The Octavius was a famous ghost ship from the 18th century. According to the story, the three-masted schooner was discovered west of Greenland by the whaler Herald on October 11, 1775. The five-person team who boarded the abandoned ship found all 28 crew members below deck: dead, frozen, and nearly perfectly preserved.

The captain’s body was reportedly still at his table in the cabin, holding a pen (just like in the Schooner Jenny legend), with his captain’s log in front of him. In the cabin, there were also the bodies of a woman, a boy without clothes covered by a blanket, and a sailor holding a tinderbox. The boarding party took only the captain’s log before leaving the ship, because they were afraid to search further.

The last entry in the log was dated November 11, 1762, meaning the ship had been lost in the Arctic for 13 years. Because the log was frozen, it had come loose from its cover, leaving only the first and last few pages intact.

Story

The story's background says the ship Octavius left England for the Orient in 1761 and reached its destination the next year. The captain tried to return home through the dangerous and poorly understood Northwest Passage, but the ship became trapped in sea ice north of Alaska. This event happened after the captain died, so the Octavius completed the Northwest Passage only after his death. The ship was never seen again after it met the Herald, as wind and water currents carried it away during the night. The last known location of the ship while the crew was still alive was at 75°N 160°W, about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of Utqiagvik, Alaska (called "Point Barrow" in 1825). Later, the ship was found near Greenland.

Other similar stories appeared in American newspapers in the late 1820s, describing an unnamed frozen ghost ship in Arctic waters. Later reports gave the ship the name Gloriana.

Uses in popular culture

• This ship and its story may have inspired events in the graphic novel The Arctic Marauder (Le démon des glaces) by Jacques Tardi, published in 1974. The story takes place in 1889, when a passenger ship named L'Anjou travels through the Barents Sea and has a serious accident with another ship called The Iceland Loafer, which is frozen on a large iceberg. When the crew of L'Anjou boards The Iceland Loafer, they find its frozen captain in the cabin, pointing to a specific location on a naval map (where they actually are). Soon after, L'Anjou is destroyed, leaving its crew stranded on a ghost ship.

• The Octavius appears in a naval mission in the video game Assassin's Creed III. In the game, the main character, Connor Kenway, searches for clues about the location of Captain Kidd’s lost treasure.

• The Octavius is the subject of the song Octavius by the Japanese visual kei band Zera.