Lloyd's insurance company ship registers store the names of many thousands of ships, whose story begins with the words: "Built in such and such a year", and ends: "Missing …"
3rd in the world
In the entire long history of the sailing fleet, only six ships were created like the Copenhagen. In this six, Copenhagen itself is the third largest. And it is not in vain that the graceful and swift barque, built in 1921 in Scotland by order of the Danish East Asian Company, was named after the capital of Denmark. In whatever port Copenhagen appears, it immediately attracted everyone's attention. Five masts rose high above the strict, solid hull 131 meters long. The first four masts carried straight sails, the last - oblique. The total area of the barque's sails was five thousand square meters. Under the bowsprit was the figure of Bishop Absalon, a warrior and monk, founder of the Danish capital. In case of calm weather, the ship was equipped with a powerful diesel engine.
The Scots did their best: despite the huge size and abundance of rigging, the ship did not look overloaded - on the contrary, it amazed the audience with its harmony, and its crew - with reliability. On such a ship, one could go anywhere, even to the ends of the world.
The owners of "Copenhagen" entrusted the ship with an honorable mission: cadets - future officers of the Danish fleet - were trained on it. But in order not to plow the ocean in vain, the bark's team, in parallel with the training, was assigned the functions of carriers - to carry the company's cargo from one country to another.
In October 1921, Copenhagen embarked on its maiden voyage: loading in Antwerp, she crossed the Atlantic Ocean, safely passed Cape Horn and arrived in San Francisco. Then - Honolulu, Vladivostok, the Cape of Good Hope and again - Europe. The first trip around the world took 404 days. after which the barque received the most flattering reviews from the captain and the entire crew and became firmly established in the ranks of merchant ships. It was considered prestigious to serve at Copenhagen.
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Last flight
Seven years passed unnoticed. The first cadets of Copenhagen had already become captains of ships, and the bark was still calmly and confidently sailing the oceans. On December 14, 1928, under the command of Hans Andersen, Copenhagen embarked on its tenth voyage.
According to the plan, the ship was to arrive at the Australian port of Adelaide for wheat. There was no passing cargo, and Captain Andersen decided to make a high-speed training cruise across the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean to Australia. To do this, it was necessary to descend to the south and go in the area of 42nd and 43rd degrees south latitude - in the zone of the "roaring forties". This decision was absolutely correct, because this was the route that all sailing ships went from South America to Australia. Incessant westerly winds, constantly blowing in the stern, cheerfully drove the ships eastward. In addition, Copenhagen has followed this route to Australia more than once. According to the most pessimistic calculations, the barque was supposed to arrive in Adelaide in a month and a half.
But neither two months, nor three months later, Copenhagen did not appear in Australia. It was not heard about him in other ports. A huge sailing ship and 59 crew members disappeared into the ocean …
Pointless searches
When all the deadlines were out, the Danes sounded the alarm. A reward has been announced to anyone who points out the location of the missing ship. Requests were sent to all ports: to inform about possible contacts with "Copenhagen". But the captains of only two ships responded to this call - the Norwegian and British steamers. Both stated that, passing the southern part of the Atlantic, they contacted a Danish barge. It was December 21st, the Copenhagen team wished them a Merry Christmas and said that they were all right. More information has not been reported.
Still hoping for something, the East Asian Company equipped the steamer Ducalien to search for the missing ship. "Ducalien" was to follow the route of the barque and examine everything carefully. Even if the ship is wrecked, there must be at least something left: wooden fragments of masts or hulls, spots of diesel fuel, broken boats. The Ducalien's team simultaneously surveyed the Crozet Islands and Prince Edward Islands lying in the way. They were uninhabited, but once the British built several houses here, where food supplies and basic necessities were kept - especially for the shipwrecked. But the reserves were intact - the Ducalien returned with nothing.
Crazy old man
Soon, the company sent another vessel in search of - "Mexico". His crew consisted of sailors who had served on the Copenhagen for a long time, able to distinguish it by the slightest debris. And then they seemed to be lucky: an elderly missionary from the island of Tristan da Cunha said that he saw a huge sailing ship with broken masts fly past his island on Christmas Day and disappear somewhere behind the reefs. A few days after that, the natives fished out of the water an empty box and several boards. The missionary presented these findings to the sailors, but they raised doubts - no one could confirm. that these items belonged to "Copenhagen". However, the news had already spread all over the world, it seemed that the place of the sinking of the sailing ship had been discovered, but soon several natives, who more or less spoke English, told the sailors that the old man had long gone mad and the sailing ship had not five masts, but four,and they were all intact. Later it turned out that it was a four-masted Finnish barque "Ponape", which did not suffer a wreck at all, but approached the islands to clarify its coordinates. And the box and the boards are just random toys of the ocean …
The second "Titanic"
Another year passed. The crews of all ships, which, of necessity, followed the course of the vanished Copenhagen, remembering the award appointed by the Danish company, did not forget to carefully look the horizon - suddenly what would be revealed. But the ocean kept its secret. In the end, in order to finally close the case of the missing sailing ship, the Danish government convened a competent commission. The experts carefully studied the drawings of "Copenhagen" and did not find a single flaw in them: they interviewed hundreds of people who once served on the ship, but received from them only commendable characteristics. We found a former cadet who left Copenhagen the day before the fateful exit of the barque to sea, but he confirmed that the ship was ideally prepared for the voyage, the crew and the captain got along well with each other, and many sailors already had sailing experience. The cadet himself was forced to remain on the shore for family reasons and initially bitterly regretted this.
On October 15, 1929, the last meeting of the commission to investigate the disappearance of the barque took place in Copenhagen. Experts came to the conclusion that “a training sailing ship, a five-mast bark“Copenhagen”, having 59 people on board, died due to the action of the forces of nature and unforeseen accidents at sea. At the same time, the ship suffered a distress so quickly that his crew could neither broadcast an SOS distress radio signal, nor launch lifeboats or rafts. It's that simple. The only thing that could explain such a rapid death was a meeting with an iceberg. Most experts were inclined to think that Copenhagen suffered the fate of the Titanic.
Death in the desert
At the end of 1932, in southwestern Africa, almost in the heart of the Namib Desert, one of the British expeditions discovered seven withered skeletons, dressed in tattered sea jackets. By the structure of the skulls, the researchers determined that they were Europeans. But the most valuable information was given to the search engines by jackets. According to the design on the brass buttons of the pea jackets, experts have established that they belong to the uniform of the cadets of the Danish merchant fleet. A survey of the natives showed that a few years ago they found a broken boat on the coast, but they could not tell the name. However, this time the owners of the East Asian Company no longer had any doubts, because until 1932 only one Danish training ship, the Copenhagen, suffered a disaster. This means that several unfortunate people still managed to reach the coast, where they died of hunger and thirst. The fate of the rest is still covered in darkness …
Igor Saveliev. Magazine "Secrets of the XX century" No. 26 2010
