Sinking of SS Santísima Trinidad

Sinking of the SS Santísima Trinidad

SS Santísima Trinidad on March 1900
Date	7 June 1900 (1900-06-07)
Time	15:43 - 17:20 p.m.
Duration	1 hour and 37 minutes
Location	Barnesian Sea, 100 miles (160 km) south of Chalatenango, Atitlan.
Cause	Striking a off-course Bergenarian mine set.
Participants	Santísima Trinidad crew and passengers
Outcome	1,298 of the 1,970 people aboard killed, leaving 672 survivors. Outbreak of the First Bergenarian–Atitlanese War New legislation on local ship building.

The SS Santísima Trinidad was a Atitlanese-registered ocean liner that sank by an explosion caused by a naval mine of the Royal Bergenarian Navy near 100 miles (160 kilometers) off the coast of Chalatenango, in the Barnesian Sea. The sinking ocurred in the context of tensions and skirmishes between Atitlan and Bergenaria, and World War I, making it the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Atitlanese history.

The Maritima Nacional ship struck a off-course Bergenarian mine that was intended to be placed on the maritime border between the two countries. Faulty anchor chains caused many of the mines laid to drift from the oceanic corridor, spreading to other places in the Bernesian Sea. Research showed that ocean currents caused mines to reach as far as the coasts of Triania Minor. At the time of her sinking, Santísima Trinidad was returning from her tenth Barnesian cruising voyage to Mava, and was carrying an approximate 1,371 passengers and 597 crew members. 672 survived. The sinking turned public opinion in Atitlán against Bergenaria. It also contributed to the outbreak of the First Bergenarian–Atitlanese War a couple months later; images of the stricken liner were used heavily in propaganda and military recruiting campaigns.

Although the loss of Santísima Trinidad did not attract the same level of attention as that of RMS Achilleus fifteen years later, the disaster did lead to major redesigns of Atitlanese ships, and more regulation for local shipyards to follow. For example, naval designers were forced to add watertight doors to the stern of ships, as the lack of watertight doors on the area contributed to a faster sinking.

Background

At the time of her entry to service in 1896, SS Santísima Trinidad was the lead ship of the Santísima-class liners (the other three being SS Santísimo Redentor, SS Santísmo Sacramento and SS Santísima Concepción). Named after religious elements, the Santísima Trinidad and her sisters were concieved to consolidate Atitlanese influence on Triania. Marítima Nacional, the state-owned shipping line, planned the Santísima Trinidad to be a modern ship with berths for 800 passengers in first class, 600 in second and 2,030 in third, with a crew of 600.

SS Santísima Trinidad wearing dazzle camouflage. This was removed on April 1900.

Despite not being involved in World War I, fears for the safety of Santísima Trinidad and other great liners ran high. During the ship's first eastbound cruise two years after the war, she was painted in a drab grey colour scheme in an attempt to mask her identity and make her more difficult to detect visually. When it turned out that the no hostile navy was on the area, it very soon seemed that the Barnesian was safe for ships like Santísima Trinidad, if the bookings justified the expense of keeping them in service. However, as tensions with neighboring Bergenaria increased, fears of the safety of Atitlanese ships were not considered, as it was assumed Bergenaria did not have a sufficient navy to threat the Atitlanese civilian navy.

With the apparent dangers evaporating, the ship's disguised paint scheme was also dropped and she was returned to civilian colours. Her name was picked out in gilt, her funnels were repainted in their usual livery, and her superstructure was painted white again. One alteration was the addition of a bronze/gold coloured band around the base of the superstructure just above the black paint, ending on the Christian cross on her bow. By this time, the ship was also moved from transbarnesian travel to seasonal cruises to try to keep the ship fully occupied throught the year.

Final voyage

After completing ten successful cruises to the colony of Mava and back to Atitlán transporting tourists and resources, Santísima Trinidad departed Chalatenango for Pa'as at 14:23 on 28 May 1900, her eleventh cruise to the Barnesian Sea. The ship docked on Pa'as on 3 June, delivering consumer goods and tourists for the colony. A delay on her usual coaling and water-refuelling stop, prompted the ship to remain another day on Mava. Santísima Trinidad left port on 5 June. By the evening of 7 June, Santísima Trinidad was steaming at full speed into the Barnesian Sea, 100 km south of Chalatenango, with expectations to dock on the early hours of June 8.

There were 1,970 people on board: 1,371 passengers and 597 crew members, including the captain, Heriberto Reyes.

Explosion

At 15:43 on 7 June 1900, a loud explosion shook the ship. The cause, whether it was a torpedo or a mine, was not apparent at the time. It was later revealed that mines planted on the Cortés Corridor by the Royal Bergenarian Navy went off-route, and faulty anchors sent maby adrift. The reaction was slow, as the further fore, the power of the explosion was less felt and many thought the ship had hit a smaller boat. Captain Reyes and Chief Officer Gilberto Gamez were on the poop deck at the time and the gravity of the situation was soon evident. The explosion was on the starboard side, between the last two holds. The force of the explosion, combined with the heavy flooding in the engine rooms caused the ship's engines to fail, causing a full stop of the ship.

Acknowledging the situation, Reyes immediately ordered the watertight doors closed, sent a distress signal, and ordered the crew to prepare the lifeboats. Around 10-15 minutes after the explosion, the ship's lights flickered once and then permanently went out. Most watertight doors were able to close properly before power went out. As the stern lacked watertight doors, or failed to close properly, water was flowing further aft into third-class rooms. As water moved to other bulkheads, it was clear that Santísima Trinidad could not stay afloat for much longer. Santísima Trinidad was designed to stay afloat (motionless) with her first four watertight compartments flooded. With more than four watertight compartments flooded, the fate of the ship was sealed.

Before the lights went out, a single distress signal was sent and was received by several other ships in the area, among them SS Santísmo Redentor and the Armada Imperial Ixtaccíhuatl, but Santísima Trinidad heard nothing in reply, and did not returned any signal.

Evacuation

La Ida Triste, illustration of 1900

On the bridge, Captain Reyes ordered the ship's lifeboats uncovered and the passengers mustered. Unlike the future sinking of Achilleus, most passengers were on the boat deck at the time of the explosion. At 16:12, coinciding with the stern already being underwater, the first lifeboats were finally lowered after a complicated muster drill. Lifeboat 15 and 3 were lowered with a passenger occupancy of 54 and 49 people respectively. Santísima Trinidad had a total of 18 lifeboats, comprising of 16 wooden boats on davits, eight on either side of the ship, and two collapsible boats with wooden bottoms and canvas sides. On average, the lifeboats could take up to 72 people each, and collectively they could accommodate 1440 – almost three quarters of the ship occupancy at the time. At 16:15, Captain Reyes sounded two final long blasts of the whistle, the signal to abandon ship.

At around 16:30, the sinking began to slow down, allowing more lifboeats to be lowered. A few overturned while loading or lowering, spilling passengers into the sea and others were overturned by the ship's motion when they hit the water. Lifeboat 1 overturned as it was being lowered, spilling its original occupants into the sea, but it managed to right itself shortly afterwards and was later filled with people from in the water. Lifeboats 9 (6 people on board) and 11 (7 people on board) managed to reach the water safely with a few people, but both later picked up many swimmers. The remaining lifeboats were lauched safely, as the ship's sinking began to slow. The two collapsible boats washed off her decks as she sank and provided flotation for some survivors.

Final plunge

El Rastro del Santísima Trinidad. View of casualties and survivors in the water and in lifeboats.

By 16:59, most of successfully launched lifeboats were already rowing away from the ship. At 17:00, the rear funnel collapsed under its own weight, crushing several people as it fell into the water and only narrowly missing a collapsible lifeboat. After the collapse, once again, the sinking slowed down. After her stern sank completely, Santísima Trinidad's bow rose out of the water, high into the air as the ship tilted down in the water. It was said to have reached an angle of 30–45 degrees. As the water began to reach the middle funnel, many survivors described a great noise comming from the middle of the ship.

Santísima Trinidad was subjected to extreme opposing forces – the flooded stern pulling her down while the air in the bow kept her to the surface – which were concentrated at one of the weakest points in the structure, the area of the second funnel boiler room. Between 17:15 and 17:18, an explosion in the boiler room underneath the second funnel split the ship apart. The submerged stern may have remained attached to the bow by the keel for a short time, pulling the bow to a high angle before separating and leaving the bow to float for a few moments longer. The forward part of the bow will have flooded very rapidly, causing it to tilt and then settle briefly until sinking. At 17:20, 1 hour and 37 minutes after the explosion, the Santísima Trinidad disappeared into the calm Barnesian Sea.

In the immediate aftermath of the sinking, hundreds of passengers and crew were left dying in the cold sea, surrounded by debris from the ship. Santísima Trinidad's disintegration during her descent to the seabed caused buoyant chunks of debris – timber beams, wooden doors, furniture, panelling and chunks of cork from the bulkheads – to rocket to the surface. These injured and possibly killed some of the swimmers; others used the debris to try to keep themselves afloat. Many lifeboats decided against returning to assist, out of fear that they would be capsized in the attempt. The empty lifeboats and the two collapsibles that were overturned were rushedly occupied by survivors.

With a temperature of 52 °F (11 °C), only a few of those in the water surviving. After about twenty to thirty minutes after the sinking, the cries of many began to fade as the swimmers lapsed into unconsciousness and death. By the end, only 672 people were able to survive until help arrived.

Rescue

Survivors of Santísima Trinidad aboard the Triania.

Santísima Trinidad's survivors were rescued around 20:00 on 7 June by two ships: the S/S Triania and the S/S Santísimo Redentor, which had steamed through the day at high speed and at considerable risk. The lights of Triania were first spotted around 18:32, which greatly cheered the survivors, though it took several more hours for everyone to be brought aboard. At 19:02, the lights of Santísimo Redentor were spotted, and while it was feared that a ship similar to the recently sunk would traumatize most, the ship's lights were also cheered by other survivors.

The rescue task was divided between both ships throught the following night. As the lifeboats were brought between the Triania and the Santísimo Redentor, the survivors came aboard the ship by various means. Some were strong enough to climb up rope ladders; others were hoisted up in slings, and the children were hoisted in mail sacks. The last lifeboat was boat No. 12, with 74 people aboard a boat designed to carry 65. The occupants were loaded on Santísimo Redentor. By 23:00, almost all passengers were on either the Triania and the Santísimo Redentor. There were some scenes of joy as families and friends were reunited, but in most cases hopes died as loved ones failed to reappear.

Triania was bound to Maregua, while Santísimo Redentor was returning from Gaviria. Triania ordered a course to be calculated to return to Chalatenango, where the survivors could be properly looked after. Santísimo Redentor escorted the Triania and both ships departed the area at around 02:32 of June 8, leaving the other ships to carry out a final, fruitless, two-hour search.

Aftermath

The Triania and Santísimo Redentor arrived on Chalatenango on June 9, some 26,000 people were standing on the wharves, alerted to the disaster by a stream of radio messages from Santísimo Redentor and other ships. It was only after both ships docked – two days afer Santísima Trinidad's sinking – that the full scope of the disaster became public knowledge.

Confusion about the true cause of the sinking prevailed in the first weeks of the disaster, and the issue was hotly debated within the administration. On June 28, two weeks after the sinking, the SS Kalimba, a merchant ship that was navigating in the area where Santísima Trinidad sank, spotted the horns of a mine in the water. The ship almost bumped into the mine. Realizing that mines were on the area, the radio operator contacted Chalatenango to advise any ships traveling on the area. A quarantine zone was declared around the area, until further notice. The Imperial Navy arrived with minesweepers on July 12, and eventually found out that the mines belonged to the Royal Bergenarian Navy.

Following this revelation, Atitlanese press quickly turned against Bergenaria, followed by a massive outrage. The Bergenarian Minister of Defense issued an official communication regarding the sinking in which it said that the liner Santísima Trinidad "was subject to a mine laid by a Bergenarian submarine and sank, in a direct violation of treespasing our quarintined zone around the enemy".

The general public felt that Tlatoani Huitzilíhuitl had to declare war on Bergenaria. However, he refused to over-react until a clear answer was established.

Public inquiries and legislation

The Imperial Supreme Court (also known as the 'Halls of Justice') opened formally an investigation on the sinking, presided by Judge Manuel Rulfo from 15 to 18 August 1900 with further sessions on 1 September and on 17 September. They reached broadly similar conclusions: the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate;the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed; and the mine was laid out by the Bergenarian Navy, with Santísima Trinidad only happened to be on an 'unfortunate course'.

Neither inquiry found negligence by the Atitlanese government, the parent company of Marítima Nacional to be a factor. The disaster led to major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that radio equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. As a result, the Santísima-class ocean liners, alongside most Atitlanese ships were recalled to be refitted with new safety measures. Quietly, the Santísima-class ocean liners recieved new changes that included increasing the ship's beam to 94 feet (29 m) to allow for a double hull along the engine and boiler rooms, and raising eight out of the 15 watertight bulkheads up to Cubierta B. Despite the promises, additional lifeboats were not added until the aftermath of the Achilleus disaster.

Casus belli

Main article: First Bergenarian-Atitlanese War

The sinking of the Santísima Trinidad is considered by most historians, the cause of the First Bergenarian-Atitlanese War. In reality, other factors such as Bergenarian nationalism; resentment over the loss on the Barnesian War; and the ocassional border skirmishes between said countries contributed to the declaration of war. To many, the sinking of Santísima Trinidad is seen as the breaking point on relations. The war began three months after the sinking, and lasted until 1905.

Santísimo Redentor, Santísima Trinidad's sister ship and rescuer was converted into a troop ship, participating on the Battle of Tecapán. She was severely damaged and sunk in 1904 by Bergenarian artillery. After being refloated and extensively rebuilt, she returned to service as a cruise ship in 1915, and continued in service for civilian use until 1923, when she was withdrawn from service and scrapped.

Cultural Legacy

Film

A few photos of the sinking exist, taken by newspaper photgrapher Rodrigo Macías.

• A romantic-drama historical telenovela Santísima Trinidad (2000) was released on the centenary of the sinking.

• The docudrama Santísima Trinidad: Terror en el Barnesio (2009) depicts the last voyage of the ship and the political and military decisions that led to the sinking.

• The first half of the historical-drama miniseries Naufragios takes place on the day of the wreck.

Literature

• El naufragio del Santísima Trinidad (1915), a poem by Daniel Quebedo.

• The novel La mujer del Trinidad (2003), by author Augusta López is a fictionalized account of the sinking.

• The main character of the detective series Juan Guarnizo survives the sinking on the 1976 book La lanza del destino.

• The sinking was the inspiration for Miguel Barreras's novel El abismo (2014)

Wreck

Rusticles in the bow section of Santísima Trinidad

The wreck of Santísima Trinidad lies at a depth of about 9186 feet (2,800 metres). It lies in two main pieces about 1,000 feet (307 m) apart. The stern is still recognisable with many preserved interiors, despite deterioration and damage sustained hitting the sea floor. In contrast, the bow is completely ruined. A debris field around the wreck contains hundreds of thousands of items spilled from the ship as she sank. The bodies of the passengers and crew would have also been distributed across the sea bed, but have since been consumed by other organisms. The wreck was located on 1992, nearly a century after the sinking, by a joint Atitlanese-Abalan task expedition.

Despite the depth it is located, Santísima Trinidad has deteriorated significantly slower than Achilleus. Experts calculate that by 2050, the bow will dissapear completly, while the stern will reach the same degree of ruin as the bow in the current day. Some of the prominent features on Santísma Trinidad include her still-legible name, some bollards with the ropes still intact, pieces of the ruined promenade deck, some portholes, the prow and the propellers. Since then, salvage operations have recovered thousands of items, which have been conserved and put on public display. Another prominent feature; the Christian cross that was on her bow, was destroyed when the bow hit the ocean floor.

See also

• Sinking of the Achilleus (a similar disaster fifteen years later)