There was the case of the Mary Celeste. In 1872, this ship was found adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. The strange thing was that the ship was intact, with all the supplies on board, but the crew was missing. There were no signs of a struggle or any obvious reason for the crew to have abandoned the ship. It has been the subject of much speculation and mystery ever since.
The Miracle of Dunkirk in 1940 is quite remarkable. During World War II, Allied troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk. Against all odds, a large number of civilian boats, from fishing boats to yachts, were mobilized to rescue over 338,000 soldiers. It was a heroic and almost unbelievable effort that changed the course of the war at that time.