Chilean ship Casma (1889)

Transporter Casma
History
Name	Aquila
Owner	Fratelli Lavarello fu G. B., Genova
Builder	Wigham Richardson
Launched	1889
Fate	Sold to Chile (Balmaceda forces) in 1891
Chile
Name	Casma
Namesake	Naval battle of Casma
Acquired	1891
Commissioned	1892
Fate	Lent to Ecuador in 1905
Ecuador
Name	Marañón
Namesake	Marañón River
Commissioned	1905
Decommissioned	1908
Fate	Back to Chile
Chile
Name	Casma
Commissioned	1908
Fate	Sunk in Picton Channel on 2 January 1917
General characteristics
Displacement	2,627 t
Length	103.5 m
Beam	12 m
Propulsion	2.750 HP
Speed	17 kn

Casma was an auxiliary ship of the Chilean Navy.

History

Casma was bought in Buenos Aires by the Chilean Government of Jose Manuel Balmaceda during the 1891 Chilean Civil War. However, as with the French built armored cruisers Presidente Pinto and Presidente Errázuriz, and the battleship Capitán Prat, they were detained abroad and were not involved in the civil war. It was only after the war ended, in 1892, that the ship was handed over to the Chilean Navy.

In 1905, Casma was lent to the Ecuadorian Navy to be used as a training ship, though in 1908, she was returned to Chile in exchange for the torpedo gunboat Almirante Simpson.

In a 1911 accident, a boat was run over by Casma with the propeller killing all six members of the boat's crew.

Final mission

X

O

X grounded Casma
O Pepper meets the Steamer Chiloé

In 1916, eight members of the German light cruiser SMS Dresden, four members of the steamship Göttingen and sixteen cadets of the barque Herzogin Cecilie, who were interned on Quiriquina Island for the duration of the war, escaped on board of the cutter Tinto bound for Germany. Francis Stronge, British Minister Plenipotentiary at Santiago, Chile, requested that the Chilean Government attempt to recapture the Germans in fulfillment of Chile's obligations as a neutral country.

On 28 December 1916 the Chilean Navy ordered the Casma to search for the Germans from the Evangelistas Islets to the Gulf of Penas. The Casma crew commenced the search from Punta Arenas under the command of Capitán de Fragata Julio Lagos de la Fuente. Leaving the standard navigation route, the Casma searched by following the route Evangelistas, Nelson Strait, Diego de Almagro Island (then Cambridge Island), Concepción Channel, Trinidad Channel and the Picton Channel.

On 2 January, not far from Golfo Ladrillero, the ship hit a rock and buckled her plates, popping rivets and breaching several compartments. The engine room gradually flooded, impeding the use of the electric generator and, consequently, the radio. The Casma was able to continue for a further 600 m and run aground on a sandy beach, far from the main shipping channel in a sparsely inhabited region.

In order to obtain assistance, and owing to the extreme desolation of these parts and the impossibility of traveling overland, Capitán Lagos sent one of the lifeboats, under the command of Teniente Luis Pepper van Buren, to the main channel. They took with them water, food rations for several days, a compass, chronometer, navigation charts, binoculars, pocket lamp and a flare gun, as well as a rifle and Pepper's service weapon.

Leaving on 3 January, Pepper's party headed for the Sarmiento Channel. On 7 January, in Puerto Bueno, they alerted the steamer Chiloé by firing a Very light. The steamer promptly sailed to the Picton Channel to render help to the crew of the Casma. She was followed to the shipwreck by other rescue vessels - on 10 January the cutters Meteoro and Yáñez, on 13 January the tug Ortiz and on 18 January the cruiser Chacabuco. However, despite three months of effort, the Casma could not be freed and had to be abandoned.

See also

• List of decommissioned ships of the Chilean Navy

External links

• Germán Bravo Valdivieso, Cumplimiento de una Comisión "Contra Viento y Marea" in Revista Mar of Liga Marítima de Chile
• Chilean Navy website Casma