Stock no: 300 278

A mid 20th century scratch-built Barque sailing ship "Potosi" in an oak framed display cabinet.

51 ½”w x 29 ½”h x 14”d

131cm w x 75cm h x 36cm d

Circa 1970

£ 495

Potosi

Potosi was a five-masted steel barque built in 1895 by Joh. C. Tecklenborg ship yard in Geestemunde, Germany, for the sailing ship company F. Laeisz as a trading vessel. As its shipping route was between Germany and Chile, it was designed to be capable of withstanding the rough weather encountered around Cape Horn.

Potosi was named after the Bolivian town of Potosi the highest city in the world, its name beginning with "P" according to a Laeisz tradition begun in the 1880s. The Potosi and sister ships became known as the Flying P Line and were described by Robert Carter as "without doubt, the most successful fleet of sail-driven ships ever assembled under one flag."

Potosi had five masts and was rigged as a barque, meaning that the first four masts were square-rigged, each carrying six sails, and the fifth mast carried three fore-and-aft-sails. She was the third windjammer in the world merchant fleet with that kind of rigging, after the France I of the Antoine-Dominique Bordes line of Bordeaux, and the first German auxiliary steel barque Maria Rickmers of the Rickmers line. In total, within the world merchant fleet, there were only six windjammers of this class of five-masted barque rigging, with four masts having carried five, six or partly seven sails on each mast: France I, Maria Rickmers carried seven sails skysails on fore, main, mizzen masts, jigger mast with six sails), Potosi, R.C. Rickmers, France II. In 1925, she caught fire in the Atlantic and eventually had to be sunk by artillery.

The Potosi was launched in 1895 at the shipyard of J. C. Tecklenborg AG, Geestemunde and was used in the saltpetre trade Salpeterfahrt between Chile and Germany, setting record speeds in the process, due to her excellent sailing characteristics. She made twenty seven "round voyages" Hamburg to Chile and back under five captains between 1895 and 1914. Her first master, the legendary sea captain Robert Hilgendorf, sailed her up to 1901. Capt. Georg Schluter 2 round voyages, Jochim Hans Hinrich Nissen 10, Johann Fromcke 3, and Robert Miethe 4 followed.

On September 23, 1914 the Potosi was interned at Valparaiso as she entered the harbour, since the war had begun. In 1917 while moored in Chile, she was sold to the F. A. Vinnen shipping company of Bremen, but on October 2, 1920 she was given to France as a war reparation. The French government sold her to Argentina which transferred her to the Floating Docks Co. of Buenos Aires. There she laid up for three years when she was eventually purchased by the Chilean company Gonzalez, Soffia & Cia. of Valparaiso, and renamed the Flora.

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