The Flying Dutchmen legend refers to the captain, a Dutchmen mad with desire to beat the odds and sail Cape Hope/Horn. ( I get them mixed up.)
But, what is the name of the ship?
Google has rendered me 9,000 Dutchmen legends and I am near cross eyed.
Someone end my misery.
I thought the ship was just called ‘de Vliegende Hollander’ or ‘De Vluchtende Hollander’? I don’t know if the title applies to the captain but rather the ship itself?
Some site in Dutch gives the captain’s name as Willem van der Decken. . .
[my bad translation from here
"In earlier years there was in sea-lore various tales and legends known about sea-monsters and ghost-ships. One of these ghost ships was that if captain Willem van der Decken. The saga of the Flying Duchman is above all known through the opera that Wagner wrote. The Flying Dutchman appears many times in the [patrimonial] literature and poetry from the 17th C onwards. Van der Decken was first named as the captain of the ghostship in the Scottish newspaper “Blackwoords[. . .]” in May 1821.
Does this help?
Yagh! Bottle of white wine on a Wednesday, and English is my first language! Please excuse typoes and massive basic grammar problems above-- result of translating immediately from eye to hand to keyboard with too much liquor.
Oh, Wagner’s opera was in ealy 1840s or so, FWIW.
“The Flying Dutchman” legend is none too clear and it is uncertain if the name refers to the ship being named the “Flying Dutchman” ( De Vliegende Hollander in Dutch ) or the captain.
Frankly it isn’t even clear what actual captain ( if any ) the legend is based on - One Hendrik van der Decken ( or Falkenburg ) in the 17th century ( 1641 ) or van Straaten in the 18th ( 1729 ) seem to be the two favorite choices.
My guess is that you are doomed to sail the seas of the internet for all eternity, never to discover the straight dope on this tale ;).
Properly speaking, it isn’t Cape Hope, but the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Might be less confusing by that name.
And you don’t really “sail” either one. You could “round” it or even “double” it.
Argggh. That’s a mighty terrible fate to be givin’ a doper, matey.
Xema What does doubling mean?
The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea defines doubling (as in doubling Cape Horn) thus: “To double a cape or other point of land, to sail a vessle round it so that on completion the land is between the ship and her original position.”