Relative Disasters, Episode 77 - The 1955 Disappearance of the MV 'Joyita'

Relative Disasters

In October of 1955, a ship named 'Joyita' set sail from Apia, Samoa, to the Tokelau Islands. The 300-mile trip should have taken 2 days, but she never arrived, and an extensive search failed to find any traces of either the 'Joyita' or the 25 people she carried. Not that she'd sunk; in fact, a month later, she was found floating off the coast of Fiji, with no one aboard and no sign of what had happened to her passengers and crew.

On this episode, we're discussing ghost ships, Old Hollywood, iron pipes vs. the Pacific Ocean (the ocean wins, every time), and the curious and unlucky life of a luxury yacht turned into a patrol boat, a fishing vessel, and a merchant ship.

Sources for this episode include:

"Joyita: Solving the Mystery" by D. G. Wright, 2002

"MV Joyita: The Ghost Ship That Couldn't Sink" by B. Dimri for Historic Mysteries, 2022

"25 People Got Lost At Sea; The Ship Was Found, But The People Weren't", by C. Leigh for Medium, 2018