Monte Sarmiento (ship, 1924)
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The Monte Sarmiento (I) was a passenger ship of the German shipping company Hamburg South American Steamship Company (Hamburg Süd) put into service in 1924 . She was the first ship of the Monte -class and when commissioned the largest motor ship in the world.
The ship
The 16,625 GRT motor ship Monte Sarmiento was the first of five sister ships of the Monte class that Hamburg Süd put into service in the second half of the 1920s and which were supposed to cover passenger and freight traffic to South America and the Far East .
The 159.7 meter long and 20.1 meter wide ship was named after the mountain of the same name on Tierra del Fuego and was launched on July 31, 1924. The passenger ship had two masts , two chimneys and was powered by four diesel engines that ran on two propellers and enabled a top speed of 14 knots. The ship had a passenger capacity of 1,328 in the second and 1,142 in the third class. The crew consisted of a total of 280 people. The equipment included two dining rooms, a large hall, extensive promenade decks , a smoking room and a reading and writing room.
The Monte Sarmiento was the first German motor ship with a measurement of over 10,000 GRT and at the time of commissioning the largest motor ship in the world. It was completed on November 12, 1924 and three days later it left Hamburg on its maiden voyage to the Río de la Plata . Numerous trips to the South American east coast followed. In addition, she was with the sister ship Monte Olivia from summer to autumn 1936 for the KdF organization in the fjords of Norway .
On January 23, 1930, the sister ship Monte Cervantes sank on the southern tip of Argentina after it had run into a rock the day before. The captain of the ship, Theodor Dreyer, was killed. The memorial service for Captain Dreyer took place in the presence of surviving passengers and crew members on board the Monte Sarmiento .
From December 21, 1939, the ship was used by the German Navy as a barge in Kiel . During an Allied bombing raid on February 26, 1942, the Monte Sarmiento was hit, badly damaged and sank. 38 crew members were killed. In 1943 the wreck was lifted, towed to Hamburg and scrapped.