At the time that the yacht was bought, she did belonged to Robert B.Erickson from Texas, at that time living permanently in Mexico City.
1956 She was bought for $ 20.000 by Fidel Castro, when she was lying in the Tuxpán River.
She was a white motor yacht and too small for an expedition he was planning to use her for.
A wooden 13-meter yacht and powered by two diesel engines. The yacht was built in 1943, and could carry 25 passengers.
When Castro bought her she already carried the name GRANMA and was named by the former owner after his grandmother.
During a hurricane in 1953 she was sunk, and remaining for a time under water, and much work had to be done before she was seaworthy again.
Castro, appointed Onelio Pino as the captain of the yacht, and repair work on the yacht commenced immediately.
On 23 Nov. 1956 Castro traveled from Mexico City to the Tuxpán River to supervise the loading of arms, ammunition and supplies on board the yacht, what was almost ready, but most of the repair jobs were done in haste.
During the night of 24 November, 81 men embarked on the small yacht, suitable for only 25 men, and loaded with stores and guns, the living conditions were very cramped. The deck covered with tins of bunker oil for the two diesel engines.
At 01.30 a.m. on 25 November 1956 the GRANMA started her engines and left her berth, without any lights sailed downstreams for sea.
After arriving in open choppy sea with only three experienced sailors, the men almost immediately became seasick, throwing up incessantly. No longer a fighting force but only sick men.
The route Castro had chosen added up to 1235 miles. From Tuxpán she steered almost an easterly course and keeping far from the southerly coast of Cuba, only at the last moment the course was altered for the Oriente province (now called the Granma province) coast the plan being to land near Niquero.
The passage planned by Castro would take five days, but being heavily overloaded, mechanically unfit and with bad steering, she ran behind schedule. When the GRANMA began to take water, the bilge pump was found to be broken, and they had to bail with two buckets until the leak was found and repaired.
After three days at sea the weather improved and the men got hungry again, but on board were only 2000 oranges, 48 tins of condensed milk, 4 baked hams, 2 sliced hams, 1 box of eggs and 100 chocolate bars and 10 pounds of bread, so the last two days of the voyage which took 7 days there was no food left and only a little fresh water.
On 30 November the planned landing day, the upraising against the Batista regime started in Cuba, but without the help of Castro and his men, still 48 hours behind schedule, the uprising failed.
During the dark night of 1 December and looking for the lighthouse of Cabo Cruz for a position fix, the navigator Roberto Roque slipped and fell overboard, a search was made for him and after one hour he was found still alive and was hoisted on board.
The yacht carefully steamed nearer to the coast and she entered the Niquero channel during low tide, but by checking the buoys, Capt Pino found out that his charts were wrong, and he did not know his position.
When dawn was coming on Sunday 2 December at 4.20 a.m. the yacht suddenly hit a mudbank and stopped dead in the water, in a position more than one mile south from the beach were Castro had planned to land.
The men were ordered to jump into the water and with only their personal weapons they waded ashore, all heavy equipment and stores were left behind on the yacht.
When she arrived on shore they discovered that they were in a huge mangrove swamp and passing through it was not easy, fallen tree trunks tripping the men, and clouds of mosquitoes tried to devour them. It took the men two hours to reach firm ground.
The next morning the Batista navy and air force quickly discovered the partly sunken GRANMA, and the hunt for the rebels began. The survivors fought their way to the Sierra Maestra, most of the party being lost during that time. But two years later the rebels entered Havana
When Castro, as liberator, entered Havana on 8 Jan. 1959 his first visit was to the harbour, were he visited the GRANMA moored there.
She is now placed on dry land behind thick layers of glass in front of the Museum of the Revolution in Havana.
Cuba 1960 2c sg922, scott 626. 1965 13c sg1249, scott 988. 1974 3c sg2087, scott 1855. 1976 1c sg 2333, scott 2101. 1981 1p sg2762, scott2456. 1986 5c sg?, scott 2914. 1991 50c sg3689, scott3379. 1996 15c sg4109, scott3778. 2006 65p sg?, scott?
2016 60c sg?, scott?
Source: Fidel A Critical Portrait by Tad Szulc. Many web-sites.
GRANMA
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aukepalmhof
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GRANMA
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Last edited by aukepalmhof on Fri Mar 17, 2017 10:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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aukepalmhof
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Re: GRANMA
Cuba 1996 15c sg4109, scott3778, 1999 65c sg 4320, scott?
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Last edited by aukepalmhof on Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: GRANMA
More stamps about this lovely ship.
Cuba, 1965.
Cuba, 1966.
Cuba, 1966.
Cuba, 1966.
Cuba, 1965.
Cuba, 1966.
Cuba, 1966.
Cuba, 1966.
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Re: GRANMA
Two more Granma stamps.
Cuba, 1976, S.G.?, Scott; 2102.
Cuba, 1986, S.G.?, Scott; 2914.
Cuba, 1976, S.G.?, Scott; 2102.
Cuba, 1986, S.G.?, Scott; 2914.
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Re: GRANMA
Granma (Cabin Cruiser, Yacht) 1943
Granma is the yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot (18 m) diesel-powered cabin cruiser was built in 1943 and designed to accommodate 12 people. "Granma", in English, is an affectionate term for a grandmother; the yacht is said to have been named for the original owner's grandmother.
The yacht was purchased on 10 October 1956 for MX$50,000 (US$15,000) from the United States-based Schuylkill Products Company, Inc. by a Mexican citizen—said to be Mexico City gun dealer Antonio "The Friend" del Conde—secretly representing Fidel Castro. Castro's 26th of July Movement had attempted to purchase a Catalina flying boat or a US naval crash rescue boat for the purpose of crossing the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, but their efforts had been thwarted by lack of funds. The money to purchase the Granma had been raised in the US state of Florida by former President of Cuba Carlos Prío Socarrás.
Shortly after midnight on 25 November 1956 in the Mexican port of Tuxpan, Veracruz, the Granma was surreptitiously boarded by 82 members of the 26th of July movement including their leader, Fidel Castro, his brother, Raúl Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The group—who later came to be known collectively as “los expedicionarios del yate Granma”—set out from Tuxpan at 1 a.m. and, after a series of vicissitudes and misadventures, including the near-foundering of their heavily overladen and leaking craft, disembarked on 2 December on the Playa Las Coloradas, municipality of Niquero, in what is now Granma Province (after the vessel), but was then part of the larger Oriente Province. The Granma was piloted by Norberto Collado Abreu, a Cuban Navy veteran and ally of Castro. The location was chosen to emulate the voyage of national hero José Martí, who had landed in the same region 61 years earlier during the wars of independence from Spanish colonial rule.
On the map shown the voyage of Granma from Mexico to Cuba.
Soon after the revolutionary forces triumphed on 1 January 1959, the cabin cruiser was transferred to Havana Bay. Norberto Collado Abreu, who had served as main helmsman for the 1956 voyage, received the job of guarding and preserving the yacht.
Since 1976 the yacht has been on permanent display in a glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana. A portion of old Oriente Province, where the expedition made landfall, was renamed Granma Province in honor of the vessel. UNESCO has declared the Landing of the Granma National Park - established at the location (Playa Las Coloradas) - a World Heritage Site for its natural habitat.
Cuba celebrates 2 December as the "Day of the Cuban Armed Forces", and a replica has also been paraded at state functions to commemorate the original voyage. In further tribute, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party has been called Granma. The name of the vessel became an icon for Cuban communism. Although the name is sometimes described as having been misspelled, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary lists granma as a variant of grandma.
Source: Wikipedia
Granma is the yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot (18 m) diesel-powered cabin cruiser was built in 1943 and designed to accommodate 12 people. "Granma", in English, is an affectionate term for a grandmother; the yacht is said to have been named for the original owner's grandmother.
The yacht was purchased on 10 October 1956 for MX$50,000 (US$15,000) from the United States-based Schuylkill Products Company, Inc. by a Mexican citizen—said to be Mexico City gun dealer Antonio "The Friend" del Conde—secretly representing Fidel Castro. Castro's 26th of July Movement had attempted to purchase a Catalina flying boat or a US naval crash rescue boat for the purpose of crossing the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, but their efforts had been thwarted by lack of funds. The money to purchase the Granma had been raised in the US state of Florida by former President of Cuba Carlos Prío Socarrás.
Shortly after midnight on 25 November 1956 in the Mexican port of Tuxpan, Veracruz, the Granma was surreptitiously boarded by 82 members of the 26th of July movement including their leader, Fidel Castro, his brother, Raúl Castro, Che Guevara, and Camilo Cienfuegos. The group—who later came to be known collectively as “los expedicionarios del yate Granma”—set out from Tuxpan at 1 a.m. and, after a series of vicissitudes and misadventures, including the near-foundering of their heavily overladen and leaking craft, disembarked on 2 December on the Playa Las Coloradas, municipality of Niquero, in what is now Granma Province (after the vessel), but was then part of the larger Oriente Province. The Granma was piloted by Norberto Collado Abreu, a Cuban Navy veteran and ally of Castro. The location was chosen to emulate the voyage of national hero José Martí, who had landed in the same region 61 years earlier during the wars of independence from Spanish colonial rule.
On the map shown the voyage of Granma from Mexico to Cuba.
Soon after the revolutionary forces triumphed on 1 January 1959, the cabin cruiser was transferred to Havana Bay. Norberto Collado Abreu, who had served as main helmsman for the 1956 voyage, received the job of guarding and preserving the yacht.
Since 1976 the yacht has been on permanent display in a glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana. A portion of old Oriente Province, where the expedition made landfall, was renamed Granma Province in honor of the vessel. UNESCO has declared the Landing of the Granma National Park - established at the location (Playa Las Coloradas) - a World Heritage Site for its natural habitat.
Cuba celebrates 2 December as the "Day of the Cuban Armed Forces", and a replica has also been paraded at state functions to commemorate the original voyage. In further tribute, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party has been called Granma. The name of the vessel became an icon for Cuban communism. Although the name is sometimes described as having been misspelled, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary lists granma as a variant of grandma.
Source: Wikipedia
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