Santa Catharina Wreck – Abrolhos
Pesquisa
The research about Santa Catharina started in 1993 after finding Guadiana wreck. That time, people didn’t know the real identity of the ship and the Abrolhos operators got in touch with me searching information on the wrecks in the region.
From SINAU we got a list of 24 ships sunk in Abrolhos. At first, we thought that Guadiana was Arthemis and then it was named like that for a year. My researches at the place showed in 2004 the real identity of the wreck.
At that moment, the most important question was: where would the other wrecks be?
The easier target was the wreck marked in the Marine Notes in the South of the Isle. In Caravelas people used to say it was about Santa Catharina and some old fishermen affirmed to be a ship with rolls of wires on the deck. It would strengthen the identification, but few initial searches didn’t work out in order to find it.
The great rudder and the propeller armed in the ship launching.
At the beginning of February 2007, a fisherman accepted to sell the real position of the wreck. The several instructors, diving supervisors, along with the owners of the diving schools, decided to work together and paid for the information. After it, they left to the place and BINGO! They found the wreck.
At the same day at night, they got in touch with me and their suspects were getting stronger. Besides being the cargo described to Santa Catharina, the measures of the wreck fit the German cargo boat..
X Divers, a diving school in Rio de Janeiro, invited me to go to Abrolhos in Carnival in order to do comparison studies and the necessary assessments to confirm the real identity of the wreck.
With the great support of X Divers diving team, as well as the whole instructors team of Caravelas, it was easier to get the data to characterize the Santa Catharina wreck.
We came back from Abrolhos pretty sure it was the Santa Catharina wreck.
Rolls of wire.
But the researches always surprise us!!
When we were pretty sure about the identification, a diver found weapon cartridges and it was carved CBC (Brazilian Weapon Cartridges Company).
Looking for the best experts in weapon cartridges, he had a problem. The CBC started working in 1926 using the carving FNCM. The company was called CBC in 1926, so that it was impossible to be Santa Catharina wreck.
He had to communicate to Abrolhos again and find another cartridge to check that the carving belonged to a famous American factory, being produced since 1890.
Relating to the research, the hurry in telling the “news” could make terrible mistakes. Serious researchers must wait till all data is reliable, so that they can confirm the identification.
The truth is, it’s necessary to say that the identification had already been well done by divers and Caravelas operators working together and they had already had found out all the necessary data to confirm the wreck. That job, an example of cooperation, should be repeated all over Brazil.
Rubber rolls fit a great part of the wrecks.
Background
The German Company Hamburg Sudamerikanische Dampfschiff, known as Hamburg Sud, it’s one of the biggest and older shipping companies in the world and around the 19th century it was in charge of all commercial trade among the ports in Europe and South America.
On January 19th 1907, the company launched in Geestemünde, Germany, the steamboat Santa Catharina and later on its sister-ship Santa Lucia. Both steamboats were 100 meters long and weighed 4,200 tons and they developed the capacity to transport people and cargo.
In 1914 due to territorial riots and the colonial division between great imperialist nations, the rivalry increased and also the extreme nationalism and the weapon rush.
In August, facing the impossibility to solve the issues pacifically, two great opposed alliances began: The Triple Entente, composed initially by England, France, and Russia and the Tripe Alliance by Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy.
The riot spread quickly from the immobility of the land barriers to naval impacts of great proportions. Little time later, the war took to insecurity in all oceans. The First World War had begun.
Photo of Santa Lucia, sister-ship of Santa Catharina..
Despite the initial neutrality of Brazil facing the European situation, the two alliances kept combat shipping on Brazilian waters in order to maintain a block against the opposed commercial navigation and several incidents were reported by the local press.
In Abrolhos there wasn’t still a telegraph office. England used to concentrate there a great shipping composed by those ships: Defense, Kent, Invencible, Inflexible, Glasgow, Carnavour, Corwall, Bristol, Macedônia, and Orama, besides other eight cargo boats loaded with coal. Thus, they left to patrol the Brazilian coast.
Still in August 1914, the press reported that the light English cruiser H.M.S Glasgow was shooting against German ships in the Brazilian coast. Sooner, the steamboat Tiradentes from Brazilian Lloyde reported to cross Glasgow shooting with its deck cleared up, walls down, ladders taken out, and open cannons.
The English Cruiser Mammoth order the ship Maranhão from Brazilian Lloyde to stop only 6 miles from the coast, in front of Arvoredo Island, in Santa Catarina State. The Cruiser sent a boat with two officers aboard of Maranhão and they searched the whole Brazilian ship.
Germany also sank some important English ships, among them the Vandyke.
Due to this situation of naval riots, Santa Lucia arrived in Rio de Janeiro coming from Europe while Santa Catharina ported in Pelotas carrying a cargo from New York which was kept in customs. There were requests to the Income Ministry to authorize Pelotas Commercial Association to take away the merchandise.
The German cannon ship Eber, transformed into a dealer boat coming from a German colony in Africa, and the German steamboat Santa Lucia, that was supposed to go to Vitória in Espírito Santo State, came into Rio de Janeiro port on September 04. The commander of Santa Lucia declared that he couldn’t enter Vitória, E.S. due to the English cruisers crossing the ocean.
The English ships used to patrol the coast regularly with their 3 cruisers like the H.M.S Glasgow, and they tried to intercept the German commerce with other nations and then suffocate the war effort.
The Glasgow was constructed in 1909. It’s 129 meters long and weighted 4,820 tons.
It was armed with 2 cannons of 6 inches, 10 cannons of 4 inches, and rocket thrower tubes.
Its engines, with Person turbine, urged 4 propellers, moving Glasgow to 25 knots. Its coal rooms kept 755 tons of coal.
In November 1914, Glasgow came into Rio de Janeiro port very damaged, after involving itself, along with Otranto, Mammoth, and Good Hope cruisers into a battle in Chilean coasts. The international agreement allowed the ship to port in order to be fixed.
When Santa Catharina tried to return, probably going to Europe, it was attacked and sank. The final moments of Santa Catharina are not known. We only know that Glasgow intercepted the German ship, taking it to Abrolhos Isle, BA. There, they took out the provisions and the coal cargo might have been transferred to one of the cargo boat which was following the English shipping.
Santa Catharina sank because of the explosions, that was the procedure at that time. That could explain the information on a violent fire in the basements that couldn’t be controled, which provoked the sinking of the ship.
It was abandoned by the local newspapers of that time, maybe because of war censure, Santa Catharina also remained unkown by the Brazilian divers. But as we know the History always comes up, is is coming up right now.
BASIC DATA
Name of the ship: Santa Catharina
Date of sinking: 16/08/1914
LOCALIZATION
Place: Abrolhos
State: BA.
Country: Brasil
Position: Abrolhos Reefs.
Latitude: 18° 02’ South.
Longitude: 038° ‘43’ West.
Minimum deepness: 14 meters
Maximum deepness: 27 meters
CURRENT CONDITIONS: half-intact
TECHNICAL DATA
Nationality: German
Shipowner: Hamburg Sudamerikanische Dampfschiff.
Length: 106,7 meters
Mouth : 14,4 metros
Dislocation: 4.247 tons
Type of boat: Steamboat
Material of the hull: Steel
Power: steam
Cargo: cement, agricultural implements, kerosene
REASON OF SINKING: Shot by Glasgow cruiser.
DESCRIPTION
Santa Catharina is laid correctly on the bottom and the wrecks are divided into three main groups.
The bow is bent backwards and slightly to port side. In it there’s the main hook, and two head of tying, but there aren’t chains and even anchors. Under the prow, we can find two series of toilets and pressure valves from the hook.
Cement containers.
Behind the prow castle the ship is broken and open to the open sea by both sides. Following toward to meia-nau, another hook is fallen down, some heads of tying, ladders, and much irons. The stowage of the first basement can be found in this path.
Starting the second part, the ship is stuck to port side in a little wallreef. From this point to the back, parts of the hull lift both sides making the ship looks like a canoe. From that wallreef, comes out of the ship the mast and its cargo stick, the hook of this mast is fallen in the middle of the canoe.
At the bottom, along with the port side hull, three ventilation pipes are fallen down, part of a caldron, and some other wrecks. At this point, the hull is broken and part of the wires cargo is exposed.
Inside the canoe there are great amounts of wrecks and one more cargo mast. In the third path of the wreck there is acaldron, practically invisible, due to the great amount of wrecks on it, and the Triple Expansion steam engines, complete, but covered in wrecks. On the engines there are two condensers.
At this point of the wrecks, another opening links both sides of the ship with the open sea. By starboard side, there is another wallreef and in its base, through the broken hull, we can see part of the chimney.
From that point to behind, the canoe is open again, and one more mast and a hook can be found. Parts of the cargo are visible at this point of the wreck, they are wire rolls pilled forming walls of cargo, beside them, lots of cement containers.
The prow is fallen port side, practically intact. The walls and the heads of tying are still in their regular place.
In the middle of the prow there’s the great wheel of the rudder in a circle structure. The prow can be penetrated although it’s not well conserved, but two toilets are still in its interior.
Under the stern, stuck on another wallreef, there’s the great rudder, more than 6 meters long, and what rested from the armed propeller, which had its fins taken out, possibly cut.
By: Maurício de Carvalho / www.naufragiosdobrasil.com.br
