The story of Manfred Fritz Bayorat, a sailor who became a mummy on a ghost ship

In 2016, the news about a strange and frightening find spread around the world. A "mummy" of the German navigator Manfred Fritz Bajorat was found on a yacht that drifted 100 kilometers from the Philippine municipality of Barobo.

Immediately there was an assumption that he disappeared back in 2009 (allegedly no one has seen this man since then), and the yacht with the body was at sea all this time. The unusual appearance of the "mummy" contributed to the even greater popularity of the find. And the drama of the situation was added by the posture of the unfortunate: he seemed to "freeze" near the radio, trying with his last strength to call for help.

In early March 2016, two Filipinos noticed a white drifting yacht while fishing. Having swum closer to her, they saw that the mast was broken and the ship itself was half under water, which indicated that the yacht had been sailing in the open sea for an unknown amount of time.

The young fishermen, having boarded, noticed the disorder reigning on the deck and inside. And already in the cabin they came across the mummy of the captain and owner of the ship, 59-year-old German yachtsman Manfred Fritz Bayorat. The identity was established by the documents found on board.

Death overtook the captain when he was trying, apparently, to transmit a signal for help on a radiotelephone. And the salty air, dry winds and intense heat preserved the body in a mummified form. His last letter to his wife Claudia, who died of cancer in 2010, was also found next to the man.

Manfred Bayorat himself has spent the last 20 years on the water, on this round-the-world trip he was accompanied by his wife until their divorce two years before her death. His letter to his still beloved wife ends with the words:

The manager of the consulting company Manfrid Bayorat was 39 years old when he realized that he was very tired of his gray life in the German Ruhr. And the white collar went to study... to become a yachtsman. At first , he swam as part of amateur teams in the Aegean and The Mediterranean Sea, then "tried the Indian Ocean." The decision to buy his own yacht came after Martinique, where he went with his wife. The traveler even named Le Fort de France, the largest local town, as his place of birth on Facebook later.

The couple rejoiced at the purchase of a 13-meter beauty yacht, which they decided to call Sayo. The former manager invested part of his savings in it, and over the next twenty years that he and his wife "plowed" the seas and oceans, painting over new places on the world map with a felt-tip pen, he never regretted it. Claudia jokingly called the ship "blonde" — for the snow-white hull and the constant need to spend money on its operation. Like, Sayo will let us go around the world.

Pacific Ocean, Atlantic, Caribbean, Indonesia and Majorca, Mediterranean and Baltic. After 11 years of wandering, Meinfred remade the seaman's certificate under his new nickname "Tiger Shark". Tiger sharks are solitary, because this way low-frequency sound waves are better captured, which allow you to find prey even in muddy water. But Meinfred just didn't have a strong sense. He, for example, did not feel the moment when Claudia got tired of sea life and she went ashore forever.

When a 12-meter yacht with a broken mast washed up to the shores of the Philippines, it was partially filled with water. Probably, the ship got into a storm after the death of the captain.

The floor of the ship was ankle-deep in water, clothes and books in the cabin were damp and scattered everywhere, but those same kitchen towels and an album with family photos, as if the salt water and dry, tropical wind had not touched.

Investigators found no traces of other people on board, no weapons or possible murder weapons. So they didn't see a criminal trace in this story.

After the autopsy, a representative of the police station in the Philippines stated that there was no evidence of a "criminal history in this case."

There were rumors that the corpse had been drifting on the sea for 7 long years, it turned out that it was just a "fairy tale". The navigator did not die in 2009, just a week before he was discovered: the cause of death was an acute myocardial infarction. The data was obtained after an autopsy conducted by the Philippine police.

Finally, the legend of the "ghost yacht" was debunked by documents that confirmed that in 2013 the Bayorat received the appropriate permission from the maritime police. Also, one of the navigator's friends said that he communicated with him about a year ago.

But then why did the body look so unusual? Experts explained that heat, dry wind and salty sea air have a similar effect in total. As a rule, complete mummification of the body is achieved in 6-12 months. In some cases, it may occur after 3-5 months. Traces of partial mummification can be detected on the body as early as 1-2 months later.

Natural mummification occurs if the body is in an environment that prevents the decomposition process. Such an environment, for example, may be an area with a stable low temperature. A typical example of natural mummification is Etzi, or "Ice Man".