The 25th of October

Mise en scene

On the afternoon of the 25th of October 1927 the Principessa Mafalda steamed along at around its maximum speed of 18 knots, this was despite the list that the ship has experienced for several days. It was roughly 70kms east of the Abrolhos Islands, a collection of coral atolls that were themselves around 70 kms off the coast of Brazil. The route it travelled was very well populated with vessels as it was the main course between Europe and the ports of Brazil and Argentina. This was to prove fortunate for the passengers of the Mafalda.

The passengers had dined at midday and, like the good Latins that most of them were, retired to their cabins to take a siesta. As it was the tropics, the heat was fairly oppressive and most had their cabin portholes open. Those of the first and second classes who had finished their rest were idling in the public rooms like the library and the music room, where a small concert was staged by the ship’s orchestra. Shortly after 4pm, the Empirestar, a British ship came in view. It was steaming in the opposite direction, en route to Europe. The Mafalda let off a long blast on its horn as the two ships passed.

Down in the engine rooms, the stokers were feeding the furnaces to keep the ship progressing at the rate that the captain had set, to try and make up for the time lost due to the many mechanical problems on the voyage.

At around 4.20pm, the ship shuddered strongly and the passengers reported that there were three loud bangs. The purser, Carlos Longobardi, later reported that the propeller shaft had broken resulting in the propeller shaft coming loose, swinging the rapidly rotating propeller against the hull and gouging into the side of the ship at the stern. Below can be seen a diagram from a Brazilian magazine of the time showing how the water flooded into the ship.

Water immediately started to burst into the rear compartments. The engineering staff tried to stem the flood with cement and steel sheeting, but to no avail. There seem to be no further reports on what happened in the engine rooms. A number of the stokers survived as well as some of the engine room officers but they were sparing in their declarations on the theme. It would appear that the propeller was lost in the accident because observers talk of the ship spending the next few hours moving in a large circle. More surprising was that the ship had any motion at all. Normally, one would have expected the engines to be stopped.

As soon as the first shudder was felt, Captain Guli left the library and headed off to discover what had taken place. Very shortly afterwards the telegraph operator sent out a request for aid and the Empirestar, hearing the call, turned around and headed back to the stricken Mafalda. It arrived on the scene at around 5pm.

The Mafalda in the early stages of the sinking

The sound of the accident had passengers coming up from their cabins to see what had occurred. For those who had forebodings before, this was their moment for justification. The staff in the public rooms and on deck requested calm. However, when the call to go to the lifeboat stations was made, bedlam broke out on the ship. Reports are confused from this point on as their were many versions of what occurred. This was due to passengers leaving the ship at various stages over the intervening four and a half hours between when the accident occurred and when the Mafalda went down.

It would seem that some of the crew had more forebodings than most and the first boat away was largely made up of the ships complement. Some of the first class passengers expressed their great faith in Captain Guli and stood back as the third class surged towards the boat stations allocated for first and second class rather than their own appointed positions. Chaos reigned. Reports indicated that some of the third class passengers started breaking into abandoned cabins, looting valuables and then moving on to the public rooms smashing into the drinks cabinets of the bars and pantries. According to some passengers, knives were pulled and passengers were threatened to hand over valuables. It was also said that some gained access to the boats (the Syrians being cited as guilty) by unsheathing daggers to advance to safer positions.

The ship’s officers had great difficulty maintaining calm. The purser had headed off in the first boat and not returned. It was said that officers on Italian ships were not allowed to carry firearms, so there was little means to maintain control against the unruly elements. Moreover some of the passengers (particularly in first and second class) had guns. Later it was said that shooting took place on the ship, with some angry passengers reputedly firing on crew that were abandoning the passengers as they fled into boats.

We find it hard to believe that this chaos lasted the whole period and it seems form the reports that after a certain time, when many boats had got away with the desperado element on board, that some calm was achieved. However, it would appear to be the resignation of the doomed. Over the hours passengers made their own decisions. Night started to fall, and it was moonless and cloudy. The sea was not cold, but it was choppy with a stiff breeze blowing. By this stage four rescue ships were gathered in the vicinity, some only a few hundred metres away. Game passengers still on the ship took the decision to don lifejackets, slip overboard and try to swim towards the other ships. Many of the survivors recorded this experience.

However, others who were too old or in family groups clung together on the deck as the ship settled lower in the water. It should be remembered that we are talking of 1927 and that most of the ship’s complement of passengers had been born in the previous century, when swimming was not the done thing. Even less so, if one was an Italian or Syrian peasant that had never left their village. Meanwhile, the moneyed of the first and second classes would have been those fully-clad bathers daintily treading on the seashore that one sees in turn of the century photographs. That most of passengers of 50 years and above went down with the Mafalda is no surprise.

The gash in the hull cannot have been all that great, because of the length of time that the ship took to sink. In retrospect, we should also note that eventually the ship started to speed its end when the water started to pour into the open portholes. If the stewards had remained on the ship and conducted their duties they should have gone through the cabins shutting these portholes. Then the ship may have stayed afloat until the next day as the Captain claimed it would.

Above: The position of the rescue vessels through the progress of the afternoon and evening

Below: The position of the sinking according to the Brazilian newspaper O Paiz

The Last Moments

There are two versions on the last minutes of the Principessa Mafalda. The ship was going down by the stern with its list to port. One passenger reported deciding to abandon ship and walking down to the stern rail where the water was already knee-deep. On board at this stage there were still around 80 women and children and two hundred men. Inside the ship, furniture was tumbling around as the list grew more pronounced and the sound of breaking crockery and glass could be heard. The captain of the Dutch rescue vessel reported seeing Captain Guli standing on the bridge of the Mafalda smoking a cigarette and nonchalantly blowing large smoke clouds. There was explosion deep within the ship and the remaining people on board let up a large cry. A survivor on the Formosa claimed that there was a large cloud of smoke at this phase that obscured all sight of the Mafalda and that when it cleared the ship was gone. From another vantage point, the captain of the Alhena saw Gulli toss his cigarette into the sea, take a whistle from his pocket and blow three long blasts as the ship’s prow rose out of the water. Another observer had the prow rise slowly from the water and then rapidly lurch upwards. This sent objects and passengers on the deck reeling down towards the stern. The ship then slid forever beneath the waters creating a massive whirlpool in its wake.