, I found it surprising that I was halfway through his own explanation before I realized that's what it was. Having said that, his explanation is a pretty good one. It's by far the most plausible of anything previously put forth, and doesn't leave many holes. The major problems with his idea are that of industrial alcohol transportation safety guidelines. One, it's hard to believe that the shipping companies wouldn't have been aware of the dangers of transporting dangerous substances (and thus taken more precautions against leakage), and two, if they didn't regularly take these precautions it seems like what Hicks suggests as his solution would've happened much more frequently. Ghost Ship is ultimately a quick and fun read. I recommend it, but be prepared to wade through some dense sections. And after a few days of digesting it, you might come to realize that while the best solution yet, Hicks' ideas are ultimately just one more offering in the dozens of theories already out there.
Rating: 
Summary: The mystery is better left unsolved
Review: Hicks dives into one of the most famous historical mysteries of all times, and his research is impressive. The amount of detail is at time a litle overwhelming, but I did get a better idea of the actual facts of the case than I have ever run across before. Hicks also does a good job at weeding out the legendary (and untrue) facts that have grown around the story (there was no blood, no half-eaten still hot meals), and seem to be added upon by writers who never bothered to go back to the original documents.
The details, at times, can be a little much. But there is always the haunting and tantalizing image of the empty ship, floating off the Azores, belongings hanging on their pegs, ship's log devoid of any mention of trouble, (seemingly) no tow line. The mystery will pull you through the book, even if you start to feel bogged down.
Now, Hicks does present a solution to the mystery. It fits the facts, and it certainly seems plausible. So why is the solution presented so disappointing? Maybe that's the problem with human nature. As the writer John Marr once said about the Wallace case, sometimes the unsolved mystery is more thrilling, more intriguing, more FUN than the often mundane solution that explains it. After all, my mind has conjured up the wildest scenarios to answer the riddle. And even though I KNOW that aliens or space-time vortices are not responsible, the mundane, but often true, can't measure up.
More's the pity.
Rating:
Summary: No aliens!? Pity.
Review: Once exposed to a heady mixture of Chariot of the Gods, In Search Of and every cryptozoology book the Franklin Public Library could provide, I've been twisted - so when Ghost Ship showed up at my local library, I picked it up expecting, at the very least, a cameo from a giant squid. Instead Ghost Ship is a well researched book that leaves readers with a plausible explanation of what did happen to the fabled mysterious Mary Celeste.
It's a tough job for author Hicks. He has to satisfy maritime buffs at the same time he's working to capture guys like me who don't know a yardarm from a reefed sail and who are in it solely for the spooky factor. If you're like me, go directly to Part II, wherein the author reveals his theory (and brings in UFOs and the Bermuda triangle - strictly to debunk them). Part I sets up the hardworking maritime life - an interesting topic, but one that a book like Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex plumbs more successfully.
Rating: 
Summary: A fascinating modern probe
Review: Readers seeking a gripping true sea mystery will already know of the legend of the Mary Celeste, found drifting with crew missing in 1872: Brian Hicks tackles this 130-year old mystery in Ghost Ship : The Mysterious True Story Of The Mary Celeste And Her Missing Crew, re-creating events leading up to the disappearance and revealing the aftermath of suspicion and intrigue which followed a puzzling investigation after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sensationalized the event in fiction. A fascinating modern probe of all the facets of an old unsolved mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Ghost Ship
Review: The research was a A+ job. I was disapointed though when they hardly researched the remains of the wreckage when found. I was really hoping to hear more detail on what the divers seen and did. Maybe some unwater photographs of the wreck.
Rating:
Summary: Quick and engaging read, but a guess disguised as fact
Review: This is a good book to read is you are looking for something like and filled with little mysteries. As I read it I kept wondering if it is a better idea for a long magazine article than a book. The history he gives is thorough and interesting, but runs a little to the dry when the author cannot find a way to hide his contempt for one person or another.
As for his opinion as to what happened on the Mary Celeste, it is believable, but not quite the slam dunk he tries to make it. This is the biggest problem with the book. Mr. Hicks seems to end the whole tale with a roll of the eyes and a great big "Duh" to everyone else who has ever looked into the mystery. Sorry Brian, but it does not work that way. While your idea makes sense, it is far from being the be-all and end-all on this mystery. Do I think UFO's, Atlantis, or the Bermudes Triangle are the culprit? No, but in the end no one knows what happened. Not even you.
And why is Clive Cussler's name dropped? There is no reason for it, since he does not appear in the book.
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