The Disaster That Struck The Ryou-Un Maru
Wikimedia CommonsThe Ryou-Un Maru, a Japanese fishing vessel pushed 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 or other 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.
The Ryou-Un Maru was created around 1982 for a Hokkaido-based fishing company. It served for decades as a shrimping boat before it became too old to use. The company retired it to Honshu and put it up for sale before the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan.
The disaster cast the vessel out into the Pacific, where it drifted for months. However, its owners strongly believed that it had sank during the disaster, and so the boat’s registration was canceled.
But then, about a year later, the unmanned vessel 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 ship.
Ultimately, the U.S. Coast Guard decided to sink the ghost ship to avoid having it run aground or cause a navigational hazard.
The Ryou-Un Maru now rests on the seafloor of the Gulf of Alaska.
