Africa, Cape Town - The Flying Dutchman

On the third of August, 1942, H.M.S. Jubilee was on the way to the Royal Navy base at Simonstown, near Cape Town. At 9 p.m., a phantom sailing ship was seen. The second officer, Davies, was in charge of the watch. Sharing this duty was the third officer, Nicholas Monsarrat, author of The Cruel Sea. Monsarrat signalled to the strange ship, but there was no response. Davies recorded in the log that a schooner, of a class that he did not recognise, was moving under full sail, even though there was no wind. The Jubilee had to change course, to avoid a collision. During the war, Davies' superiors would have been in no mood for nonsense, and he must have had to weigh that against the dangers, especially in wartime, of not recording the strange things that he saw. In an interview, Monsarrat admitted that the sighting inspired him to write his novel The Master Mariner.

According to Admiral Karl Doenitz, U Boat crews logged sightings of the Flying Dutchman, off the Cape Peninsula. For most or all of these crews, it proved to be a terrible omen. The ghostly East Indiaman was also seen at Muizenberg, in 1939. On a calm day in 1941, a crowd at Glencairn beach saw a ship with wind-filled sails, but it vanished just as it was about to crash onto the rocks. During the war years, there was plenty of room for bad omens.