JOYITA

Opening

At about 5 a.m. on 3 October 1955, the motor vessel Joyita left Apia, Western Samoa, for the Tokelau Islands, about 270 miles north, a trip of two days. She carried 16 crew and 9 passengers, medical supplies, timber, food and 80 empty oil drums. She never arrived and sent no distress call.

On 10 November the merchant ship Tuvalu found her drifting more than 600 miles west of her route, north of Vanua Levu in Fiji, half-flooded and listing heavily to port. Her life rafts were gone. So were all 25 people, and none of them has ever been found.

Timeline

3 October 1955, about 5 a.mJoyita sails from Apia under Captain Thomas "Dusty" Miller, with one engine out of action: the port clutch has failed.

5 October onwardsShe is overdue at Tokelau. A search by air and sea covers nearly 100,000 square miles and finds nothing.

10 NovemberCaptain Gerald Douglas of the Tuvalu finds Joyita drifting, deck nearly awash, flying bridge smashed, a canvas awning rigged on deck.

The boardingThe radio is tuned to the international distress frequency, 2182 kHz, but a broken cable would have limited its range to about two miles. The clocks have stopped at 10:25. The logbook, sextant, chronometer, firearms and the three Carley life rafts are gone, along with about four tons of cargo. A doctor's bag lies on deck with bloodstained bandages. Mattresses have been laid over the starboard engine.

1956An inquiry finds that a corroded cooling pipe on the port auxiliary engine broke and let the sea in, and that the bilge pumps were clogged. It can't say why everyone left a ship that couldn't sink.

July 1956Joyita is auctioned for £2,425 and goes back into service.

Key figures

Thomas "Dusty" Miller, a British captain in money trouble, needed the voyage to pay. His American first mate, Chuck Simpson, was said not to get on with him.

Robin Maugham, the British novelist, bought the ship in the 1960s and wrote the best-known theory of what happened.

Physical and documentary trail

The record: the Tuvalu's boarding report, the inventory of what was missing and what was left, the engineering findings on the pipe and pumps, and the inquiry's report.

Still missing: the 25 people, the rafts, the logbook, and any message sent after Joyita left Apia.

Things you might not know

• She started as a Hollywood yacht. Joyita was built in Los Angeles in 1931 for film director Roland West, who named her after his wife, actress Jewel Carmen. The name means "little jewel".
• She was built not to sink. Her holds were lined with cork, which is why she was still afloat five weeks later, flooded.
• The clocks say it happened at night. They stopped at 10:25, and the awning and the state of the ship led investigators to think whatever happened came after dark.
• Somebody covered the engine. Mattresses over the starboard engine suggest the crew were trying to stop water reaching it.
• She went aground twice more. Back in service, Joyita ran aground in 1957 and again in 1959, when her pump valves were found to have been fitted backwards.
• Samoa put her on a stamp. Western Samoa issued commemorative stamps in 1975, and memorial stones went up in Apia and Fakaofo in 2012.

Competing explanations

Flooding and panic. Water came in through the broken pipe, the pumps failed, and with the ship listing in the dark the crew and passengers took to the rafts, not knowing the cork would keep her afloat. The rafts were then lost at sea.

An injured captain. Maugham's version: Miller and Simpson fought over turning back, Miller was badly hurt, and Simpson ordered everyone off, taking the navigation gear with him. The bloodstained bandages fit a medical emergency, though not necessarily a fight.

Crime. Theories over the years have included pirates, Japanese fishermen and smugglers. No evidence has ever been found to support any of them.

Later life of the case

Joyita is often called the Pacific's Mary Celeste. The 25 people aboard are still officially listed as missing. The ship herself fell apart on the beach at Levuka, Fiji, by the late 1970s.

Finding

The data points to an ordinary disaster: a badly maintained ship, a broken pipe, failed pumps and a night-time decision to abandon ship that turned out to be fatal. What can't be explained is why 25 people left a ship that would not sink, and why none of them, nor any raft, was ever found.

What still will not resolve: what happened at 10:25 that night, and what the blood on the bandages was from.