Length 77 m | Launched 1918 Beam 13 m | |
 | ||
Owner Clinchfield Navigation Company Out of service On or after 1 December 1925 Fate Reported missing 1 December 1925 Builder | ||
Lost cargo ship ss cotopaxi came back after 90 years
The SS Cotopaxi was a tramp steamer named after the Cotopaxi stratovolcano. She vanished in December 1925, while en route from Charleston, South Carolina, United States, to Havana, Cuba, with all hands.
Contents
Description
The Cotopaxi is a cargo ship of 2,351 GRT. She was built by the Great Lakes Engineering Works, Ecorse, Michigan, in 1918 for the Clinchfield Navigation Company.
The Cotopaxi was 253 feet (77 m) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 44 feet (13 m). Her steam engine could propel her at 9.5 knots (17.6 km/h).
Final voyage
On 29 November 1925, the Cotopaxi departed Charleston, South Carolina, for Havana, Cuba, under Captain W. J. Meyer. She was carrying a cargo of coal and a crew of 32. On 1 December, the Cotopaxi radioed a distress call, reporting that the ship was listing and taking on water during a tropical storm. The ship was officially listed as overdue on 31 December.
Despite the last radio transmission indicating that the ship was about to sink, she has since been connected to the legend of the Bermuda Triangle.
In fiction
In the 1980 Directors Cut of the November 16, 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Cotopaxi is discovered, located in the Gobi Desert, presumably set there by extraterrestrial forces. In a documentary on the making of the film, it is stated that the model they used looked nothing like the actual vessel.