Epilogue

Rather apocryphally the New York Times on the 11th of January 1920 had run a story that the Principessa Mafalda had sunk "after hitting a mine" with a loss of 700 lives. Obviously this was untrue and where that story had originated from is unknown but it was one of several ill-omens (the other being the Principessa Jolanda) that surrounded the Principessa Mafalda. Ironically the tragic end of the ship in 1927 was an omen for its namesake who was to end her days in an SS hospital at Buchenwald.

What are the lessons, if any to be learnt from this disaster?

Total Victims

First 52 27

Second 95 37

Third 821 228

Crew 287 32

Complement 1255 324

The first thing that we would note is the era of the Principessa Mafalda. The ship was built in 1908, before either the Lusitania or the Titanic. At 18 years of age, the ship was not particularly old, but questions must be raised about the level of maintenance. The ship seems to have been worked mercilessly to keep the service going on the Genoa-Buenos Aires route in competition against more modern and more luxurious ships of other lines. The result was the frequent breakdowns that bedevilled the last voyage and that ultimately caused the fracture of the propeller shaft that precipitated the sinking. The Principessa Mafalda possibly had several more potential years of sailing ahead of it, but only if it was subject to a complete mechanical overhaul.

Then there are the events of the afternoon and evening of the sinking. It was very fortunate that there were so many ships in the zone at the time, that the weather was tranquil and that the disaster occurred during daylight. However, many of thes advantages seem to have been lost in poor organisation and unexplained lack of action by some parties. Had there been boatdrills before on the first part of the voyage? Why did the immigrants storm the first and second class boats rather than head for their own? Why were the women and children preponderant amongst those left on the sinking ship?

We might also ask about the final impetus for the sinking, ie the explosion of the boilers. The Moselle arrived at 10.30 pm just as the boilers exploded, precipitating the finale of the disaster. As the ship took some six hours to sink, why were the boilers not depressurised and cooled over this period? It does not take much skill to realise that cold sea water coming into contact with highly pressurised boilers will create an explosion. Steam should have been let off right at the start.

A rather rustic image of the sinking from a Polish magazine of the time (seems to show three funnels!)

Then there is the rescue effort. We could possibly state that in a major maritime disaster there have never been so many rescue vessels in close proximity (the Anhela was 15 metres from the bridge of the Mafalda) with such a prolonged sinking in such reasonably calm conditions and yet with so many casualties. Something was clearly lacking. It could be that je en sais quoi of Italian organisation. No-one faulted the efforts of the crew in any of the reports we read. And yet they seemed ineffective with 25% of the complement going down with the ship. It almost seemed as if those that left the ship rowed to the other vessels and then abandoned the boats rather than someone returning to take another load of passengers.

What of the other rescue ships? Did they not launch their boats to pick people up? How could the Anhela be 15 metres from the bridge of the Principessa Mafalda and yet people were tossing themselves into the shark infested waters? Reports of passengers shooting themselves smacks of Latin fatalism taking control of the situation. This was not the Titanic, in icy waters with rescue ships far distant. The passengers and crew behaved as if it was that previous disaster. The ships doctor ran back to get his 1500 lira explaining that he was "used to the waves".

The sinking of the Principessa Mafalda was redolent of a different age. The Argentine monied passengers stood back and let the mob grab the boats. If the event occurred today it would definitely be an unholy scramble by the farandula (the trashy jetset) to save their wallets and designer skins. Nowadays they can not even stand in an airport counter line without surreptitiously (and frequently blatantly) queue-jumping.

That the Principessa Mafalda has disappeared into the mists of time except for a group of followers that can be counted on the fingers of one hand is mostly a reflection of the fact that it was an Italian ship carrying a complement that was almost exclusively Latino. The disaster of the Morro Castle was a less significant event and yet the amount of information and coverage, even today, is exponentially greater. Hopefully, this site serves to record and revive the memory of the dramatic events of that terrible afternoon over seventy years ago.

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank all those who helped with information, ideas, photos and research in preparing this site. Amongst those are Tomas Walczyk, Sabrina Metalli, Martin Krijnen, Sigrun Wahner, Michael Poirier, Phillipe Ramona, Mauricio Carvalho, Davide Benini, Daniel Gentili, Ariel Matiozzi, Emerson F.R. da Silva, Mario Rosner and the staff at the library of "La Prensa" and the Library of the Argentine Congress.