On board the Sea Splendour, Captain Franco detected the change. “She’s turning!” Franco’s eyes focused on the narrowing gap. “She’s turning.”

Inch by inch, foot by foot, then yard by yard, the freighter’s bow began to ease toward shore. Hopeful eyes aboard the Sea Splendour prayed that the freighter would pass clear. But the amount of separation between the ships was just too small. There would be no avoiding contact.

A ship’s horn bellowed as the crew and passengers braced for impact. The Tasmanian Star sped closer, seemingly intent on ramming the liner’s starboard quarter. Yet at the last instant, the freighter’s high prow swung clear of a crushing blow, easing just beyond the Sea Splendour’s stern post. Twenty feet of the cargo ship’s bow slipped past before the first grinding squeal of scraping metal.

The freighter shuddered as it ground against an overhanging section of the Sea Splendour’s fantail. The massive ship never slowed, bulling forward as it was sprayed with shredded steel. As suddenly as it struck, the carrier pulled clear, angling off toward shore. Still steaming at better than twelve knots, the cargo ship now carried a twenty-foot section of the Sea Splendour’s afterdeck wedged atop its forward hold.

The cruise ship had keeled hard to port at impact but slowly righted itself. Her captain stood in disbelief. The reports being radioed to the bridge cited only minor structural damage. The fantail had been cleared of passengers, and not a single injury was reported. By the barest of margins, they’d avoided disaster.

At the realization his ship had survived and no lives were lost, the captain let relief turn to anger. “Prepare to lower the officer’s launch,” he told a nearby crewman. “After I survey the damage, I’m going to go deck that clown—the second he steps ashore.”

He had failed to track the Tasmanian Star, assuming it would eventually slow and turn toward Valparaiso’s commercial port. But the freighter didn’t alter course; it sailed on toward a thin sandy beach along the town’s waterfront.

A middle-aged Canadian couple, who had consumed a bit too much local Chardonnay at lunch, was dozing on the sand when the Tasmanian Star touched bottom a few yards off the surf line. A deep chafing sound, like an enormous coffee grinder, filled the air as its hull scoured the bottom. The prow cut easily through the soft sand before its momentum began to slow. The ship burrowed through the beach, leveling a small ice cream stand whose owner wisely fled.

As the ghost ship groaned to a halt, nearby onlookers stared in disbelief. Only the moan of its engines and still-churning propeller gave sign of any life aboard the stricken vessel.

Hearing the noise and detecting a shadow cross his body, the dosing Canadian, his eyes still closed, nudged his wife. “Honey, what was that?”