The Flying Dutchman

I decided to write about nautical tales by chance.
I had googled "flotsam" because I wanted to write
about cool things that people had found.
Somehow google pulled up a ghost ships page.
i'm not complaining.
Ghost stories always suck me in,
and if they are about the sea-even better.

The Flying Dutchman seems to be
one of the top tales of the sea.
As with all legends, it has
a number of twists and details.
But the main tale is this:

In 1641 a dutch ship sank
off the Cape of Good Hope.
Captain Van Der Decken had planned to dock briefly in Africa
before returning home to Holland.
A storm rolled in, and the cap'n and crew
tried desperately to escape it.
They thought they may have, until..
CRACK!
the ship crashes onto rocks
and begins to sink into the sea.
The Cap'n, not ready to meet his maker,
screams out " I WILL round this cape!
Even if I have to keep sailing til Doomsday!"

Legend has it, that if you look into a storm
off the Cape of Good Hope, you can see
the glowing Dutchman. However, it is
considered a bad omen to see the ship
and a tragic death will follow.

That is the general legend,
other versions include the plague
infecting the crew, or a horrible crime
occured on board.
Either way, the ship was not allowed to dock.
And all on board were doomed to sail the sea
for eternity.

The most recent sighting I could find was
in 1959. Where a ship almost collided with it.
or so they thought.
With all the sailors that lost their lives at sea
It's hard not to believe that ghosts don't appear.