The Mysterious “Ghost Ship” Carroll A. Deering
In the foggy dawn of January 31, 1921, surfman C. P. Brady of the Coast Guard’s Cape Hatteras Station Number 183 was scanning the horizon with the station’s prized, powerful telescope. When there was a break in the morning mist, he spotted a magnificent, five-masted wooden ship with sails still set. It had run aground on Diamond Shoals. Although the atmosphere made the ship appear spectral, Brady knew that he was looking at a shipwreck and he leaped into action. The seas were so rough, however, that neither the surfmen nor the Coast Guard cutters were able to reach the vessel for four days.
Two days before the discovery of the wreck, the Cape Lookout Lighthouse keeper reported seeing the commercial schooner Carroll A. Deering, which was returning to Newport News from a trip to Brazil. Built in 1919 by the G. G. Deering Company in Bath, Maine, the ship was among the last wooden schooners built before their eclipse by iron shipbuilding. A Deering crew member yelled to the lighthouse keeper that the ship had lost its anchors and it continued sailing on. In the days after the wreck was discovered, the cutter Seminole passed right by the Deering. The crew did not stop because they believed it to be a ship under way since it sails were set. The majestic vessel had become a ghost ship.
When the seas calmed and the Coast Guard was able to reach the ship, it was clear the vessel had been abandoned — the crew and their navigational equipment, belongings, documents, and lifeboats were all gone, but dinner was on the stove as though the crew was waiting to be fed. A few months later, the ghost ship was dynamited so it wouldn’t be a hazard to mariners in the area.
The mysterious circumstances of the wreck became the subject of an investigation which included a visit to Dare County by the FBI. Various explanations for the wreck surfaced, including pirates, mutiny, and the consequences of the ship having traveled through the Bermuda Triangle. The ghost ship Carroll A. Deering remains a mystery.
