The S/V Fantome was a 679-ton windjammer owned by Windjammer Barefoot Cruises in Miami, Florida. Completed in 1927 by the Duke of Westminster, the ship was purchased by Windjammer in 1969, and became flagship of the fleet. During her twenty-nine years of service in this regard, Fantome offered cruises in the Caribbean and the Bay of Honduras. She was lost in October, 1998, during Hurricane Mitch.
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Originally ordered for the Italian navy but before completion was purchased by the Duke of Westminster, who finished her as a yacht (launched in 1927). Westminster used her only a few years before she changed hands twice in short order. Ultimately she was acquired by Irishman A. E. Guinness, heir to the brewing fortune that bore his family’s name.
Guinness had taken her into the Pacific in the late ‘30s and when war broke out in Europe in ’39, she was in Alaskan waters. Reluctant to cruise further or return to Ireland, he elected to lay her up in Seattle for the duration of hostilities. At the end of the war she was stranded in Portage Bay for 14 years, barred by King County from sailing pending the payment of back taxes.[1]
In 1969, Windjammer owner and founder Michael Burke flew to Greece to purchase the ship directly from Onassis. He bought her, sight unseen, in exchange for a freighter. Windjammer then set about refurbishing Fantome, which became the flagship of their fleet of six ships.
On October 24, 1998, Fantome departed the harbor of Omoa in Honduras for a planned 6 day cruise. Hurricane Mitch, then over 1,000 miles away in the Caribbean Sea, was expected to pose a risk to Jamaica and possibly the Yucatan Peninsula. Captain Guyan March decided to play it safe by heading for the Bay Islands and wait for the storm to pass.
By dawn on the following day, however, Mitch seemed to change course. Fantome immediately changed course for Belize City, where it disembarked all of her passengers and non-essential crew members. The ship then departed Belize City, first heading north towards the Gulf of Mexico, in order to outrun the storm. Storm predictions proved extremely difficult, as the steering currents in Hurricane Mitch were very weak. When word reached the Fantome that Mitch would most likely hit the Yucatan before she could get out of harm's way, Capt. March changed course for the south. It was too early to know that he was heading directly into the storm's path.
The plan was to make for the lee side of the island of Roatan. In case Mitch made landfall in the Yucatan or Belize, by being on the southern side of the island, it would provide the ship with enough protection to keep it from getting damaged by large swells and high winds. However, Mitch, now a Category 5 hurricane with winds up to 185 miles-per-hour, took a jog towards the south, directly towards Roatan.
As Mitch moved in on Roatan and Honduras, Fantome made one desperate attempt to flee to safety, now heading east towards the Caribbean. Mitch's forward motion picked up, though, and Fantome was unable to outrun the storm. Around 4:30 P.M. on October 27, 1998, Fantome reported that it was fighting 100 mile-per-hour winds in 40-foot seas. They were just 40 miles south of Mitch's 155 mile-per-hour eyewall. Radio contact was lost with Fantome shortly after that.
On November 2, a helicopter dispatched by the British destroyer HMS Sheffield discovered life rafts and vests, labeled "S/V Fantome," off the eastern coast of Guanaja. It was all that was found of the Fantome.