The Mary Celeste

Boat-sinking mystery to be remembered

The daughter of an Invercargill man who mysteriously vanished in the South Pacific in 1955 says she is deeply honoured a new memorial will commemorate him.

Makarewa-born pharmacist Bert Hodgkinson was one of 25 people on the MV Joyita when it left Apia, Samoa, on October 3, 1955, bound for Tokelau.

The voyage should have taken 48 hours, but the ship failed to arrive and was found 38 days later, abandoned and listing, north of Fiji.

It became known as the "Mary Celeste of the South Pacific", after another ship whose crew mysteriously disappeared in 1872.

Former police officer Luther Toloa and his Tokelauan family want to put together a memorial for those who died.

He contacted Mr Hodgkinson's daughter Iris Thomas, who now lives in Oamaru.

"I was overwhelmed that Luther Toloa and his extended family had planned this memorial," Mrs Thomas said.

"(I) am deeply honoured that after all these years of being treated with suspicion and dismissal, somebody was willing to help to positively remember the people who lost their lives on the Joyita."

"New Zealand wanted to forget the Joyita, but the extended families and friends never forgot and still wonder what happened to their loved ones."

A former manager of the UFS Pharmacy in Invercargill and Air Force Medical Corps officer, Mr Hodgkinson was working in Samoa as pharmacist-in-charge at Apia hospital, with responsibility for outlying islands such as Tokelau.

"(He was) quietly spoken and very kind," Mrs Thomas said.

"Very conscientious in his work and very determined."

She was on the island of Savai'i when her father left for Tokelau on board the Joyita.

"I last spoke to my father on October 2 in Apia," she said. "He was sorry he could not come to Savai'i with us because he was to be sent on the Joyita with urgent medical supplies."

When the ship failed to arrive, the Hodgkinson family assumed it had engine trouble.

"But as days passed and the aircraft couldn't find (the ship) we realised something serious had happened ... we came to accept the fact they may not return."

The mystery of what happened to the Joyita's crew has never been resolved.

Several books and countless newspaper articles have been written, some claiming to have solved the mystery, but no memorial exists in Samoa, Tokelau or New Zealand.

When Mr Toloa discovered this, he decided to do something about it.

Why was the Mary Celeste found abandoned in mid-ocean?

Just short of a month later after leaving port, on December 4, 1872 (some reports give December 5, owing to a lack of standard time zones in the 19th century), at approximately 13:00, the helmsman of the Dei Gratia, John Johnson, sighted a ship about five miles off their port bow through his spyglass. The position of the Dei Gratia was approximately 38°20′N 17°15′W / 38.333°N 17.25°W / 38.333; -17.25 Coordinates: 38°20′N 17°15′W / 38.333°N 17.25°W / 38.333; -17.25, some 600 miles west of Portugal. Johnson's keen, experienced eyes detected almost at once that there was something strangely wrong with the other vessel. She was yawing slightly, and her sails did not look right, being slightly torn. Johnson alerted his second officer, John Wright, who looked and had the same feelings about her. They informed the captain. As they moved closer, they saw the ship was the Mary Celeste. Captain Morehouse wondered why the Mary Celeste had not already reached Italy, as she had a head start on his own ship. According to the account given by the crew of the Dei Gratia, they approached to 400 yards from the Mary Celeste and cautiously observed her for two hours. She was under sail, yet sailing erratically on a starboard tack, and slowly heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. They concluded she was drifting after seeing no one at the helm or even on deck, though the ship was flying no distress signal. Oliver Deveau, chief mate of the Dei Gratia, boarded the Mary Celeste. He reported he did not find anyone on board, and said that "the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess". There was only one operational pump, two apparently having been disassembled, with a lot of water between decks and three and a half feet (1.1 m) of water in the hold. However, the ship was not sinking and was still seaworthy. All of the ship's papers were missing, except for the captain's logbook. The forehatch and the lazarette were both open, although the main hatch was sealed. The ship's clock was not functioning, and the compass was destroyed; the sextant and marine chronometer were missing. The only lifeboat on the Mary Celeste, a yawl located above the main hatch, was also missing. The peak halyard, used to hoist the main sail, had disappeared. A rope, perhaps the peak halyard, was found tied to the ship very strongly and the other end, very frayed, was trailing in the water behind the ship. 24 July.--There seems some doom over this ship.

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