Any book on nautical legends worth its salt will include a chapter on the flying

Dutchman. The spectral old sailing ship with its sails torn to shreds, condemned to an

eternity of stormy seas, with its skeletal crew never to see a home port again.

Today, we're going to look at the origin of this story and find out what set it apart

and made it become such a fundamental legend.

The flying Dutchman is coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. The legend of the

flying Dutchman. Some say it is a spectral schooner seen under full sail, sometimes in

the distance, sometimes at night or through the fog, sometimes gliding above the water.

The sails may be torn to ribbons or it may be making great headway even in the lack of

wind. Some say the Dutchman refers to the captain of the ship, a man cursed to sail

the seas forever and never make land. Some say the captain and his ship are doomed

to forever try to round a stormy cape, never quite succeeding and always being beaten

back by the howling wind and waves. But whatever the specifics of the legend, the flying

Dutchman has become a mainstay of maritime lore. With such a famous story, it would seem

worthwhile to see whether it grew from some seed of fact. References to the flying Dutchman

have been around for more than two centuries and sailing ships were plowing the saltwater

for centuries before that, so it seems a practical certainty that we should be able to nail

down exactly what triggered the stories. A good place to start is its most famous

iteration and pop culture. In Wagner's 1840 opera, Der Fliegenda Hollanda, it is not

the ship that is named the flying Dutchman but refers to the captain of the ghostly vessel.

The Dutchman, who is unnamed in the opera, commands a ship with only a spectral crew. He

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