MADALAN

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aukepalmhof
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MADALAN

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Nov 02, 2010 7:09 pm

She was built as a yacht in 1928 by Marco U. Martinolich at Lussinpiccole, Italy for a U.S.A. owner Mr. Cornelius Crane of Ipswich Ma.
Launched under the name ILLYRIA.
Tonnage 357 gross. 242 net. Dim 147.6 x 30.2 x14.9ft (draught)
One Cooper-Bessemer 6-cyl diesel, 300 bhp.

Mr. Crane who was a rich merchant had made his fortune in bathroom fixtures; he made a South Sea expedition seeking specimens for the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago.
Later was she owned by George M. Moffett of New York.
She has also carried the name MALAINA.

The USA Coastguard commissioned her on 1 April 1943, she was bought for USA$45,000 and the conversion cost an other USA$ 44,507. Renamed in MADALAN (WYPc-345)
Armament after conversion 2 – 20mm/80, 2 depth charge projectors.
Assigned to the 3rd District with homeport Fort Tilden, NY.
07 June 1945 decommissioned, and transferred to War Shipping Administration on 16 October 1945.
John B. Pontes, a Boston Cape Verdean businessman, and his business associate Fortunato Gomes da Pina, decided that carrying cargo to Cape Verde could still be profitable. In November 1946, they bought for $35,000 the former luxury steel yacht ILLYRIA, which had been used for Coast Guard service during World War II and was now considered surplus. The Cape Verde Packet Trade had never seen such a fine vessel. She had been built of steel and teak wood in 1928 in Italy and boasted four double cabins, a library, and a sitting room, besides the captain's and crew's quarters. Pontes kept the name MADALAN, had her rerigged as a brigantine and the partitions ripped out below decks for cargo space, and hired Captain Sebastian Cruz.
The MADALAN left Providence on June 8, 1947, with twenty passengers, among them one woman, Mrs. Minnie Coreira of California, who had come to the United States over thirty years before on a sailing ship. It was a calm crossing, and seventy- four days passed before the MADALAN arrived in Cape Verde. She had a new engine, but Pontes would not allow it to be used because it was too expensive to operate! The return voyage to Providence was a good deal faster, taking only thirty-nine days from Dakar. After staying in New England for Christmas and New Year she attempted a winter crossing in January 1948. Five days out of port, the MADALAN ran into the start of a week of gales that drove her 130 miles a day with no sails. Yet apart from the three kerosene drums and a barrel of beef that were washed overboard, the brigantine came through without damage.
The MADALAN was back in Providence on July 27, 1948, with forty-two passengers, after making a forty-eight-day crossing from Dakar despite seventeen days of calm. In order to have fresh meat during the voyage, a stock pen had been built under the forecastle to shelter hogs, cows, and sheep. The comfortable conditions aboard the MADALAN had made her a popular ship, and so every year thereafter the MADALAN returned to New England in July and left in autumn after the cranberry harvest, when many Cape Verdean cranberry pickers would book passage home to visit family and friends. Second Mate John Baptiste, Jr., boasted, "She's the finest ship ever to sail in the trade."
She was also a lucky one. On a crossing to Cape Verde in January 1954, the mate John Brites was washed overboard by a wave; the next wave washed him back aboard, unhurt! Good fortune indeed smiled on the MADALAN until she was sold to Antonio Bento of Maio, who neglected her. In 1955 she broke loose in the harbor of Praia and was driven against the rocks. The Providence Journal reported in 1957 that "Antonio Bento can't or won't spend money for necessary repairs on leaks in her steel hull and on her sprung topsail." Sometime later, unattended, she developed a leak and sank

Capo Verde 1987 60e sgMS591, scott?

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/ ... WYP345.pdf
http://www1.umassd.edu/specialprograms/ ... acket.html
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