The Pío IX was a passenger ship put into service in 1887 by the Spanish shipping company Pinillos Izquierdo y Compañía, which operated between Spain and South America . On December 5, 1916, the Pío IX sank in the Canary Islands , killing 40 people.
The ship
The 3,895 GRT passenger ship Pío IX was built at the John Dickinson & Sons Ltd. built in the northern English port city of Sunderland . The owner was the Pinillos Izquierdo y Compañía, a steamship company founded in 1884 with headquarters in Cádiz . The shipping company was generally called Pinillos Line for short and had specialized in passenger traffic from Spain to Central and South America with stopovers in the Canary Islands.
The Pío IX was 115.5 meters long, 13.1 meters wide and had a draft of 6.3 meters. The passenger and cargo ship had two masts , two steam boilers , a propeller made of steel and two chimneys, one of which was only a dummy, which was later removed. The steamer was powered by a triple expansion steam engine from the shipyard that developed 1,900 hp. The ship was launched on March 9, 1887. The Pío IX was able to carry 65 passengers in the first class and 50 passengers in the second class and, like the other ships of its shipping company, operated in regular passenger and commercial traffic between Spain and South America.
Downfall
On November 16, 1916, the Pío IX put under the command of Captain Orinaga in New Orleans for the return trip to Barcelona with a stopover in Cuba . 62 crew members were on board. Passengers were not on board on this trip. The cargo included 8,800 bales of cotton . On December 4, 1916, the Pío IX got into a severe storm 480 nautical miles northwest of Tenerife and leaked, possibly due to a shift in the cargo. Because of the heavy seas and stormy winds, it was hardly possible to lower the lifeboats into the water. They were thrown against the ship's side by the waves. Around 4 p.m., a call for help was sent by radio, which was received by the Spanish merchant ship Buenos Aires (Captain Juan Perez Soria).
The Buenos Aires arrived before sunrise the following morning and was able to establish visual contact with the Pío IX . The attempt to establish a rope connection failed. The Pío IX dropped to the position of 31 ° 22 ' N , 24 ° 4' W coordinates: 31 ° 21 '36 " N , 24 ° 3' 36" W , about 300 miles north-west of Tenerife. 40 crew members were killed in the sinking, including the captain and the two radio operators. 22 people survived. The Buenos Aires took eleven of them; the other eleven were rescued by a French ship.
31.36 -24.06
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