Cotopaxi (ship)
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The Cotopaxi was an American cargo ship that was believed to be missing until the wreck was identified 95 years after the sinking. It was built in Ecorse , Michigan in 1918 and was owned by the Clinchfield Navigation Company at the time of its loss. It was named after the Ecuadorian volcano Cotopaxi .
The ship
The Cotopaxi was the fourth ship in a series of 24 cargo steamers that were ordered from the shipyard by the US Shipping Board in March 1918. Seventeen of these ships were built in Ecorse to the same design. The construction arranged cabins and engine rooms aft and was intended for the transport of bulk cargo. The machinery consisted of a triple expansion steam engine powered by two coal-fired boilers. The construction of the Cotopaxi took 78 days from keel-laying to launch. It was delivered on November 30, 1918 and was intended for use on the east coast of South America. In 1919, on the voyage from Philadelphia to Salvador de Bahia, the Cotopaxi ran aground in the Braganza Canal off Brazil and was only released again after part of the cargo was unloaded. It was repaired in Brazil at a cost of $ 200,000. On December 23 of that year, it was sold to Clinchfield Navigation for $ 375,000.
loss
On November 29, 1925, the Cotopaxi ran with a load of coal from Charleston to Havana . There were 32 men on board. On December 1, 1925, the captain radioed list and flooding. The owners tried to contact us by radio. In addition, a customs cutter was looking for the ship. Both measures were unsuccessful and the ship was considered lost. It was Lloyd’s first reported loss in 1926.
wreck
In January 2020, a wreck known since 1985 as the Bear Wreck was identified as that of the Cotopaxi after a search in Lloyd's archives found that the steamer had sent a distress signal with a position. The wreck is about 35 nautical miles from St. Augustine .
Trivia
On May 18, 2015, the World News Daily Report, which specializes in false reports, posted the news that the ship had been sighted off the Cuban coast without a crew.
In Steven Spielberg's 1976 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the ship SS Cotopaxi, which originally disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, reappears in a film sequence in the Mongolian part of the Gobi desert .
Web link
- Drawings and photos of the type
Footnotes
- ^ A b c Marine Historical Society of Detroit
- ^ Ships and the Sea , in: Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 74, 27 March 1926
- ↑ New York Post , reported January 30, 2020, accessed January 30, 2020
- ↑ snopes.com , accessed January 30, 2020