Captain Van der Decken is a legendary ghost pirate or sailor, known as the captain of the ghost ship Flying Dutchman.
History[]
The dutch captain Van der Decken, in the seventeenth century. According to one version of the story, the navigator conjured Satan to save his life and that of his crew when his ship faced a spectacular storm off the Cape of Good Hope. Another version states that Van der Decken deliberately implored Lucifer for the power to sail the seas unaffected by inclement weather. According to some sources, the legend could be based on the Dutch captain Bernard Fokke, famous in the 17th century for achieving unusual cruising speeds on his voyages between Holland and Java. Such were his exploits at the helm that many of his contemporaries attributed it to an eventual pact with the devil. In any case, in all versions of the story, God, omniscient, punishes Willem van der Decken to sail, aimlessly and without the possibility of returning to port, for ever and ever.
Origin of Legend[]
Versions of the legend are countless, but the original one began with the captain of a Dutch ship, a bourgeois captain from the Netherlands named Van der Decken, who made a pact with the devil to always be able to sail the seas no matter what natural challenges he faced. May God put you on your journey. But God, omniscient, finds out about this and in punishment condemns him to sail forever aimlessly and without touching land, for which he receives the name Flying Dutchman. According to certain sources, the dutch captain Bernard Fokke (17th century) served as the model for the commander of the ghost ship. Fokke was famous for the strange cruising speed that he reached in the crossings between Holland and Java, for which it was suspected that he had signed a deal with the devil. In some Dutch versions of the myth, the captain is called Falkenburg. Marryat is given the name van der Decken (meaning "on deck") in his version, and Ramhout van Dam in Washington Irving's version. Both do not agree when calling the ship or the captain a flying Dutchman. He is also said to have sworn, facing a storm, that he would not turn back until he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, even if it took him until Judgment Day to do so. There has also been talk of a horrible crime committed on board the ship and even of a terrible epidemic that infected the crew, who for this reason were not allowed to disembark in any port, and since then have been sentenced ship and sailors to sail. forever, without the possibility of stepping on land. As for the dates on which it would occur, there has been talk of 1641 and 1680. The similarities and commonalities between the legends of the Flying Dutchman and the Flying Jew have often been pointed out.
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