Jan de Groot

When Jan de Groot decided to purchase Raven, a 140-foot gaff-rigged ketch, in order to provide sailing adventures for underprivileged children in British Columbia, he had no idea of the bizarre adventure that lay ahead. Built in 1920 as a sailing cargo vessel, Raven was converted to a pleasure yacht in the late 1960s. She should have been the perfect vessel for the job Jan envisaged - and might have been, were it not for the ghost that haunted her.

After the ship was launched by the Danish shipyard that built her, the owner was crushed to death between the ship and the dock. His death began a chain of unexplainable events that caused havoc for all those who subsequently sailed her. Jan's voyage on the ghost ship began with a crew of thirty-one who set sail in the Bahamas in 1972 to bring the ship to her new homein Vancouver. Almost immediately, strange events began to rattle the crew. Some were experienced sailors, some were not, but regardless of their backgrounds, all were affected by the presence of the ghost who haunted the ship and cursed the voyage with its paranormal skullduggery.

Even Raven's eventual resting place on a reef not far from Haiti has raised all kinds of questions and linked her with one of the most famous ghost ships of all time, the Mary Celeste.

The Riddle of the Raven is a fabulous story for all those who love tales about ships and the sea, and for those who are intrigued by the paranormal.