In 1748 the Lady Lovibond (spelling varies) a three-masted schooner ran a ground at Goodwin Sands on the Kent coast with a wedding party aboard. Every fifty years on the anniversary of the tragedy, the Lady Lovibund reappears often causing other ships to run a ground!

Or that’s what the paranormal press would want you to believe…

After contacting the Kent Maritime Museum, they confirmed that a map of shipwrecks of the Goodwin Sands does show that a ship called “The Lady Luvibund” hit the South Caliper of Goodwin Sands in 1748. Unfortunately no further information was available.

Two books – “The Goodwin Sands” by the late George-Goldsmith Carter, an authority on the Goodwin Sands, and the other entitled “The Folklore of the Sea” by Margaret Baker) both detail the original grounding with great accuracy, even though no survivors. Both accounts provide historical data that could be checked up on.

Research into the Luvibund guided one researcher to contact the Guildhall Museum and Kent County Council.

“Kent Council provided me with a small dossier of documents, maps and newspaper clippings all relating to the “Lady Luvibund”; the most important of these is a photocopy from the 1995 edition of “Shipwreck Index of the British Isles” by Richard and Bridget Larn. The Luvibund is mentioned, but no new details are included with one exception. Whereas most of the wrecks mentioned have a reference to the issue of “Lloyd’s List” that they appeared in, the ghost ship’s only reference is to the book by Goldsmith-Carter!

I made a point of checking Lloyd’s List, which is held at the Guildhall Museum in London. I found absolutely no mention of the ship, or even a close approximation to her name in issues for 1747 or 1748 although, as the Kent Maritime Museum has pointed out, a three-masted schooner would have been of sufficient size to be mentioned in the List. In fairness, to the legend, it should be mentioned that many of the early editions of the List (it started in 1740) are missing- for instance; the first half of January 1748 is absent.”

The Canterbury Library fortunately holds a complete set of local newspapers from the early 18th century to the present day; a request from me confirmed that there is no mention of the phantom ship in any February/March issue from 1748, 1798, 1848, 1898 or 1948! From this one might conclude that either newspapers of the time weren’t as sensationalist as today’s, or that the whole story is a hoax! It might be a case of folklore being accepted as history rather than the other way round.

One excellent book (Lost At Sea*), which I purchased at the Fortean Times Unconvention in April 1998 confirmed my research and even added new details, confirming, beyond doubt, that the whole story is a fable.

* Lost At Sea by Michael Goss and George Behe, published by Prometheus Books, 1994, ISBN 0-87975-913-5