The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship said to be unable to reach any port and doomed to sail the seas forever. Stories and legends about the ship likely began during the 17th century, a time when the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and Dutch maritime power were strong. The oldest surviving version of the legend dates to the late 18th century. According to the story, if another ship calls out to the Flying Dutchman, its crew might attempt to send messages to people on land or to those who have died long ago. Sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries described the ship as glowing with a ghostly light. In ocean stories, seeing this phantom ship is considered a sign of bad things to come. Many people believed the Flying Dutchman was a 17th-century cargo ship called a fluyt.
Origins
The first printed mention of the ship appears in Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790) by John MacDonald.
The next written reference is in Chapter VI of A Voyage to Botany Bay (1795), also called A Voyage to New South Wales, written by George Barrington (1755–1804).
A later reference introduces the idea of punishment for a crime in Scenes of Infancy (Edinburgh, 1803) by John Leyden (1775–1811).
Thomas Moore (1779–1852) describes the ship in the north Atlantic in his poem Written on passing Dead-man's Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Late in the evening, September 1804. He writes: "Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark / Her sails are full, though the wind is still, / And there blows not a breath her sails to fill." A note explains that these lines were inspired by a sailor superstition about a ghost ship called "the flying Dutchman."
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), a friend of John Leyden, was the first to call the ship a pirate vessel. In the notes to Rokeby (first published in 1812), Scott wrote that the ship was originally a wealthy vessel where murder and piracy occurred. He also said sailors believe the ship’s appearance is the worst omen. Scott noted that Leyden shared a similar story, but Leyden described the crime as the ship being the first to transport enslaved people from Africa.
Some sources say the 17th-century Dutch captain Bernard Fokke inspired the ghost ship’s captain. Fokke was famous for fast trips from the Netherlands to Java and was rumored to have a connection to the Devil. The first story about the legend was printed in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in May 1821, setting the scene at the Cape of Good Hope. This story names the captain as Hendrick van der Decken and includes details later expanded by other writers, such as letters meant for long-dead people that bring misfortune if accepted, and the captain’s vow to round the Cape of Good Hope no matter how long it takes.
Reported sightings
Many sightings have been reported or claimed during the 19th and 20th centuries. One famous sighting was made by Prince George of Wales, who later became King George V. During his late teenage years in 1880, he traveled on a three-year trip with his older brother, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, and their tutor, John Neill Dalton. After the rudder of their original ship, the 4,000-tonne corvette HMS Bacchante, was repaired, they temporarily moved to the HMS Inconstant. A log book from this time, though unclear which prince wrote it due to later editing, records an entry from the early morning of July 11, 1881, near the coast of Australia.
Nicholas Monsarrat, the author of The Cruel Sea, described this event in his unfinished final book, Master Mariner. This book was partly inspired by the story and the legend of the Wandering Jew. Monsarrat lived and worked in South Africa after the war.
Explanations as an optical illusion
The most likely explanation is a type of mirage called a superior mirage or Fata Morgana that can be seen at sea. Another optical effect, called looming, happens when light bends as it moves through areas with different refractive indices. This can cause a ship that is just beyond the horizon to look as if it is floating in the air.
Adaptations
In 1797–98, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a poem called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which includes a story about a ghost ship. This story might have been influenced by the legend of the Flying Dutchman.
One of the first short stories about the Flying Dutchman was titled Vanderdecken's Message Home; or, the Tenacity of Natural Affection. It was published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1821.
In 1867, John Boyle O'Reilly wrote a poem titled The Flying Dutchman. It first appeared in The Wild Goose, a handwritten newspaper made by Fenian convicts traveling to Western Australia.
Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff wrote several poems about the Flying Dutchman, especially in his 1928 collection Eldorado.
In 1951, Ward Moore wrote a story titled Flying Dutchman. In this story, the Flying Dutchman is used as a metaphor for an automatic bomber that continues to fly over a destroyed Earth after a nuclear war.
British author Brian Jacques wrote a trilogy of fantasy novels about two members of the Flying Dutchman’s crew: a boy and his dog. An angel gives them a task to help people in need. The first book was Castaways of the Flying Dutchman (2001), the second was The Angel's Command (2003), and the third was Voyage of Slaves (2006).
Tom Holt wrote a comic fantasy called Flying Dutch, which is a version of the Flying Dutchman story. In this version, the Dutchman is not a ghost ship but is crewed by immortals who can only go to land once every seven years when the smell from their elixir of life fades.
The story was adapted into an English melodrama titled The Flying Dutchman; or the Phantom Ship: A Drama, in Three Acts (1826) by Edward Fitzball, with music by George Rodwell. A 48-page version published around 1829 credited Blackwood’s Magazine as the source.
In 1843, Richard Wagner wrote an opera titled The Flying Dutchman. It was based on a part of Heinrich Heine’s satirical novel The Memoirs of Mister von Schnabelewopski (1833). Heine had first mentioned the legend in his work Reisebilder: Die Nordsee (1826), which repeated details from Blackwood’s Magazine about a ghost ship seen in a storm. In 1833, Heine added new elements, such as the possibility of salvation through a woman’s devotion and the chance to go ashore every seven years to find a faithful wife. Heine’s story was not based on Fitzball’s play, as it had already ended before Heine arrived in London. Wagner’s opera was originally set off the coast of Scotland but was later moved to another part of the North Sea.
In 1842, Pierre-Louis Dietsch composed an opera titled Le vaisseau fantôme, ou Le maudit des mers (The Phantom Ship, or The Accursed of the Sea). It was first performed at the Paris Opera. The story was inspired by Walter Scott’s The Pirate and Frederick Marryat’s The Phantom Ship, though Wagner claimed it was based on his own opera, which he had sold to the Opera. Wagner’s claim is often repeated, but the similarity between the two operas is small.
In 1964, Amiri Baraka wrote a short play titled Dutchman, which used the legend as a symbol of being trapped.
The Flying Dutchman has been painted by Albert Ryder, whose work is now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and by Howard Pyle, whose painting is displayed at the Delaware Art Museum.
In the 1956 TV show The Buccaneers, Season 1, Episode 22, a ghost ship called the Dutchman appears. The ship was once used by pirates to steal cargo from other ships. The crew is eventually stopped by Dan Tempest and his team.
In the 1959 Twilight Zone episode Judgment Night, a World War II U-boat captain is cursed to relive the moment he sank an Allied ship. Two other Twilight Zone episodes, The Arrival and Death Ship, also mention the legend. The Flying Dutchman also appears in Cave of the Dead, a 1967 episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
In the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon Return of the Flying Dutchman, the ship appears as an illusion created by Mysterio.
In the 1976 Land of the Lost episode Flying Dutchman, the ship is captained by Ruben Van de Meer, who tries to take Holly with him on his endless journey.
The Flying Dutchman appears as a ghostly pirate in the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants.
In the anime/manga series One Piece, the Flying Dutchman is an undersea pirate ship led by Vander Decken and his descendants. It is known as a ghost ship because of its damaged appearance.
In 1959, Carl Barks wrote a comic story where Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and his nephews meet the Flying Dutchman. Barks explains that the ship is an optical illusion.
In Journey Into Mystery #56 (January 1960), a story titled I Spent a Night in the Haunted Lighthouse (drawn by Joe Sinnott) describes a tourist who sees a ghostly ship and pirates in an abandoned lighthouse during a storm. The next day, he finds a life preserver from the Flying Dutchman.
In Silver Surfer #8–9 (September/October 1969), a retelling of the Flying Dutchman legend appears. Here, the ship’s captain, named Joost van Straaten, receives the name “Flying Dutchman” instead of the ship.
The story was dramatized in the 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, starring James Mason and Ava Gardner. In this version, the Flying Dutchman is a man, not a ship. The film takes place in Spain in 1930, and the Dutchman is cursed to search for a woman who will love him enough to die for him. He finds her in Pandora, played by Gardner.
The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise includes a ship named the Flying Dutchman, first seen in Dead Man's Chest (2006) and At World's End (2007). It is captained by Dav