Statsraad Lehmkuhl is sailing in one of the most legendary and mysterious sea areas in the world. This is the story behind the myth.
On the first of September, Captain Jens Joachim Hiorth opened his daily report with a cryptic remark: – We’ve left Bermuda and are heading south through the triangle.
Draw a line from Bermuda to Florida, continue southeast to Puerto Rico, and then north again to Bermuda. The lines form a triangle – the infamous Bermuda Triangle. And it is in this stretch of ocean that Statsraad Lehmkuhl now sails.
A dark reputation
For decades, tales of unexplained vanishings have given this area its dark reputation. Planes, ships, and entire crews have disappeared without leaving a trace.
In December 1945, five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers, known as Flight 19, set out on a training mission and never came back. Just three years later, in January 1948, the passenger aircraft Star Tiger of British South American Airways vanished en route from Bermuda to the Azores. A few months later, a fishing boat with three men aboard went missing in the same waters.
And in December that same year, a DC-3 from Airborne Transport disappeared between Puerto Rico and Miami. In January 1949, the passenger plane Star Ariel, also of British South American Airways, vanished on its way from Bermuda to Jamaica. No wreckage was ever found.
Steamship Sandra
But it was the disappearance of the steamship Sandra in 1950 that truly fueled the Bermuda Triangle legend. With a crew of eleven, Sandra left Savannah, USA, bound for Venezuela. When the vessel failed to arrive, the U.S. Coast Guard launched an intensive search.
Not a single trace of the ship was discovered.
Two years later, the magazine Fate brought the story to a wider audience. Specializing in paranormal tales, the publication gathered Sandra’s fate with the earlier mysteries and gave the area its enduring name: the Bermuda Triangle.
From there, the myth took off, growing through articles, books, TV programs and movies into one of the most famous maritime legends of all time.
No worry
And now, Statsraad Lehmkuhl herself is sailing through this legendary triangle, bound for the Panama Canal.
Yet Captain Jens Joachim Hiorth has little reason to worry. The original story told in Fate was not entirely accurate. Journalist George Sand wrote that Sandra vanished in June, in calm and pleasant weather. In reality, she left port on April 5 and sailed directly into a violent storm.
As the Miami Herald reported on April 8, 1950:
"A storm growing from the low pressure areas which caused thunderstorms and strong winds in Florida during the past three days approached hurricane force and buffeted Atlantic shipping lanes Friday ... Winds reached a speed of 73 miles an hour off the Virginia Capes, two miles an hour under hurricane strength..."
The Bermuda Triangle is in fact a region prone to tropical cyclones, and research has shown that no more ships have vanished here than anywhere else in the Atlantic.
Sandra was probably lost to the storm, and certainly not to supernatural forces. In 2020 the wreck of Sandra was found by divers searching for the lost planes of Flight 19.
