Fisah Ketsi

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The Fisah Ketsi was a 70-meter transport vessel with no official owner or home port. It was a small but interesting footnote in naval history and is regarded by some, although not the mainstream nautical community, as a Ghost Ship.

1 Origin
2 Notoriety
3 Aftermath
4 In The News
5 Sources

[edit] Origin

The ship's origin is hard to trace because it did not contain a log book when it was found, nor did it appear in ports' docking rosters. According to Angus Konstam's book Ghost Ships, the medium range tanker was most likely Scandinavian, as “Fisah Ketsi” roughly translates to “Polar Travel” in Nordic dialects. It was a dual diesel engined freight tanker, similar to the Russian Soyuz-class of the 70's, which Konstam also believes is the Fisah Ketsi’s age and type. If that date is correct, then the Fisah Ketsi enjoyed nearly 2 decades of uneventful shipping before it would make its minor mark on nautical history, although records suggest it rarely docked at public ports.

[edit] Notoriety

The tanker became infamous when it was sighted off the coast of Brazil on the 4th April 1990 by a British patrol vessel, HMS Suffolk. Under the control of Cpt. Ted Sugar, the ship was part of Britain's contingent to the UN to help counter drug trafficking between Africa and South America. When first spotted, the Fisah Ketsi was identified as a possible drug boat, which prompted closer examination. No communication came from the tanker, which was on an uneven list and drifting in the tide. It was noted that the Fisah Ketsi was sitting low in the water, as documented in Frank Spaeth’s Mysteries of the Deep. The next day the freighter was boarded by crew from the Suffolk and investigated. They found the ship deserted in terms of crew and equipment. It had been navigating without radio or guidance systems and contained no cargo. Its depth in the tide was due to water it had taken on. A door around 10 feet above sea level was discovered jammed open. It was towed out of shipping lanes by Brazilian tugs and after a formal investigation it was scuttled as an artificial reef in deep water on the 1st June 1990.

[edit] Aftermath

While it made little impact on world news, comparisons can obviously be drawn to the Mary Celeste, although a much more mundane theory is plausible than pirates or mutiny. The age and condition of the boat, neither of which were favourable, lead to the possibility it was left deliberately in the hope it would sink. The lack of cargo, removal of communication equipment and a loading hatch being left open all seem to support this and it is lucky it took on as little water as it did. Frank Spaeth’s feature on the doomed boat does not support this theory though. He claims the boat was being towed to Argentina for scrap when it was abandoned and that why it was left is still unknown. While it is unsubstantiated in other texts, Spaeth says the Rio Santiago shipyard was expecting a “Fisaal Ketsi” for decommissioning on the 10th April 1990, which never arrived. This claim is likely a misunderstanding or simple myth. Efforts to trace the ship’s owners ceased late in 1990 and the reason for the boat’s abandonment remains conjecture.

[edit] In The News

November 2006 saw the Fisah Ketsi briefly mentioned on a Canadian cable show "WaterWorld", opposite numerous other famous ghost ships. The list of history's nautical oddities also included the famous Flying Dutchman and the mysterious case of the Marie Celeste. Though only featured on cable and produced on a reasonably low budget, the show did succeed in reiterating a lot of facts and insights into the mystery. Of note was Angus Konstam's piece, useful in that he shed somewhat new light on the life of the ship, promoting the idea that earlier claims of the ship being abandoned quickly were false and that sinking had been planned.