Burin's Mystery of the Deep

One of the most puzzling, albeit obscure, sea stories of the south coast comes out of Burin, the centre of the schooner bank fishery and a town that once had a substantial inshore fishery. It was within the working world of the inshore fishery that this unusual disappearance of a vessel occurred.

In 1922 Albert Mayo of Burin fished from his own small sailing vessel; its name, if the ship had one, is now lost in the mists of time. It was a small boat operated out of Burin by Mayo and his two sons, John Cyrus and George Fred Mayo.

Sometime prior to the final voyage Skipper Albert Mayo went to the bank and withdrew his life savings. The cash he took with him on the trip although no one realized that until after Albert and his boat disappeared. On August 17, 1922, the little schooner (or jackboat as small fishing schooners were termed in some parts of Placentia Bay) with her three crew -- the father and two sons -- fished the productive grounds off Burin about eight or nine miles south of Dodding Head, Burin.

While the boat was at anchor with the father aboard tending ship duties, John Cyrus and George Fred rowed out to the trawl and were busy removing cod from the baited hooks. The wind had come up slightly and one of the brothers looked up from his work toward their vessel. It had weighed anchor, he thought, and was moving slowly away from them out to sea. This was most unusual. The boys immediately dropped their gear and rowed hard in an attempt to catch the vessel.

But it was futile. A ship under sail, no matter what size, infinitely moves farther and farther away from a small dory propelled by oars. The vessel sailed toward the open ocean; yet, the father, as far as the boys could see, did not appear at the rail or anywhere on deck. Finally the white sails, which was the last the boys saw of the craft, disappeared beyond the horizon.

Not knowing what had happened to their father and his vessel, they finally turned the dory landward. They continued to row and to talk about the mysterious event until a passing fishing boat towed them to shore.

At Burin they reported the situation to Inspector Dee, the resident constable. Dee immediately requested that the revenue cruiser Daisy steam to sea to try and locate the vessel but, despite a search over a wide expanse of Placentia Bay, Albert Mayo and his boat were never seen again. The family was in anguish. Deception or foolish tricks was something totally foreign to the family and not typical of the father. Why had Albert withdrawn his savings from the bank? No one could explain. In the anxious days and weeks that followed, other unanswered questions, speculations, and rumours surfaced. The fishing vessel, as was the custom while awaiting for a dory to return to unload, was anchored. Had the anchor been lifted? or become dislodged from its bottom hold? The boat had sailed away apparently under steerage. Could it be that while Albert was below deck in the forecastle or stowing away fish, the anchor loosened its hold and the vessel sailed off many miles under its own power before Albert became aware of what was happening? Perhaps then he, working the sails alone, could not manoeuvre his craft back, or he may have encountered adverse winds as he drifted out into Placentia Bay.

There was much conjecture on the incident and all sorts of situations were put forth and argued as to why it had happened. In any event, Albert Mayo and his vessel were never seen again. Albert, and his brother Joseph, had married two Collins' sisters from Flat Islands, Placentia Bay. Years after Albert had disappeared so mysteriously, his widow, Eliza Mayo (nee Collins), married James Miller of Flat Islands.

Men who go down to the sea are always under the its ever present threat; the tragic footnotes of this marine mystery are no exception. Bert Mayo, another younger son of Albert Mayo, drowned in Silly Bob's Pond, not far from his home.

Joseph, the brother of the man who disappeared on his ship, also became a victim of the sea. During the August gale of 1927 in which one Gloucester schooner, Columbia, and several Nova Scotian banking schooners went down with full crew, Joseph Mayo was lost at sea. Joseph, born in Burin but a resident of Halifax, his two sons Albert and George Henry, disappeared with the Columbia on or about August 24, 1927. Such were the travails of Newfoundland's seafaring men. While a few families were rarely touched by tragedy, many others knew well the pangs of sorrow when the relentless ocean claimed its unwilling victims and men and ships disappeared without a trace.