The Flying Dutchman (Dutch: De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the sea forever.

The first known print reference to the ship appears in Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward (1790) by John MacDonald: The weather was so stormy that the sailors said they saw the Flying Dutchman.

In the night watch some of the people saw, or imagined they saw, a vessel standing for them under a press of sail, as though she would run them down: one in particular affirmed it was the ship that had foundered in the former gale, and that it must certainly be her, or the apparition of her; but on its clearing up, the object, a dark thick cloud, disappeared.

Nothing could do away the idea of this phenomenon on the minds of the sailors; and, on their relating the circumstances when they arrived in port, the story spread like wild-fire, and the supposed phantom was called the Flying Dutchman.

[8]The next literary reference introduces the motif of punishment for a crime, in Scenes of Infancy (Edinburgh, 1803) by John Leyden (1775–1811): It is a common superstition of mariners, that, in the high southern latitudes on the coast of Africa, hurricanes are frequently ushered in by the appearance of a spectre-ship, denominated the Flying Dutchman ...

The crew of this vessel are supposed to have been guilty of some dreadful crime, in the infancy of navigation; and to have been stricken with pestilence ... and are ordained still to traverse the ocean on which they perished, till the period of their penance expire.

Thirteen persons altogether saw her ... At 10.45 a.m. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms.

[13]Nicholas Monsarrat, the novelist who wrote The Cruel Sea, described the phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean in his unfinished final book "Master Mariner", which was partly inspired by this tale (he lived and worked in South Africa after the war) and the story of the Wandering Jew.

Probably the most credible explanation is a superior mirage or Fata Morgana seen at sea: The news soon spread through the vessel that a phantom-ship with a ghostly crew was sailing in the air over a phantom-ocean, and that it was a bad omen, and meant that not one of them should ever see land again.

The captain was told the wonderful tale, and coming on deck, he explained to the sailors that this strange appearance was caused by the reflection of some ship that was sailing on the water below this image, but at such a distance they could not see it.

There were certain conditions of the atmosphere, he said, when the sun's rays could form a perfect picture in the air of objects on the earth, like the images one sees in glass or water, but they were not generally upright, as in the case of this ship, but reversed—turned bottom upwards.

[22] British author Brian Jacques wrote a trilogy of fantasy/young adult novels concerning two reluctant members of the Dutchman's crew, a young boy and his dog, whom an angel charges to help those in need.

The story was adapted into the English melodrama The Flying Dutchman; or the Phantom Ship: a Nautical Drama, in three acts (1826) by Edward Fitzball, with music by George Rodwell.

Heine had first used the legend in his Reisebilder: Die Nordsee (Pictures of Travel: the North Sea) (1826), which simply repeats from Blackwood's Magazine the features of the vessel being seen in a storm and sending letters addressed to persons long since dead.

In the 1976 Land of the Lost episode "Flying Dutchman", the ship appears captained by Ruben Van de Meer, who attempts to take Holly with him to give him company on his endless voyage.

Carl Barks wrote and drew a 1959 comic book story where Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Huey, Dewey, and Louie meet The Flying Dutchman.

Silver Surfer #8–9 (cover date September/October 1969), art by John Buscema and Dan Adkins, with dialogue and editing by Stan Lee, features a retelling of The Flying Dutchman legend.

In the only plot point taken from earlier versions of the story, once every seven years, the Dutchman is allowed ashore for six months to search for a woman who will love him enough to die for him, releasing him from his curse, and he finds her in Pandora, played by Gardner.

In a story partly inspired by Richard Wagner's opera, he can step on land once every ten years, and that at any time, if he finds a love that is true, then his attachment to the ship is broken.

Dutch symphonic black metal band Carach Angren wrote a concept album about the Flying Dutchman entitled Death Came Through a Phantom Ship.

[33] The Efteling amusement park in the Netherlands has a roller coaster called De Vliegende Hollander ("The Flying Dutchman" in English), which features a captain named Willem van der Decken (nl).

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines references the endless traveling aspect of the story by having The Flying Dutchman painted on the rear sides of all its aircraft with regular livery.

Famous Dutch football player Robin van Persie also got the nickname "the Flying Dutchman" after his goal against Spain in the 2014 World Cup because of the way he scored with the header.

In the 1970s, the British and American press often dubbed the Dutch rock band Golden Earring "The Flying Dutchmen" because of their exuberant stage act, which included drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk leaping over his drum kit and guitarist George Kooymans performing high jumps.