Monte San Michele (ship, 1920)
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The Monte San Michele was an Italian bulk carrier put into service in 1920 for the Genoa- based shipping company S. A. Armatori Riuniti . The freighter was originally still under the name War Odyssey as part of the British war emergency program and on behalf of the Shipping Controller as a so-called Type-N ship was laid at the shipyard of the Monmouth Shipbuilding Company . Immediately after it was commissioned in the summer of 1920, the shipping controller sold the ship to Italy, where it was renamed Monte San Michele . The ship was lost in the North Atlantic in the spring of 1921 for reasons that were not known for certain , and the entire crew was killed.
Technical specifications
The Monte San Michele was 125.88 m long and 17.01 m wide. The average draft was 6.28 m, but could increase to 8.50 m when fully loaded. The bulk carrier was measured at 6547 GRT and was mainly used to transport grain. The ships of type N or the war emergency building program were kept relatively simple in terms of design and construction and were composed of prefabricated assemblies. Some of these parts were also supplied by companies that were not normally involved in shipbuilding. The drive system was correspondingly inefficient and consisted of two steam boilers and a three-cylinder triple expansion machine ; the maximum power was around 700 PSi , which enabled the ship to travel at a top speed of around 9.5 kn (around 17.5 km / h). The crew usually consisted of 27 men.
Downfall
Between the summer of 1920 and the spring of 1921, the freighter, which was used as a grain transporter to commute between the ports of the US east coast and Italy, only made two crossings.
The Monte San Michele left New York Harbor on February 2, 1921 with a cargo of around 7,000 tons of wheat on board. After a stopover in Gibraltar , the freighter should have continued its voyage to Genoa . The ship never reached Gibraltar. The circumstances that led to the loss are not entirely secured. The freighter got into the foothills of a hurricane about 600 nautical miles east-northeast of the Bermuda Islands on February 7, 1921 . On the morning of February 8, 1921, the US freighter Gasper received an emergency call from the Italian ship. The Monte San Michele indicated a position of about 36 ° N, 49 ° 40 'W and reported an emergency caused by the storm. There were no further reports. Although the Gasper immediately set course for the specified position, no trace of the damaged vessel could be found on site. The Monte San Michele had sunk with the entire crew, and no debris could be found.
Cause of accident
The exact cause of the accident, the time of the sinking and the place of the sinking (apart from the latter position reported by radio) are not exactly known. The Monte San Michele was almost as good as new, but it was only propelled by a relatively inefficient triple expansion engine, the failure of which in a storm would have had serious consequences (see cross-passages ). In addition, the ships of the war emergency building program were partly composed of assemblies whose strength and connections can at least be questioned. Also, in case of storm damage to the hatch covers to a subsequent swelling have come cause subsequent damage to the cargo of wheat.
Trivia
The loss of the Monte San Michele has also been linked to the events surrounding the stranding of the sailing ship Carroll A. Deering and the disappearance of its crew, with speculation that pirates or smugglers might have had something to do with the loss of the ship . There are no corresponding references to this.
literature
- Bland Simpson: Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC 2002, pp. 190f.
Web links
- Entry for Monte San Michele at wrecksite.eu. (English)
- New York Times report, among other things, on the loss of Monte San Michele in April 1921. (English)
- Ted Finch, Gilbert Provost: WWI Standard Built Ships - Brief descriptions of all ship types in the emergency war program.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bland Simpson: Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC 2002, pp. 190f.