December 12, 2025 • 31 mins
Some say the MV Joyita was always cursed, others laughed it off. What is beyond dispute, is that on one hot day in October 1955 the ship and its 25 passengers and crew set sail on a routine journey from Samoa to the Tokelau islands.
And none of them were ever seen again.
Written by Diane Hope and Richard MacLean Smith
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, It's Richard mclinsmith here with a huge favor to ask.
With Unexplained approaching its ten year anniversary, I want to
hear from as many of you as possible about what
you like about the show and what you don't like.
More importantly, I want to know what I can do
to make it better. So I've put a survey together
and would dearly like you to fill it in for
me if you have the time. Anyone taking part will
(00:20):
be entered into a prize drawer for a chance to
win one of ten signed copies of the Unexplained book.
You can find the survey on our website at Unexplained
podcast dot com, forward slash survey. That's Unexplained podcast dot com.
Forward slash survey. Thank you so much again for all
your support and for taking the time to listen to
the show. The dark tropical sky was tinged with lemon as.
(00:56):
Palm trees swayed lazily in the warm early morning from
somewhere out in the harbor of Apia, the capital of
Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean. Muffled metallic clangs and
hammering sounds had been ringing out all night, but now
as dawn broke, they finally went quiet. They were coming
(01:17):
from a small merchant vessel whose crew had been working
tirelessly to try and fix a faulty engine to no avail.
The ship's captain, a British seafarer named Thomas Dusty Miller,
looked harassed and frustrated in the gathering light. He told
his crew that they'd be setting out that morning, regardless
(01:38):
their departure had already been delayed enough as it was.
Captain Miller had been charted by the Samoan government to
take cargo and passengers to Tokalau, one of a remote
group of Polynesian adols. His boat, the Hoyeta, should have
left port at noon the previous day, halfway between Hawaii
(01:59):
and New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago
of Tokalau was around two hundred and seventeen nautical miles
to the north of the Samoan capitol. One of the
passengers due to travel on the boat was a doctor
who'd been tasked with performing an amputation on a patient
out there. Another, a pharmacist with urgently needed medical supplies
(02:21):
for the island. Along with several other passengers, four tons
of cargo were also on board. Captain Miller was no
doubt mindful of the urgent medical situation on Tokalau, and
with the engine at least functioning, perhaps he reasoned the
Hoyta's cork lined hull would keep them afloat regardless come
(02:42):
what may. Having arrived on Samoa seven months earlier, Captain
Miller was known for fine seamanship, but he'd also developed
a reputation for recklessness and head drinking. He was said
to be in some considerable debt to Recently, however, he'd
(03:06):
secured a contract to carry copra between Samoa and the Tokelaus.
Copra is the dried white flesh of coconut from which
coconut oil is extracted and used to make soaps and cosmetics.
The transportation of this lucrative commercial product, along with the
carriage of passengers and medical supplies to Tokelau, had given
(03:28):
the captain a viable business opportunity which he desperately needed
to ease his financial troubles. At daybreak on Monday third
of October nineteen fifty five, the Hoyita's sixteen strong crew,
which included two men from Samoa and nine from Tokelau
began welcoming the passengers on board. They included a government
(03:50):
official as well as the doctor, a veteran of the
Second World War, a copper buyer by the name of
mister Williams, the pharmacist, and two children, the youngest of
whom was only three years old. There was nothing immediately
remarkable about any of them, except for mister Williams, that is,
who was apparently carrying somewhere in the region of one
(04:13):
hundred thousand US dollars in cash to buy copper, well
over a million in to day's money. As the ship
steamed out of port, it was an ordinary enough day,
hot and clammy, but not yet the rainy season, the
ocean waves undulating gently, but there was a deep sense
(04:34):
of unease among some who saw the ship off. The
wife of mister Williams, the coppera trader, later said that
as she waived her husband goodbye, she was suddenly reminded
of a dream she'd had the previous night, or rather
a nightmare filled with visions of disaster. While on board,
(04:54):
some of the Samoans traded nervous glances, concerned that Captain
Miller seemed to be a little worse for wear from drinking,
and with that the engines fluttered into life, and the
anchor was pulled from the water. Of the captain's orders,
the boat eased out toward the open seas as mister
(05:15):
Williams's wife waved it off. The Hoyita eased steadily out
at the harbor. Before long it was completely out of
sight and beyond all radio contact. It would not be
the last sighting of the ship, but it would prove
to be the last time that any of the crew
or passengers were ever seen again. You're listening to Unexplained,
(05:39):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. The Hoyita had not always
been a merchant vessel. It was originally commissioned and built
in Los Angeles in nineteen thirty one for the American
film director Rowland West, a doyen of early fil noir
(06:02):
in the silent movie era of the nineteen twenties and thirties.
The sixty nine foot twin engine pleasure cruiser was considered
the height of luxury for its time, boasting advanced features
such as autopilot and large fuel tanks for maximum usage time,
but the ship's construction did not go smoothly. One Portuguese
(06:25):
worker had a fatal fall from scaffolding while helping to
build it. Some say in response, the man's widow placed
a curse on the ship. Perhaps this didn't bother West,
or maybe he never even heard about it. Either way,
he went through with the purchase. After all, it was
a beautifully crafted vessel made from two inch thick cedar
(06:49):
planks over an oak timber frame. He named it Hoyita
Mexican for Little Jewel, after his wife, the silent screen
actor Jewel Carmen. At first, the gleaming vessel was everything
West had hoped, and he eagerly took it out whenever
he got the chance, usually on trips across to California's
(07:11):
Catalina Islands. The voyages would be lavish affairs, with West
always keen to share the experience with his many glamorous
friends from Hollywood. But West and his contemporaries were living
through the dying days of the silent screen era. Despite
being a leading light of his time, West's nineteen thirty
(07:32):
one film Corseir was his last as a director. Perhaps
looking to mitigate the choppy waters ahead, West and his wife,
Jewel Carmen, opened a restaurant together with fellow silent film
star Thelma Todd. Around the same time, West and Tod
began an affair. In truth, West and his wife jul
(07:54):
had been estranged for some time, but had remained married
to avoid the messy publicity that would inevitably come with divorce.
The three of them lived together in the same complex
alongside the restaurant, with West and Todd sharing apartments situated
directly above the restaurant, which were separated by a sliding door.
(08:16):
West and Todd's relationship was said to be a volatile one,
with West in particular known to be aggressive and controlling
over Todd. Perhaps it was just coincidence that West's tendency
to anger appeared to worsen almost the moment he brought
to the Hoyta. After all, the purchase did coincide with
(08:37):
a stressful downturn in his professional fortunes and in his
relationship with his wife. But thinking back to the apparent
curse placed on the vessel, perhaps it wasn't a coincidence
at all. It was one mid December day in nineteen
thirty five that dule Carmen's maid went down to the
(08:58):
garage to retrieve a car for her mistress and found
Thelma Todd dead behind the wheel of her Lincoln Phaeton convertible.
Though the cause of death was eventually ruled as suicide
by carbon monoxide poisoning, some believed that Roland West had
murdered her, and some also say he had in fact
(09:19):
killed her first on the Hoyita before transporting her body
to the garage. In the wake of Thelma Todd's death,
Roland West and Duel Carmen finally filed for divorce in
(09:40):
nineteen thirty eight. One of the first assets sold to
finance it was West's much loved Hoyita. Over the next
fourteen years, the ship changed hands a number of times
and was even used as a patrol boat by the U. S.
Navy in the Second World War. Then, in nineteen fifty two,
now known as the m V Hoyita, the ship was
(10:03):
acquired by a doctor, Katherine Luamala, an American anthropologist from Hawaii,
who made the semi permanent loan of the boat to
her then boyfriend, Captain Thomas Dusty Miller. Miller intended to
start a fishing business in Samoa, but the m V
Hoyita was no fishing boat and Miller was no fisherman. Thankfully,
(10:25):
after a listless seven months living on board the boat,
he managed to secure the contract to take cargo and
passengers between the capital Apia and the atolls of Tokelau.
That trip that he and his twenty four passengers and
crew set out for on that fateful journey of October third,
nineteen fifty five, should have taken no more than forty
(10:48):
eight hours, having been expected to arrive by mid morning
on Wednesday the fifth, when the sun sunk toward the
horizon later that evening, there was still no sign of
Mislaer or the Hoyita. The weather on route had been
relatively calm, and no passing ships or coastal stations in
the region had received a distress call, suggesting the vessel
(11:12):
was likely fine but had just been held up somehow.
On Thursday sixth, however, with still no sign or word
from the boat, officials based in Fakara Foe, another atoll
in tokal Out, reluctantly sent out a message to the
wider world that the Hoita was overdue. An immediate search
(11:32):
and rescue effort was launched by the Royal New Zealand
Air Force, searching an area of more than one hundred
thousand square miles, but they found nothing. The Envy Hoyita
had vanished off the face of the ocean. Tapula Tavita
lived in Arpia and was editor of Samoa's only weekly newspaper,
(11:53):
the Samoa Bulletin. Several months earlier, he'd enjoyed a day's
fishing trip on the Hoyita and had subsequently got to
know Captain Miller quite well. Tavita was also acquainted with
some of the passengers, including the doctor whom he'd played
golf with and who had even delivered one of his children.
In the days after the Hoyita was reported missing, Tavita
(12:16):
spent long hours with a friend at the Arpia radio station. Together,
the two men sat anxiously maintaining a constant radio watch
with the dial tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
the international distress frequency, but no distress calls ever came.
(12:41):
During those early days of the search and rescue operation,
no one was especially worried. Most shared the view that
with the Hoyita's wooden construction, cork insulated holds, and cargo,
including many empty but sealed oil drums, the vessel had
more than enough buoyancy to keep it aflowt There were
(13:01):
also plenty of supplies on board for the passengers and
crew should they have ended up adrift somewhere. Aside from that,
it was just a case of waiting. But as the
days passed, the rainy season well and truly arrived. People
on both Apia and Tokalau, along with the authorities, became
frantically worried for their friends and loved ones safety. Days
(13:25):
turned to weeks, and then a month. After thirty six days,
the search was called off. It was just after dawn
on the tenth of November when Captain Gerald Douglas of
the merchant ship Tuvalu, en route from Fiji to Tuvalu Island,
spotted a dark shape bobbing listlessly in the distance. The
(13:47):
idea that it could possibly be the missing Hoyita couldn't
have been further from the captain's mind at the time.
His ship was near Udo Point, on the easternmost tip
of Fiji, one thousand meters off the course the Hoyita
would have taken to Tokalau. As Douglas guided his vessel
toward the strange object, he brought his binoculars to his eyes.
(14:12):
He saw then that the shape was in fact a
small boat, and something was clearly very wrong with it.
The vessel appeared to be derelict and was listing heavily,
with its port side railings bobbing just below the waves.
There was no sign of anyone on board. Then the
name on the hull came into focus, m V Hoyita. Anxiously,
(14:38):
Douglas maneuvered his ship alongside it, and a small party
hastily jumped out and boarded the vessel. What they found
was a ghost ship. Everyone on board was gone. The
boats dinghy and three lifeboats were also missing. But why
exactly this was the case was a deep and trouble mystery.
(15:08):
Captain Douglas's crew spread out across the eerily quiet vessel
and began to investigate. Most alarmingly, there was significant damage
to the main structure, the flying bridge, a raised open
air deck had been ripped away. The windows on the
main wheelhouse had also been broken, while a makeshift canvas
(15:29):
awning had been rigged up behind it. They also discovered
barnacles on the port side, high above the normal waterline,
suggesting the Hoyita had been listing heavily for some time
before they found it moving. Inside the vessel, they found that, strangely,
the starboard engine had been covered by mattresses, while the
(15:50):
port engine was still in the partially disassembled state from
the day it had left Arpia. An auxiliary pump was
also found nearby, suggesting the crew and passengers were still
on board when the boat started taking on water, though
any effort to bail it out had clearly been in vain,
and yet when Captain Douglas later ordered a diver to
(16:14):
inspect the hull, they found no sign of damage or
anything else to explain how the boat had been so
severely flooded, and the discoveries just got grimmer. The ship's
radio was tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
the international distress frequency, but on closer inspection a break
(16:35):
was found in the cable between the set and the aerial,
which seemed to have been painted over to obscure the damage,
had someone sabotaged it to prevent a distress call from
being made. Then Captain Douglas noticed something else unsettling. All
the clocks on board that were wired into the vessel's
generator had stopped at ten twenty five, with the switch
(17:00):
for the cabin lighting and navigation lights all found to
be in the on position. It seemed that the generators
and all light had shut off in the middle of
the night. The ship's log book and navigational equipment, as
well as the firearms the Hoyta's captain was known to
keep on board, were all missing. The starter motor for
(17:22):
one of the engines was also missing. One of Douglas's
crew called out for the captain to come and look
at something. The man had found a leather bag on deck,
inside which was a stethoscope, a scalpel, and a whole
heap of bloodied bandageses. Captain Douglas took it all in,
(17:43):
then looked about at the stricken vessel. None of it
made any sense. Having seen enough, Captain Douglas ordered his
crew to pump the vessel out in preparation for taking
it back to land. Once the water had been removed,
(18:06):
it slowly righted itself and proceeded to float stably on
an even keel. It was a relatively easy task to
tow it into the nearest harbour on Fiji. Once there,
a more thorough inspection revealed that a pipe forming part
of the boat's cooling system had become so corroded it
had breached, flooding the boat from the inside. It seemed
(18:30):
very likely that the Hoyita's crew would not have realized
the boat was taking on water until it began rising
above the engine room floor, at which point it would
have been almost impossible to locate the source. Also, the
bilge pumps that had not been fitted with strainers to
keep out debris were found to be completely clogged and
(18:51):
barely functioning. Judging by the Hoyita's fuel levels, the vessel
had likely gone around two hundred and forty miles before
it was abandoned. Tragically, this was probably no more than
fifty miles from her intended destination. Hopes of finding survivors
persisted for weeks, with loved ones clinging on to the
(19:12):
slim possibility that maybe all or at least some of
them had made it to a remote island where they
might still be waiting to be rescued. However, if all
twenty five people had abandoned ship, each of the available
lifeboats would have been crowded to capacity, and the Hoyita
had not been equipped with enough life jackets for everyone
(19:33):
on board. In any case, a prolonged search found no one.
The international media ran the story under headlines that referred
to the Hoyita as the Marry Celeste of the South Pacific.
As explored in Unexplained, Season four episode six, The Silence
of the Sea, the Marry Celeste was a merchant ship
(19:56):
discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean close to
the assaults in December eighteen seventy two. It had been
sailing from New York to Genoa, and, like the Hoyita,
was found in a disheveled but seaworthy condition, with its
lifeboats missing. Unlike the Hoyeta, however, the Marry Celeste was
(20:17):
still amply provisioned when found, cargo intact and the captains
and crew's personal belongings undisturbed. It was as if everyone
had simply got up and left for no apparent reason.
But just like the Hoyita, none of those who had
been on board were ever seen again. As with the
(20:47):
Marry Celeste, the question on everyone's lips was why had
the Hoytas passengers and crew left the ship. Captain Miller
knew that, even partly flooded, his vessel was effectively unsinkable.
Why would he have taken the dangerous decision to get
into crowded lifeboats and risk everyone's lives on the open ocean.
(21:09):
One suggestion was that of freak water spout, which develops
when cool air passes over warm water, sucking up water
to produce a spout effect like an ocean tornado. Fair
weather water spouts typically last only a few minutes before
petering out, but winds inside them can be incredibly strong,
(21:29):
over sixty miles per hour, rotating rapidly, and have been
known to tear rigging and even masts off sailing ships
even capsize them. In August twenty twenty four, the luxury
super yacht the Baysian, belonging to billionaires Mike Lynch and
his wife Angelo Bacariz, was anchored off the scenic fishing
(21:50):
village of Porticello in Sicily. The yacht was fitted with
a two hundred and forty six foot mast, the world's
second tallest at the time. Mike and Angela were asleep
on board the boat, along with their daughter and a
number of friends, when the yacht was hit by a sudden,
violent storm, which generated water spouts. It's thought the force
(22:12):
of the strong wind was enough to push the yacht
over sideways and force the mast below the water line.
It took just sixteen minutes for the souper yacht to sink.
Seven of the twenty two people on board died, including
Mike Lynch and his eighteen year old daughter Hannah. Perhaps
(22:33):
the Hoyita suffered something equally terrifying that was enough to
scare the passengers and crew into abandoning the boat. Either way,
a formal inquiry confirmed only why the vessel had become
flooded and how the single engine that wasn't faulty would
not have been able to generate enough power to steer it.
As a result, much of the responsibility for this chain
(22:56):
of events was placed on Captain Miller, who'd wrecked the
set out with only one working engine and numerous other faults.
It was also discovered that the Hoyita's license to carry
fair paying passengers had expired some time before the trip.
In the end, the fate of the passengers and crew
of the Hoyta was determined to be inexplicable on the
(23:20):
evidence submitted. No mention was made of the bloody bandages
found on board, or why the Hoyta was abandoned while
still afloat, or where all its cargo had gone. Numerous
theories have been put forward to explain the Hoyita mystery.
(23:43):
One is that Captain Miller had died or become incapacitated
on board for some reason, and that without his experience,
the remaining crew panicked and took to the lifeboats. Author
David Wright, who researched the mystery extensively, spoke with two
of Miller's former crew. They described him as a negligent
(24:03):
and reckless man who behaved uncaringly and dismissively toward his crew.
Did simmering hostility among the Hoyita's crew boil over in
the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Others spoke of tension between Miller
and his American first mate, Chuck Simpson. Did Miller and
(24:24):
Simpson come to blows resulting in one or both of
them becoming seriously injured? Perhaps that would explain the bloody
bandages at The remaining crew and passengers then abandoned the Hoyita,
whose cargo was then raided by the crew of a
later passing ship. Another theory comes heavily laced with anti
(24:45):
Japanese sentiment, which was still strong in parts of the
Pacific at the time of the incident, especially in Fiji,
where locals were resentful of the Japanese for being allowed
to operate fishing fleets in their waters. The Fiji Times
and asserted that an allegedly impeccable source had informed them
that the Hoyita had passed through a fleet of Japanese
(25:07):
fishing boats during its trip, and those on board had
seen something the Japanese crews did not want them to see,
although it was never specified what that might have been exactly.
Without much evidence, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph chimed
in by suggesting that some Japanese forces were still active
(25:29):
from World War II and might have attacked the Hoyita
from a secret island base, perhaps drawing on tales of
isolated combatants who had yet to learn the war was over.
Men clearing the salvaged Hoyita reportedly found knives on board
stamped with made in Japan. However, the knives turned out
(25:49):
to be old and broken, quite possibly just relics from
when the Hoyita was used briefly as a fishing boat.
Another theory was that the Hoyita might actually have been
at hacked by pirates, who, having killed the passengers and crew,
simply cast their bodies into the ocean before making off
with the missing four tons of cargo and the one
(26:10):
hundred thousand dollars in cash. In the summer of nineteen
fifty six, the salvaged Hoyita was auctioned off to a
Fijian islander who refitted the vessel and once more put
it out to sea, but the ship assisted in living
up to its cursed existence. After running aground twice in
(26:30):
nineteen fifty nine, it was eventually stripped of all useful
equipment and put up for sale once again. One british
Man author, Robert morm became so obsessed with finding out
the truth about what had happened to the Hoyita and
(26:52):
all those on board back during that ill fated voyage
of nineteen fifty five, he decided to buy the vessel.
After several years investigating the incident, he published his findings
in his nineteen sixty two book The Hoyita Mystery. He
concurred with the official conclusion that events started with the
(27:12):
flooding from the broken cooling pipe and the failed effort
to pump out the water. He theorized that the mattresses
found covering the starboard engine were either an attempt to
stem the leak or to protect the electrical switchboard from
spray being kicked up by the engine's flywheel as the
water level rose. Marm went on to speculate that once
(27:35):
the ship became impossible to steer, Captain Miller argued violently
with his first mate and possibly some of the other crew,
who demanded that he turned back. When Miller refused, the
crew mutinied, and Miller was incapacitated in a subsequent fight.
Morm then argued that in the worsening weather and with
(27:56):
the engine room flooded, it would have been Simpson who
warded everyone to abandon the ship, taking the navigational equipment,
log book and supplies, as well as the injured Miller
with them. He suggested that perhaps the crew had seen
a nearby island or reef which they thought they could
reach in lifeboats. Perhaps that turned out to merely be
(28:18):
a raised sandbank exposed by low tide, and in the
end everyone has simply been carried out to the open ocean,
where they eventually capsized and drowned. In nineteen sixty six,
the Hoyita was sold to a major, Kaslin Cottle, who
ran a tourist and publicity bureau in a port town
(28:40):
in Fiji. Kaslin Cottle intended to turn the ship into
a museum and tea room, but the plans were eventually abandoned.
Over the next few years, little by little, the hulk
of the once beautiful Hoyita disintegrated into oblivion. Decades on,
only six of the twenty five passengers from the hoyitas
(29:02):
fate for nineteen fifty five voyage have been officially declared dead.
None of the Pacific Islander crew who afforded the dignity
of final closure, despite numerous efforts by relatives in nineteen
fifty five Tokelau and Western Samoa were both under New
Zealand administration, and since the New Zealand government has so
(29:24):
far refused to issue formal death certificates, nineteen of the
victims are still officially classified as missing. Just what exactly
happened to them all remains to this day unexplained. This
episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McLain Smith.
(29:48):
Thank you, as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy
Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other
elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained The book and audiobook
is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
(30:13):
and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
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you have an explanation or a story of your own
you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches online through X and
Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
(30:36):
Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast
Hello, It's Richard mclinsmith here with a huge favor to ask.
With Unexplained approaching its ten year anniversary, I want to
hear from as many of you as possible about what
you like about the show and what you don't like.
More importantly, I want to know what I can do
to make it better. So I've put a survey together
and would dearly like you to fill it in for
me if you have the time. Anyone taking part will
(00:20):
be entered into a prize drawer for a chance to
win one of ten signed copies of the Unexplained book.
You can find the survey on our website at Unexplained
podcast dot com, forward slash survey. That's Unexplained podcast dot com.
Forward slash survey. Thank you so much again for all
your support and for taking the time to listen to
the show. The dark tropical sky was tinged with lemon as.
(00:56):
Palm trees swayed lazily in the warm early morning from
somewhere out in the harbor of Apia, the capital of
Samoa in the South Pacific Ocean. Muffled metallic clangs and
hammering sounds had been ringing out all night, but now
as dawn broke, they finally went quiet. They were coming
(01:17):
from a small merchant vessel whose crew had been working
tirelessly to try and fix a faulty engine to no avail.
The ship's captain, a British seafarer named Thomas Dusty Miller,
looked harassed and frustrated in the gathering light. He told
his crew that they'd be setting out that morning, regardless
(01:38):
their departure had already been delayed enough as it was.
Captain Miller had been charted by the Samoan government to
take cargo and passengers to Tokalau, one of a remote
group of Polynesian adols. His boat, the Hoyeta, should have
left port at noon the previous day, halfway between Hawaii
(01:59):
and New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago
of Tokalau was around two hundred and seventeen nautical miles
to the north of the Samoan capitol. One of the
passengers due to travel on the boat was a doctor
who'd been tasked with performing an amputation on a patient
out there. Another, a pharmacist with urgently needed medical supplies
(02:21):
for the island. Along with several other passengers, four tons
of cargo were also on board. Captain Miller was no
doubt mindful of the urgent medical situation on Tokalau, and
with the engine at least functioning, perhaps he reasoned the
Hoyta's cork lined hull would keep them afloat regardless come
(02:42):
what may. Having arrived on Samoa seven months earlier, Captain
Miller was known for fine seamanship, but he'd also developed
a reputation for recklessness and head drinking. He was said
to be in some considerable debt to Recently, however, he'd
(03:06):
secured a contract to carry copra between Samoa and the Tokelaus.
Copra is the dried white flesh of coconut from which
coconut oil is extracted and used to make soaps and cosmetics.
The transportation of this lucrative commercial product, along with the
carriage of passengers and medical supplies to Tokelau, had given
(03:28):
the captain a viable business opportunity which he desperately needed
to ease his financial troubles. At daybreak on Monday third
of October nineteen fifty five, the Hoyita's sixteen strong crew,
which included two men from Samoa and nine from Tokelau
began welcoming the passengers on board. They included a government
(03:50):
official as well as the doctor, a veteran of the
Second World War, a copper buyer by the name of
mister Williams, the pharmacist, and two children, the youngest of
whom was only three years old. There was nothing immediately
remarkable about any of them, except for mister Williams, that is,
who was apparently carrying somewhere in the region of one
(04:13):
hundred thousand US dollars in cash to buy copper, well
over a million in to day's money. As the ship
steamed out of port, it was an ordinary enough day,
hot and clammy, but not yet the rainy season, the
ocean waves undulating gently, but there was a deep sense
(04:34):
of unease among some who saw the ship off. The
wife of mister Williams, the coppera trader, later said that
as she waived her husband goodbye, she was suddenly reminded
of a dream she'd had the previous night, or rather
a nightmare filled with visions of disaster. While on board,
(04:54):
some of the Samoans traded nervous glances, concerned that Captain
Miller seemed to be a little worse for wear from drinking,
and with that the engines fluttered into life, and the
anchor was pulled from the water. Of the captain's orders,
the boat eased out toward the open seas as mister
(05:15):
Williams's wife waved it off. The Hoyita eased steadily out
at the harbor. Before long it was completely out of
sight and beyond all radio contact. It would not be
the last sighting of the ship, but it would prove
to be the last time that any of the crew
or passengers were ever seen again. You're listening to Unexplained,
(05:39):
and I'm Richard McLean Smith. The Hoyita had not always
been a merchant vessel. It was originally commissioned and built
in Los Angeles in nineteen thirty one for the American
film director Rowland West, a doyen of early fil noir
(06:02):
in the silent movie era of the nineteen twenties and thirties.
The sixty nine foot twin engine pleasure cruiser was considered
the height of luxury for its time, boasting advanced features
such as autopilot and large fuel tanks for maximum usage time,
but the ship's construction did not go smoothly. One Portuguese
(06:25):
worker had a fatal fall from scaffolding while helping to
build it. Some say in response, the man's widow placed
a curse on the ship. Perhaps this didn't bother West,
or maybe he never even heard about it. Either way,
he went through with the purchase. After all, it was
a beautifully crafted vessel made from two inch thick cedar
(06:49):
planks over an oak timber frame. He named it Hoyita
Mexican for Little Jewel, after his wife, the silent screen
actor Jewel Carmen. At first, the gleaming vessel was everything
West had hoped, and he eagerly took it out whenever
he got the chance, usually on trips across to California's
(07:11):
Catalina Islands. The voyages would be lavish affairs, with West
always keen to share the experience with his many glamorous
friends from Hollywood. But West and his contemporaries were living
through the dying days of the silent screen era. Despite
being a leading light of his time, West's nineteen thirty
(07:32):
one film Corseir was his last as a director. Perhaps
looking to mitigate the choppy waters ahead, West and his wife,
Jewel Carmen, opened a restaurant together with fellow silent film
star Thelma Todd. Around the same time, West and Tod
began an affair. In truth, West and his wife jul
(07:54):
had been estranged for some time, but had remained married
to avoid the messy publicity that would inevitably come with divorce.
The three of them lived together in the same complex
alongside the restaurant, with West and Todd sharing apartments situated
directly above the restaurant, which were separated by a sliding door.
(08:16):
West and Todd's relationship was said to be a volatile one,
with West in particular known to be aggressive and controlling
over Todd. Perhaps it was just coincidence that West's tendency
to anger appeared to worsen almost the moment he brought
to the Hoyta. After all, the purchase did coincide with
(08:37):
a stressful downturn in his professional fortunes and in his
relationship with his wife. But thinking back to the apparent
curse placed on the vessel, perhaps it wasn't a coincidence
at all. It was one mid December day in nineteen
thirty five that dule Carmen's maid went down to the
(08:58):
garage to retrieve a car for her mistress and found
Thelma Todd dead behind the wheel of her Lincoln Phaeton convertible.
Though the cause of death was eventually ruled as suicide
by carbon monoxide poisoning, some believed that Roland West had
murdered her, and some also say he had in fact
(09:19):
killed her first on the Hoyita before transporting her body
to the garage. In the wake of Thelma Todd's death,
Roland West and Duel Carmen finally filed for divorce in
(09:40):
nineteen thirty eight. One of the first assets sold to
finance it was West's much loved Hoyita. Over the next
fourteen years, the ship changed hands a number of times
and was even used as a patrol boat by the U. S.
Navy in the Second World War. Then, in nineteen fifty two,
now known as the m V Hoyita, the ship was
(10:03):
acquired by a doctor, Katherine Luamala, an American anthropologist from Hawaii,
who made the semi permanent loan of the boat to
her then boyfriend, Captain Thomas Dusty Miller. Miller intended to
start a fishing business in Samoa, but the m V
Hoyita was no fishing boat and Miller was no fisherman. Thankfully,
(10:25):
after a listless seven months living on board the boat,
he managed to secure the contract to take cargo and
passengers between the capital Apia and the atolls of Tokelau.
That trip that he and his twenty four passengers and
crew set out for on that fateful journey of October third,
nineteen fifty five, should have taken no more than forty
(10:48):
eight hours, having been expected to arrive by mid morning
on Wednesday the fifth, when the sun sunk toward the
horizon later that evening, there was still no sign of
Mislaer or the Hoyita. The weather on route had been
relatively calm, and no passing ships or coastal stations in
the region had received a distress call, suggesting the vessel
(11:12):
was likely fine but had just been held up somehow.
On Thursday sixth, however, with still no sign or word
from the boat, officials based in Fakara Foe, another atoll
in tokal Out, reluctantly sent out a message to the
wider world that the Hoita was overdue. An immediate search
(11:32):
and rescue effort was launched by the Royal New Zealand
Air Force, searching an area of more than one hundred
thousand square miles, but they found nothing. The Envy Hoyita
had vanished off the face of the ocean. Tapula Tavita
lived in Arpia and was editor of Samoa's only weekly newspaper,
(11:53):
the Samoa Bulletin. Several months earlier, he'd enjoyed a day's
fishing trip on the Hoyita and had subsequently got to
know Captain Miller quite well. Tavita was also acquainted with
some of the passengers, including the doctor whom he'd played
golf with and who had even delivered one of his children.
In the days after the Hoyita was reported missing, Tavita
(12:16):
spent long hours with a friend at the Arpia radio station. Together,
the two men sat anxiously maintaining a constant radio watch
with the dial tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
the international distress frequency, but no distress calls ever came.
(12:41):
During those early days of the search and rescue operation,
no one was especially worried. Most shared the view that
with the Hoyita's wooden construction, cork insulated holds, and cargo,
including many empty but sealed oil drums, the vessel had
more than enough buoyancy to keep it aflowt There were
(13:01):
also plenty of supplies on board for the passengers and
crew should they have ended up adrift somewhere. Aside from that,
it was just a case of waiting. But as the
days passed, the rainy season well and truly arrived. People
on both Apia and Tokalau, along with the authorities, became
frantically worried for their friends and loved ones safety. Days
(13:25):
turned to weeks, and then a month. After thirty six days,
the search was called off. It was just after dawn
on the tenth of November when Captain Gerald Douglas of
the merchant ship Tuvalu, en route from Fiji to Tuvalu Island,
spotted a dark shape bobbing listlessly in the distance. The
(13:47):
idea that it could possibly be the missing Hoyita couldn't
have been further from the captain's mind at the time.
His ship was near Udo Point, on the easternmost tip
of Fiji, one thousand meters off the course the Hoyita
would have taken to Tokalau. As Douglas guided his vessel
toward the strange object, he brought his binoculars to his eyes.
(14:12):
He saw then that the shape was in fact a
small boat, and something was clearly very wrong with it.
The vessel appeared to be derelict and was listing heavily,
with its port side railings bobbing just below the waves.
There was no sign of anyone on board. Then the
name on the hull came into focus, m V Hoyita. Anxiously,
(14:38):
Douglas maneuvered his ship alongside it, and a small party
hastily jumped out and boarded the vessel. What they found
was a ghost ship. Everyone on board was gone. The
boats dinghy and three lifeboats were also missing. But why
exactly this was the case was a deep and trouble mystery.
(15:08):
Captain Douglas's crew spread out across the eerily quiet vessel
and began to investigate. Most alarmingly, there was significant damage
to the main structure, the flying bridge, a raised open
air deck had been ripped away. The windows on the
main wheelhouse had also been broken, while a makeshift canvas
(15:29):
awning had been rigged up behind it. They also discovered
barnacles on the port side, high above the normal waterline,
suggesting the Hoyita had been listing heavily for some time
before they found it moving. Inside the vessel, they found that, strangely,
the starboard engine had been covered by mattresses, while the
(15:50):
port engine was still in the partially disassembled state from
the day it had left Arpia. An auxiliary pump was
also found nearby, suggesting the crew and passengers were still
on board when the boat started taking on water, though
any effort to bail it out had clearly been in vain,
and yet when Captain Douglas later ordered a diver to
(16:14):
inspect the hull, they found no sign of damage or
anything else to explain how the boat had been so
severely flooded, and the discoveries just got grimmer. The ship's
radio was tuned to twenty one eighty two killer hertz,
the international distress frequency, but on closer inspection a break
(16:35):
was found in the cable between the set and the aerial,
which seemed to have been painted over to obscure the damage,
had someone sabotaged it to prevent a distress call from
being made. Then Captain Douglas noticed something else unsettling. All
the clocks on board that were wired into the vessel's
generator had stopped at ten twenty five, with the switch
(17:00):
for the cabin lighting and navigation lights all found to
be in the on position. It seemed that the generators
and all light had shut off in the middle of
the night. The ship's log book and navigational equipment, as
well as the firearms the Hoyta's captain was known to
keep on board, were all missing. The starter motor for
(17:22):
one of the engines was also missing. One of Douglas's
crew called out for the captain to come and look
at something. The man had found a leather bag on deck,
inside which was a stethoscope, a scalpel, and a whole
heap of bloodied bandageses. Captain Douglas took it all in,
(17:43):
then looked about at the stricken vessel. None of it
made any sense. Having seen enough, Captain Douglas ordered his
crew to pump the vessel out in preparation for taking
it back to land. Once the water had been removed,
(18:06):
it slowly righted itself and proceeded to float stably on
an even keel. It was a relatively easy task to
tow it into the nearest harbour on Fiji. Once there,
a more thorough inspection revealed that a pipe forming part
of the boat's cooling system had become so corroded it
had breached, flooding the boat from the inside. It seemed
(18:30):
very likely that the Hoyita's crew would not have realized
the boat was taking on water until it began rising
above the engine room floor, at which point it would
have been almost impossible to locate the source. Also, the
bilge pumps that had not been fitted with strainers to
keep out debris were found to be completely clogged and
(18:51):
barely functioning. Judging by the Hoyita's fuel levels, the vessel
had likely gone around two hundred and forty miles before
it was abandoned. Tragically, this was probably no more than
fifty miles from her intended destination. Hopes of finding survivors
persisted for weeks, with loved ones clinging on to the
(19:12):
slim possibility that maybe all or at least some of
them had made it to a remote island where they
might still be waiting to be rescued. However, if all
twenty five people had abandoned ship, each of the available
lifeboats would have been crowded to capacity, and the Hoyita
had not been equipped with enough life jackets for everyone
(19:33):
on board. In any case, a prolonged search found no one.
The international media ran the story under headlines that referred
to the Hoyita as the Marry Celeste of the South Pacific.
As explored in Unexplained, Season four episode six, The Silence
of the Sea, the Marry Celeste was a merchant ship
(19:56):
discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean close to
the assaults in December eighteen seventy two. It had been
sailing from New York to Genoa, and, like the Hoyita,
was found in a disheveled but seaworthy condition, with its
lifeboats missing. Unlike the Hoyeta, however, the Marry Celeste was
(20:17):
still amply provisioned when found, cargo intact and the captains
and crew's personal belongings undisturbed. It was as if everyone
had simply got up and left for no apparent reason.
But just like the Hoyita, none of those who had
been on board were ever seen again. As with the
(20:47):
Marry Celeste, the question on everyone's lips was why had
the Hoytas passengers and crew left the ship. Captain Miller
knew that, even partly flooded, his vessel was effectively unsinkable.
Why would he have taken the dangerous decision to get
into crowded lifeboats and risk everyone's lives on the open ocean.
(21:09):
One suggestion was that of freak water spout, which develops
when cool air passes over warm water, sucking up water
to produce a spout effect like an ocean tornado. Fair
weather water spouts typically last only a few minutes before
petering out, but winds inside them can be incredibly strong,
(21:29):
over sixty miles per hour, rotating rapidly, and have been
known to tear rigging and even masts off sailing ships
even capsize them. In August twenty twenty four, the luxury
super yacht the Baysian, belonging to billionaires Mike Lynch and
his wife Angelo Bacariz, was anchored off the scenic fishing
(21:50):
village of Porticello in Sicily. The yacht was fitted with
a two hundred and forty six foot mast, the world's
second tallest at the time. Mike and Angela were asleep
on board the boat, along with their daughter and a
number of friends, when the yacht was hit by a sudden,
violent storm, which generated water spouts. It's thought the force
(22:12):
of the strong wind was enough to push the yacht
over sideways and force the mast below the water line.
It took just sixteen minutes for the souper yacht to sink.
Seven of the twenty two people on board died, including
Mike Lynch and his eighteen year old daughter Hannah. Perhaps
(22:33):
the Hoyita suffered something equally terrifying that was enough to
scare the passengers and crew into abandoning the boat. Either way,
a formal inquiry confirmed only why the vessel had become
flooded and how the single engine that wasn't faulty would
not have been able to generate enough power to steer it.
As a result, much of the responsibility for this chain
(22:56):
of events was placed on Captain Miller, who'd wrecked the
set out with only one working engine and numerous other faults.
It was also discovered that the Hoyita's license to carry
fair paying passengers had expired some time before the trip.
In the end, the fate of the passengers and crew
of the Hoyta was determined to be inexplicable on the
(23:20):
evidence submitted. No mention was made of the bloody bandages
found on board, or why the Hoyta was abandoned while
still afloat, or where all its cargo had gone. Numerous
theories have been put forward to explain the Hoyita mystery.
(23:43):
One is that Captain Miller had died or become incapacitated
on board for some reason, and that without his experience,
the remaining crew panicked and took to the lifeboats. Author
David Wright, who researched the mystery extensively, spoke with two
of Miller's former crew. They described him as a negligent
(24:03):
and reckless man who behaved uncaringly and dismissively toward his crew.
Did simmering hostility among the Hoyita's crew boil over in
the rapidly deteriorating conditions. Others spoke of tension between Miller
and his American first mate, Chuck Simpson. Did Miller and
(24:24):
Simpson come to blows resulting in one or both of
them becoming seriously injured? Perhaps that would explain the bloody
bandages at The remaining crew and passengers then abandoned the Hoyita,
whose cargo was then raided by the crew of a
later passing ship. Another theory comes heavily laced with anti
(24:45):
Japanese sentiment, which was still strong in parts of the
Pacific at the time of the incident, especially in Fiji,
where locals were resentful of the Japanese for being allowed
to operate fishing fleets in their waters. The Fiji Times
and asserted that an allegedly impeccable source had informed them
that the Hoyita had passed through a fleet of Japanese
(25:07):
fishing boats during its trip, and those on board had
seen something the Japanese crews did not want them to see,
although it was never specified what that might have been exactly.
Without much evidence, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph chimed
in by suggesting that some Japanese forces were still active
(25:29):
from World War II and might have attacked the Hoyita
from a secret island base, perhaps drawing on tales of
isolated combatants who had yet to learn the war was over.
Men clearing the salvaged Hoyita reportedly found knives on board
stamped with made in Japan. However, the knives turned out
(25:49):
to be old and broken, quite possibly just relics from
when the Hoyita was used briefly as a fishing boat.
Another theory was that the Hoyita might actually have been
at hacked by pirates, who, having killed the passengers and crew,
simply cast their bodies into the ocean before making off
with the missing four tons of cargo and the one
(26:10):
hundred thousand dollars in cash. In the summer of nineteen
fifty six, the salvaged Hoyita was auctioned off to a
Fijian islander who refitted the vessel and once more put
it out to sea, but the ship assisted in living
up to its cursed existence. After running aground twice in
(26:30):
nineteen fifty nine, it was eventually stripped of all useful
equipment and put up for sale once again. One british
Man author, Robert morm became so obsessed with finding out
the truth about what had happened to the Hoyita and
(26:52):
all those on board back during that ill fated voyage
of nineteen fifty five, he decided to buy the vessel.
After several years investigating the incident, he published his findings
in his nineteen sixty two book The Hoyita Mystery. He
concurred with the official conclusion that events started with the
(27:12):
flooding from the broken cooling pipe and the failed effort
to pump out the water. He theorized that the mattresses
found covering the starboard engine were either an attempt to
stem the leak or to protect the electrical switchboard from
spray being kicked up by the engine's flywheel as the
water level rose. Marm went on to speculate that once
(27:35):
the ship became impossible to steer, Captain Miller argued violently
with his first mate and possibly some of the other crew,
who demanded that he turned back. When Miller refused, the
crew mutinied, and Miller was incapacitated in a subsequent fight.
Morm then argued that in the worsening weather and with
(27:56):
the engine room flooded, it would have been Simpson who
warded everyone to abandon the ship, taking the navigational equipment,
log book and supplies, as well as the injured Miller
with them. He suggested that perhaps the crew had seen
a nearby island or reef which they thought they could
reach in lifeboats. Perhaps that turned out to merely be
(28:18):
a raised sandbank exposed by low tide, and in the
end everyone has simply been carried out to the open ocean,
where they eventually capsized and drowned. In nineteen sixty six,
the Hoyita was sold to a major, Kaslin Cottle, who
ran a tourist and publicity bureau in a port town
(28:40):
in Fiji. Kaslin Cottle intended to turn the ship into
a museum and tea room, but the plans were eventually abandoned.
Over the next few years, little by little, the hulk
of the once beautiful Hoyita disintegrated into oblivion. Decades on,
only six of the twenty five passengers from the hoyitas
(29:02):
fate for nineteen fifty five voyage have been officially declared dead.
None of the Pacific Islander crew who afforded the dignity
of final closure, despite numerous efforts by relatives in nineteen
fifty five Tokelau and Western Samoa were both under New
Zealand administration, and since the New Zealand government has so
(29:24):
far refused to issue formal death certificates, nineteen of the
victims are still officially classified as missing. Just what exactly
happened to them all remains to this day unexplained. This
episode was written by Diane Hope and Richard McLain Smith.
(29:48):
Thank you, as ever for listening. Unexplained as an Avy
Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other
elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained The book and audiobook
is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
(30:13):
and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
you have an explanation or a story of your own
you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Unexplained podcast dot com and reaches online through X and
Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com,
(30:36):
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