«Памир»: Трагическая судьба немецкого парусника

German sailing ship

Pamir was a four masted barque built for the German shipping company F. Laeisz. One of their famous Flying P Liners, she was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.

She was built at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg, launched on 29 July 1905. She had a steel hull and tonnage of 3,020 GRT (2,777 net). She had an overall length of 114.5 m (375 ft), a beam of about 14 m (46 ft) and a draught of 7.25 m (23.5 ft). Three masts stood 51.2 m (168 ft) above deck and the main yard was 28 m (92 ft) wide. She carried 3,800 m² (40,900 ft²) of sails and could reach a top speed of Her regular cruise speed was around 8 9 knots. She was the fifth of ten near sister ships. She was commissioned on 18 October 1905 and used by the Laeisz company in the South American nitrate trade. By 1914, she had made eight voyages to Chile, taking between 64 and about 70 days for a one way trip from Hamburg to Valparaíso or Iquique, the foremost Chilean nitrate ports at the time. From October 1914, she stayed in Santa Cruz de la Palma port in La Palma Island, Canary Islands. Due to post war conditions, she did not return from Santa Cruz de la Palma to Hamburg until 17 March 1920. In the same year, she was handed over to Italy as war reparation. On 15 July 1920, she left Hamburg via Rotterdam to Naples towed by tugs. The Italian government was unable to find a deep water sailing ship crew, so she was laid up near Castellamare in the Gulf of Naples. In 1924, the F. Laeisz Company bought her back for £7,000 and put her into service in the nitrate trade again. Laeisz sold her in 1931 to the Finnish shipping company of Gustaf Erikson, which used her in the Australian wheat trade.

During World War II, Pamir was seized as a prize of war by the New Zealand government on 3 August 1941 while in port at Wellington. Ten commercial voyages were made under the New Zealand flag: five to San Francisco, three to Vancouver, one to Sydney and her last voyage across the Tasman from Sydney to Wellington carrying 2,700 tons of cement and 400 tons of nail wire. Weathering a storm during the last Tasman voyage is described in detail by one of the mates, Andrew Keyworth, in a letter never posted. She escaped the war unscathed despite a close call in 1943 when a Japanese submarine was spotted. Evidently as a fast moving barque under a strong and fair wind, she did not interest the submarine's commander. After the war, she made one voyage from Wellington via Cape Horn to London, then Antwerp to Auckland and Wellington in 1948. She was returned to the Erikson Line on 12 November 1948 at Wellington and sailed to Port Victoria on Spencer Gulf to load Australian grain. On her 128 day journey to Falmouth, she was the last windjammer carrying a commercial load around Cape Horn, on 11 July 1949. Gustaf Erikson had died in 1947. His son Edgar found he could no longer operate her (or Passat) at a profit, owing primarily to changing regulations and union contracts governing employment aboard ships; the standard two watch system on sailing ships was replaced by the three watch system in use on motor ships, requiring more crew. In March 1951, Belgian shipbreakers paid £40,000 for her and Passat. Her first trip was to Brazil in 1952 with cement, to return to Germany with iron ore. Early in the outbound voyage the propeller dropped off, "much to the satisfaction of the sail favoring crew if not the owner." The enterprise went briefly bankrupt but was bought by a new consortium of 40 German shipowners. For the next five years, the ships continued to sail between Europe and the east coast of South America, but not around Cape Horn. They were used as cargo carrying school ships, primarily to Argentina. Although the German public supported the concept as maritime symbols and sources of national pride, the economic realities of the post war years placed restraints on the operation. The ships were no longer profitable as freight haulers, and Pamir had increasing technical problems such as leaking decks and serious corrosion. The consortium was unable to get sufficient increased funding from German governments or contributions from shipping companies or public donations, and thus let both vessels deteriorate.

Due to ill health, her regular captain, Hermann Eggers, had been replaced by Captain Johannes Diebitsch, who had sailed on her as a young seaman and had commanded sail training ships, but had little experience as master of cargo carrying sailing ships.

Pamirs last voyage was the only one in her school ship career during which she made a profit, as the insurance sum of about 2.2 million Deutsche Mark was sufficient to cover the company losses for that year. While there was no indication that this was the intention of the consortium, which was never legally blamed for the sinking, some later researchers have considered that through its neglect it was at least strongly implicated in the loss.