Posted on 08/25/2006 6:20:48 AM PDT by Marius3188
A £300,000 schooner has been found floating empty in the Mediterranean - echoing the fate of the Marie Celeste over 130 years ago.
The 66ft twin-masted vessel had no name and no other identification markings.
On board there was a half-eaten meal, maps of the Med, piles of clothes and a punctured dinghy.
The boat was found drifting off the Sardinian resort of Punta Volpe.
Strong currents were pushing it towards rocks and coastguards boarded the vessel just in time and towed it to the port of Olbia.
Officials found a plaque with the name Bel Amica but said that initial checks with shipping registers had found no yacht with that name.
A spokesman said: "It gave the impression of being abandoned very quickly. It could be piracy, we just don't know."
The original Marie Celeste, which was on a voyage from New York to Italy, was found empty and drifting off the coast of Portugal in 1872.
Sorry for the caps...cut 'n paste..
I see they left out alien abduction as a possibility..........
Bush's fault
Prayers for the crew, though they have most likely fallen victim to pirates.
I wonder if anyone has started back-tracing the currents from where the boat was found.
Pirates?
What kind of weapons do you need to bring
with you along with your compass?
Shotgun? Bazooka?
Yea, this sounds like grist for a new movie along those lines...something like "Butt Pirates of the Meditteranean"
What if some reef diver is now floating around out there somehwere saying "Hey! Where the hell's my boat?!?"
No name or other ID and no blood anywhere. It's a true mystery.
So boats don't come with a VIN-like ID number for identification purposes?
hnummmmm....more like hump-back whaling...
Sadly, most pirates today have enough heavy arms to overpower anything but a Coast Guard Cutter. In that region, they likely belonged to TROP and may have been operating out of Tripoli or another N.African port, otherwise they would have taken the boat and used it once for a drug smuggling operation.
It doesn't say what punctured the dink, but it would have to be something deliberate, since those things are pretty tough.
Pirates
Barbary PirateS?
They have builder's plates with hull numbers on them, if they're manufactured or custom-built. Something that size will no doubt have a registry somewhere, if only Lloyd's. Horrible writing in the article.
And you're right about the horrible writing :(
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