Flying Dutchman

One superstition has it that any mariner who sees the ghost ship called the “Flying Dutchman” will die within the day.  The tail of the “Flying Dutchman” trying to round the Cape of Good Hope against strong winds and never succeeding, then trying to make Cape Horn and failing there too, has been the most famous of maritime ghost stories for more than 300 years.  The cursed spectral ship sailing back and forth on its endless voyage, it’s ancient white-hair crew crying for help while hauling at her sail, inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write his classic “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” to name but one famous literary work.  The real “Flying Dutchman” is supposed to have set sail in 1660.