Speaker 1: Hello, It's Richard mclinsmith here with a huge favor to ask.
Speaker 1: With Unexplained approaching its ten year anniversary, I want to
Speaker 1: hear from as many of you as possible about what
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Speaker 1: More importantly, I want to know what I can do
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Speaker 1: be entered into a prize drawer for a chance to
Speaker 1: win one of ten signed copies of the Unexplained book.
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Speaker 1: podcast dot com, forward slash survey. That's Unexplained podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Forward slash survey. Thank you so much again for all
Speaker 1: your support and for taking the time to listen to
Speaker 1: the show. The dark tropical sky was tinged with lemon as.
Speaker 1: Palm trees swayed lazily in the warm early morning from
Speaker 1: somewhere out in the harbor of Apia, the capital of
Speaker 1: Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean. Muffled metallic clangs and
Speaker 1: hammering sounds had been ringing out all night, but now
Speaker 1: as dawn broke, they finally went quiet. They were coming
Speaker 1: from a small merchant vessel whose crew had been working
Speaker 1: tirelessly to try and fix a faulty engine to no avail.
Speaker 1: The ship's captain, a British seafarer named Thomas Dusty Miller,
Speaker 1: looked harassed and frustrated in the gathering light. He told
Speaker 1: his crew that they'd be setting out that morning, regardless
Speaker 1: their departure had already been delayed enough as it was.
Speaker 1: Captain Miller had been charted by the Samoan government to
Speaker 1: take cargo and passengers to Tokalau, one of a remote
Speaker 1: group of Polynesian adols. His boat, the Hoyeta, should have
Speaker 1: left port at noon the previous day, halfway between Hawaii
Speaker 1: and New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago
Speaker 1: of Tokalau was around two hundred and seventeen nautical miles
Speaker 1: to the north of the Samoan capitol. One of the
Speaker 1: passengers due to travel on the boat was a doctor
Speaker 1: who'd been tasked with performing an amputation on a patient
Speaker 1: out there. Another, a pharmacist with urgently needed medical supplies
Speaker 1: for the island. Along with several other passengers, four tons
Speaker 1: of cargo were also on board. Captain Miller was no
Speaker 1: doubt mindful of the urgent medical situation on Tokalau, and
Speaker 1: with the engine at least functioning, perhaps he reasoned the
Speaker 1: Hoyta's cork lined hull would keep them afloat regardless come
Speaker 1: what may. Having arrived on Samoa seven months earlier, Captain
Speaker 1: Miller was known for fine seamanship, but he'd also developed
Speaker 1: a reputation for recklessness and head drinking. He was said
Speaker 1: to be in some considerable debt to Recently, however, he'd
Speaker 1: secured a contract to carry copra between Samoa and the Tokelaus.
Speaker 1: Copra is the dried white flesh of coconut from which
Speaker 1: coconut oil is extracted and used to make soaps and cosmetics.
Speaker 1: The transportation of this lucrative commercial product, along with the
Speaker 1: carriage of passengers and medical supplies to Tokelau, had given
Speaker 1: the captain a viable business opportunity which he desperately needed
Speaker 1: to ease his financial troubles. At daybreak on Monday third
Speaker 1: of October nineteen fifty five, the Hoyita's sixteen strong crew,
Speaker 1: which included two men from Samoa and nine from Tokelau
Speaker 1: began welcoming the passengers on board. They included a government
Speaker 1: official as well as the doctor, a veteran of the
Speaker 1: Second World War, a copper buyer by the name of
Speaker 1: mister Williams, the pharmacist, and two children, the youngest of
Speaker 1: whom was only three years old. There was nothing immediately
Speaker 1: remarkable about any of them, except for mister Williams, that is,
Speaker 1: who was apparently carrying somewhere in the region of one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand US dollars in cash to buy copper, well
Speaker 1: over a million in to day's money. As the ship
Speaker 1: steamed out of port, it was an ordinary enough day,
Speaker 1: hot and clammy, but not yet the rainy season, the
Speaker 1: ocean waves undulating gently, but there was a deep sense
Speaker 1: of unease among some who saw the ship off. The
Speaker 1: wife of mister Williams, the coppera trader, later said that
Speaker 1: as she waived her husband goodbye, she was suddenly reminded
Speaker 1: of a dream she'd had the previous night, or rather
Speaker 1: a nightmare filled with visions of disaster. While on board,
Speaker 1: some of the Samoans traded nervous glances, concerned that Captain
Speaker 1: Miller seemed to be a little worse for wear from drinking,
Speaker 1: and with that the engines fluttered into life, and the
Speaker 1: anchor was pulled from the water. Of the captain's orders,
Speaker 1: the boat eased out toward the open seas as mister
Speaker 1: Williams's wife waved it off. The Hoyita eased steadily out
Speaker 1: at the harbor. Before long it was completely out of
Speaker 1: sight and beyond all radio contact. It would not be
Speaker 1: the last sighting of the ship, but it would prove
Speaker 1: to be the last time that any of the crew
Speaker 1: or passengers were ever seen again. You're listening to Unexplained,
Speaker 1: and I'm Richard McLean Smith. The Hoyita had not always
Speaker 1: been a merchant vessel. It was originally commissioned and built
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles in nineteen thirty one for the American
Speaker 1: film director Rowland West, a doyen of early fil noir
Speaker 1: in the silent movie era of the nineteen twenties and thirties.
Speaker 1: The sixty nine foot twin engine pleasure cruiser was considered
Speaker 1: the height of luxury for its time, boasting advanced features
Speaker 1: such as autopilot and large fuel tanks for maximum usage time,
Speaker 1: but the ship's construction did not go smoothly. One Portuguese
Speaker 1: worker had a fatal fall from scaffolding while helping to
Speaker 1: build it. Some say in response, the man's widow placed
Speaker 1: a curse on the ship. Perhaps this didn't bother West,
Speaker 1: or maybe he never even heard about it. Either way,
Speaker 1: he went through with the purchase. After all, it was
Speaker 1: a beautifully crafted vessel made from two inch thick cedar
Speaker 1: planks over an oak timber frame. He named it Hoyita
Speaker 1: Mexican for Little Jewel, after his wife, the silent screen
Speaker 1: actor Jewel Carmen. At first, the gleaming vessel was everything
Speaker 1: West had hoped, and he eagerly took it out whenever
Speaker 1: he got the chance, usually on trips across to California's
Speaker 1: Catalina Islands. The voyages would be lavish affairs, with West
Speaker 1: always keen to share the experience with his many glamorous
Speaker 1: friends from Hollywood. But West and his contemporaries were living
Speaker 1: through the dying days of the silent screen era. Despite
Speaker 1: being a leading light of his time, West's nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: one film Corseir was his last as a director. Perhaps
Speaker 1: looking to mitigate the choppy waters ahead, West and his wife,
Speaker 1: Jewel Carmen, opened a restaurant together with fellow silent film
Speaker 1: star Thelma Todd. Around the same time, West and Tod
Speaker 1: began an affair. In truth, West and his wife jul
Speaker 1: had been estranged for some time, but had remained married
Speaker 1: to avoid the messy publicity that would inevitably come with divorce.
Speaker 1: The three of them lived together in the same complex
Speaker 1: alongside the restaurant, with West and Todd sharing apartments situated
Speaker 1: directly above the restaurant, which were separated by a sliding door.
Speaker 1: West and Todd's relationship was said to be a volatile one,
Speaker 1: with West in particular known to be aggressive and controlling
Speaker 1: over Todd. Perhaps it was just coincidence that West's tendency
Speaker 1: to anger appeared to worsen almost the moment he brought
Speaker 1: to the Hoyta. After all, the purchase did coincide with
Speaker 1: a stressful downturn in his professional fortunes and in his
Speaker 1: relationship with his wife. But thinking back to the apparent
Speaker 1: curse placed on the vessel, perhaps it wasn't a coincidence
Speaker 1: at all. It was one mid December day in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five that dule Carmen's maid went down to the
Speaker 1: garage to retrieve a car for her mistress and found
Speaker 1: Thelma Todd dead behind the wheel of her Lincoln Phaeton convertible.
Speaker 1: Though the cause of death was eventually ruled as suicide
Speaker 1: by carbon monoxide poisoning, some believed that Roland West had
Speaker 1: murdered her, and some also say he had in fact
Speaker 1: killed her first on the Hoyita before transporting her body
Speaker 1: to the garage. In the wake of Thelma Todd's death,
Speaker 1: Roland West and Duel Carmen finally filed for divorce in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight. One of the first assets sold to
Speaker 1: finance it was West's much loved Hoyita. Over the next
Speaker 1: fourteen years, the ship changed hands a number of times
Speaker 1: and was even used as a patrol boat by the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy in the Second World War. Then, in nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: now known as the m V Hoyita, the ship was
Speaker 1: acquired by a doctor, Katherine Luamala, an American anthropologist from Hawaii,
Speaker 1: who made the semi permanent loan of the boat to
Speaker 1: her then boyfriend, Captain Thomas Dusty Miller. Miller intended to
Speaker 1: start a fishing business in Samoa, but the m V
Speaker 1: Hoyita was no fishing boat and Miller was no fisherman. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: after a listless seven months living on board the boat,
Speaker 1: he managed to secure the contract to take cargo and
Speaker 1: passengers between the capital Apia and the atolls of Tokelau.
Speaker 1: That trip that he and his twenty four passengers and
Speaker 1: crew set out for on that fateful journey of October third,
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, should have taken no more than forty
Speaker 1: eight hours, having been expected to arrive by mid morning
Speaker 1: on Wednesday the fifth, when the sun sunk toward the
Speaker 1: horizon later that evening, there was still no sign of
Speaker 1: Mislaer or the Hoyita. The weather on route had been
Speaker 1: relatively calm, and no passing ships or coastal stations in
Speaker 1: the region had received a distress call, suggesting the vessel
Speaker 1: was likely fine but had just been held up somehow.
Speaker 1: On Thursday sixth, however, with still no sign or word
Speaker 1: from the boat, officials based in Fakara Foe, another atoll
Speaker 1: in tokal Out, reluctantly sent out a message to the
Speaker 1: wider world that the Hoita was overdue. An immediate search
Speaker 1: and rescue effort was launched by the Royal New Zealand
Speaker 1: Air Force, searching an area of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand square miles, but they found nothing. The Envy Hoyita
Speaker 1: had vanished off the face of the ocean. Tapula Tavita
Speaker 1: lived in Arpia and was editor of Samoa's only weekly newspaper,
Speaker 1: the Samoa Bulletin. Several months earlier, he'd enjoyed a day's
Speaker 1: fishing trip on the Hoyita and had subsequently got to
Speaker 1: know Captain Miller quite well. Tavita was also acquainted with
Speaker 1: some of the passengers, including the doctor whom he'd played
Speaker 1: golf with and who had even delivered one of his children.
Speaker 1: In the days after the Hoyita was reported missing, Tavita
Speaker 1: spent long hours with a friend at the Arpia radio station. Together,
Speaker 1: the two men sat anxiously maintaining a constant radio watch
Speaker 1: with the dial tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
Speaker 1: the international distress frequency, but no distress calls ever came.
Speaker 1: During those early days of the search and rescue operation,
Speaker 1: no one was especially worried. Most shared the view that
Speaker 1: with the Hoyita's wooden construction, cork insulated holds, and cargo,
Speaker 1: including many empty but sealed oil drums, the vessel had
Speaker 1: more than enough buoyancy to keep it aflowt There were
Speaker 1: also plenty of supplies on board for the passengers and
Speaker 1: crew should they have ended up adrift somewhere. Aside from that,
Speaker 1: it was just a case of waiting. But as the
Speaker 1: days passed, the rainy season well and truly arrived. People
Speaker 1: on both Apia and Tokalau, along with the authorities, became
Speaker 1: frantically worried for their friends and loved ones safety. Days
Speaker 1: turned to weeks, and then a month. After thirty six days,
Speaker 1: the search was called off. It was just after dawn
Speaker 1: on the tenth of November when Captain Gerald Douglas of
Speaker 1: the merchant ship Tuvalu, en route from Fiji to Tuvalu Island,
Speaker 1: spotted a dark shape bobbing listlessly in the distance. The
Speaker 1: idea that it could possibly be the missing Hoyita couldn't
Speaker 1: have been further from the captain's mind at the time.
Speaker 1: His ship was near Udo Point, on the easternmost tip
Speaker 1: of Fiji, one thousand meters off the course the Hoyita
Speaker 1: would have taken to Tokalau. As Douglas guided his vessel
Speaker 1: toward the strange object, he brought his binoculars to his eyes.
Speaker 1: He saw then that the shape was in fact a
Speaker 1: small boat, and something was clearly very wrong with it.
Speaker 1: The vessel appeared to be derelict and was listing heavily,
Speaker 1: with its port side railings bobbing just below the waves.
Speaker 1: There was no sign of anyone on board. Then the
Speaker 1: name on the hull came into focus, m V Hoyita. Anxiously,
Speaker 1: Douglas maneuvered his ship alongside it, and a small party
Speaker 1: hastily jumped out and boarded the vessel. What they found
Speaker 1: was a ghost ship. Everyone on board was gone. The
Speaker 1: boats dinghy and three lifeboats were also missing. But why
Speaker 1: exactly this was the case was a deep and trouble mystery.
Speaker 1: Captain Douglas's crew spread out across the eerily quiet vessel
Speaker 1: and began to investigate. Most alarmingly, there was significant damage
Speaker 1: to the main structure, the flying bridge, a raised open
Speaker 1: air deck had been ripped away. The windows on the
Speaker 1: main wheelhouse had also been broken, while a makeshift canvas
Speaker 1: awning had been rigged up behind it. They also discovered
Speaker 1: barnacles on the port side, high above the normal waterline,
Speaker 1: suggesting the Hoyita had been listing heavily for some time
Speaker 1: before they found it moving. Inside the vessel, they found that, strangely,
Speaker 1: the starboard engine had been covered by mattresses, while the
Speaker 1: port engine was still in the partially disassembled state from
Speaker 1: the day it had left Arpia. An auxiliary pump was
Speaker 1: also found nearby, suggesting the crew and passengers were still
Speaker 1: on board when the boat started taking on water, though
Speaker 1: any effort to bail it out had clearly been in vain,
Speaker 1: and yet when Captain Douglas later ordered a diver to
Speaker 1: inspect the hull, they found no sign of damage or
Speaker 1: anything else to explain how the boat had been so
Speaker 1: severely flooded, and the discoveries just got grimmer. The ship's
Speaker 1: radio was tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
Speaker 1: the international distress frequency, but on closer inspection a break
Speaker 1: was found in the cable between the set and the aerial,
Speaker 1: which seemed to have been painted over to obscure the damage,
Speaker 1: had someone sabotaged it to prevent a distress call from
Speaker 1: being made. Then Captain Douglas noticed something else unsettling. All
Speaker 1: the clocks on board that were wired into the vessel's
Speaker 1: generator had stopped at ten twenty five, with the switch
Speaker 1: for the cabin lighting and navigation lights all found to
Speaker 1: be in the on position. It seemed that the generators
Speaker 1: and all light had shut off in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. The ship's log book and navigational equipment, as
Speaker 1: well as the firearms the Hoyta's captain was known to
Speaker 1: keep on board, were all missing. The starter motor for
Speaker 1: one of the engines was also missing. One of Douglas's
Speaker 1: crew called out for the captain to come and look
Speaker 1: at something. The man had found a leather bag on deck,
Speaker 1: inside which was a stethoscope, a scalpel, and a whole
Speaker 1: heap of bloodied bandageses. Captain Douglas took it all in,
Speaker 1: then looked about at the stricken vessel. None of it
Speaker 1: made any sense. Having seen enough, Captain Douglas ordered his
Speaker 1: crew to pump the vessel out in preparation for taking
Speaker 1: it back to land. Once the water had been removed,
Speaker 1: it slowly righted itself and proceeded to float stably on
Speaker 1: an even keel. It was a relatively easy task to
Speaker 1: tow it into the nearest harbour on Fiji. Once there,
Speaker 1: a more thorough inspection revealed that a pipe forming part
Speaker 1: of the boat's cooling system had become so corroded it
Speaker 1: had breached, flooding the boat from the inside. It seemed
Speaker 1: very likely that the Hoyita's crew would not have realized
Speaker 1: the boat was taking on water until it began rising
Speaker 1: above the engine room floor, at which point it would
Speaker 1: have been almost impossible to locate the source. Also, the
Speaker 1: bilge pumps that had not been fitted with strainers to
Speaker 1: keep out debris were found to be completely clogged and
Speaker 1: barely functioning. Judging by the Hoyita's fuel levels, the vessel
Speaker 1: had likely gone around two hundred and forty miles before
Speaker 1: it was abandoned. Tragically, this was probably no more than
Speaker 1: fifty miles from her intended destination. Hopes of finding survivors
Speaker 1: persisted for weeks, with loved ones clinging on to the
Speaker 1: slim possibility that maybe all or at least some of
Speaker 1: them had made it to a remote island where they
Speaker 1: might still be waiting to be rescued. However, if all
Speaker 1: twenty five people had abandoned ship, each of the available
Speaker 1: lifeboats would have been crowded to capacity, and the Hoyita
Speaker 1: had not been equipped with enough life jackets for everyone
Speaker 1: on board. In any case, a prolonged search found no one.
Speaker 1: The international media ran the story under headlines that referred
Speaker 1: to the Hoyita as the Marry Celeste of the South Pacific.
Speaker 1: As explored in Unexplained, Season four episode six, The Silence
Speaker 1: of the Sea, the Marry Celeste was a merchant ship
Speaker 1: discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean close to
Speaker 1: the assaults in December eighteen seventy two. It had been
Speaker 1: sailing from New York to Genoa, and, like the Hoyita,
Speaker 1: was found in a disheveled but seaworthy condition, with its
Speaker 1: lifeboats missing. Unlike the Hoyeta, however, the Marry Celeste was
Speaker 1: still amply provisioned when found, cargo intact and the captains
Speaker 1: and crew's personal belongings undisturbed. It was as if everyone
Speaker 1: had simply got up and left for no apparent reason.
Speaker 1: But just like the Hoyita, none of those who had
Speaker 1: been on board were ever seen again. As with the
Speaker 1: Marry Celeste, the question on everyone's lips was why had
Speaker 1: the Hoytas passengers and crew left the ship. Captain Miller
Speaker 1: knew that, even partly flooded, his vessel was effectively unsinkable.
Speaker 1: Why would he have taken the dangerous decision to get
Speaker 1: into crowded lifeboats and risk everyone's lives on the open ocean.
Speaker 1: One suggestion was that of freak water spout, which develops
Speaker 1: when cool air passes over warm water, sucking up water
Speaker 1: to produce a spout effect like an ocean tornado. Fair
Speaker 1: weather water spouts typically last only a few minutes before
Speaker 1: petering out, but winds inside them can be incredibly strong,
Speaker 1: over sixty miles per hour, rotating rapidly, and have been
Speaker 1: known to tear rigging and even masts off sailing ships
Speaker 1: even capsize them. In August twenty twenty four, the luxury
Speaker 1: super yacht the Baysian, belonging to billionaires Mike Lynch and
Speaker 1: his wife Angelo Bacariz, was anchored off the scenic fishing
Speaker 1: village of Porticello in Sicily. The yacht was fitted with
Speaker 1: a two hundred and forty six foot mast, the world's
Speaker 1: second tallest at the time. Mike and Angela were asleep
Speaker 1: on board the boat, along with their daughter and a
Speaker 1: number of friends, when the yacht was hit by a sudden,
Speaker 1: violent storm, which generated water spouts. It's thought the force
Speaker 1: of the strong wind was enough to push the yacht
Speaker 1: over sideways and force the mast below the water line.
Speaker 1: It took just sixteen minutes for the souper yacht to sink.
Speaker 1: Seven of the twenty two people on board died, including
Speaker 1: Mike Lynch and his eighteen year old daughter Hannah. Perhaps
Speaker 1: the Hoyita suffered something equally terrifying that was enough to
Speaker 1: scare the passengers and crew into abandoning the boat. Either way,
Speaker 1: a formal inquiry confirmed only why the vessel had become
Speaker 1: flooded and how the single engine that wasn't faulty would
Speaker 1: not have been able to generate enough power to steer it.
Speaker 1: As a result, much of the responsibility for this chain
Speaker 1: of events was placed on Captain Miller, who'd wrecked the
Speaker 1: set out with only one working engine and numerous other faults.
Speaker 1: It was also discovered that the Hoyita's license to carry
Speaker 1: fair paying passengers had expired some time before the trip.
Speaker 1: In the end, the fate of the passengers and crew
Speaker 1: of the Hoyta was determined to be inexplicable on the
Speaker 1: evidence submitted. No mention was made of the bloody bandages
Speaker 1: found on board, or why the Hoyta was abandoned while
Speaker 1: still afloat, or where all its cargo had gone. Numerous
Speaker 1: theories have been put forward to explain the Hoyita mystery.
Speaker 1: One is that Captain Miller had died or become incapacitated
Speaker 1: on board for some reason, and that without his experience,
Speaker 1: the remaining crew panicked and took to the lifeboats. Author
Speaker 1: David Wright, who researched the mystery extensively, spoke with two
Speaker 1: of Miller's former crew. They described him as a negligent
Speaker 1: and reckless man who behaved uncaringly and dismissively toward his crew.
Speaker 1: Did simmering hostility among the Hoyita's crew boil over in
Speaker 1: the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Others spoke of tension between Miller
Speaker 1: and his American first mate, Chuck Simpson. Did Miller and
Speaker 1: Simpson come to blows resulting in one or both of
Speaker 1: them becoming seriously injured? Perhaps that would explain the bloody
Speaker 1: bandages at The remaining crew and passengers then abandoned the Hoyita,
Speaker 1: whose cargo was then raided by the crew of a
Speaker 1: later passing ship. Another theory comes heavily laced with anti
Speaker 1: Japanese sentiment, which was still strong in parts of the
Speaker 1: Pacific at the time of the incident, especially in Fiji,
Speaker 1: where locals were resentful of the Japanese for being allowed
Speaker 1: to operate fishing fleets in their waters. The Fiji Times
Speaker 1: and asserted that an allegedly impeccable source had informed them
Speaker 1: that the Hoyita had passed through a fleet of Japanese
Speaker 1: fishing boats during its trip, and those on board had
Speaker 1: seen something the Japanese crews did not want them to see,
Speaker 1: although it was never specified what that might have been exactly.
Speaker 1: Without much evidence, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph chimed
Speaker 1: in by suggesting that some Japanese forces were still active
Speaker 1: from World War II and might have attacked the Hoyita
Speaker 1: from a secret island base, perhaps drawing on tales of
Speaker 1: isolated combatants who had yet to learn the war was over.
Speaker 1: Men clearing the salvaged Hoyita reportedly found knives on board
Speaker 1: stamped with made in Japan. However, the knives turned out
Speaker 1: to be old and broken, quite possibly just relics from
Speaker 1: when the Hoyita was used briefly as a fishing boat.
Speaker 1: Another theory was that the Hoyita might actually have been
Speaker 1: at hacked by pirates, who, having killed the passengers and crew,
Speaker 1: simply cast their bodies into the ocean before making off
Speaker 1: with the missing four tons of cargo and the one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in cash. In the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, the salvaged Hoyita was auctioned off to a
Speaker 1: Fijian islander who refitted the vessel and once more put
Speaker 1: it out to sea, but the ship assisted in living
Speaker 1: up to its cursed existence. After running aground twice in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, it was eventually stripped of all useful
Speaker 1: equipment and put up for sale once again. One british
Speaker 1: Man author, Robert morm became so obsessed with finding out
Speaker 1: the truth about what had happened to the Hoyita and
Speaker 1: all those on board back during that ill fated voyage
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty five, he decided to buy the vessel.
Speaker 1: After several years investigating the incident, he published his findings
Speaker 1: in his nineteen sixty two book The Hoyita Mystery. He
Speaker 1: concurred with the official conclusion that events started with the
Speaker 1: flooding from the broken cooling pipe and the failed effort
Speaker 1: to pump out the water. He theorized that the mattresses
Speaker 1: found covering the starboard engine were either an attempt to
Speaker 1: stem the leak or to protect the electrical switchboard from
Speaker 1: spray being kicked up by the engine's flywheel as the
Speaker 1: water level rose. Marm went on to speculate that once
Speaker 1: the ship became impossible to steer, Captain Miller argued violently
Speaker 1: with his first mate and possibly some of the other crew,
Speaker 1: who demanded that he turned back. When Miller refused, the
Speaker 1: crew mutinied, and Miller was incapacitated in a subsequent fight.
Speaker 1: Morm then argued that in the worsening weather and with
Speaker 1: the engine room flooded, it would have been Simpson who
Speaker 1: warded everyone to abandon the ship, taking the navigational equipment,
Speaker 1: log book and supplies, as well as the injured Miller
Speaker 1: with them. He suggested that perhaps the crew had seen
Speaker 1: a nearby island or reef which they thought they could
Speaker 1: reach in lifeboats. Perhaps that turned out to merely be
Speaker 1: a raised sandbank exposed by low tide, and in the
Speaker 1: end everyone has simply been carried out to the open ocean,
Speaker 1: where they eventually capsized and drowned. In nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: the Hoyita was sold to a major, Kaslin Cottle, who
Speaker 1: ran a tourist and publicity bureau in a port town
Speaker 1: in Fiji. Kaslin Cottle intended to turn the ship into
Speaker 1: a museum and tea room, but the plans were eventually abandoned.
Speaker 1: Over the next few years, little by little, the hulk
Speaker 1: of the once beautiful Hoyita disintegrated into oblivion. Decades on,
Speaker 1: only six of the twenty five passengers from the hoyitas
Speaker 1: fate for nineteen fifty five voyage have been officially declared dead.
Speaker 1: None of the Pacific Islander crew who afforded the dignity
Speaker 1: of final closure, despite numerous efforts by relatives in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five Tokelau and Western Samoa were both under New
Speaker 1: Zealand administration, and since the New Zealand government has so
Speaker 1: far refused to issue formal death certificates, nineteen of the
Speaker 1: victims are still officially classified as missing. Just what exactly
Speaker 1: happened to them all remains to this day unexplained. This
Speaker 1: episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McLain Smith.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy
Speaker 1: Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other
Speaker 1: elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained The book and audiobook
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
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Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
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