The Disaster That Struck The Ryou-Un Maru
Wikimedia CommonsThe Ryou-Un Maru, a Japanese fishing vessel sent out to sea by a tsunami in 2011.
The story of the Ryou-Un Maru is unlike those of other ghost ships. It was not carrying crew members and passengers at the time of its demise. Instead, it was an empty fishing boat pushed out to sea by the powerful earthquake and tsunami that hit northeast Japan in March 2011.
Ryou-Un Maru was created around 1982 for a Hokkaido-based fishing company. It served for decades as a shrimping boat before becoming too old for use. The company eventually retired it to Honshu and put it up for sale before the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan.
The disaster broke the vessel free and cast it out into the Pacific, where it drifted for months. Meanwhile, its owners figured it had sank in the disaster, and the boat’s registration was canceled.
But then, about a year later, the ghost ship was spotted by the Canadian Coast Guard. By April 2012, Ryou-Un Maru had entered U.S. waters near Alaska. The U.S. Coast Guard soon began tracking the unmanned vessel with a tracking buoy.
Ultimately, the U.S. Coast Guard decided to sink the ghost ship to avoid having her run aground or cause a navigational hazard.
The Ryou-Un Maru now rests 6,000 feet under the waters of the Gulf of Alaska.
