Vice Admiral (Ret.) Juan Carlos TOLEDO de la Maza
Active Member of the Chilean Section
 

RAUL BENNEWITZ, FAREWELL TO AN ALBATROSS

Almost no-one of today’s generation knows what an albatross is; the huge bird with a majestic wingspread which dominates the “Roaring Forties” of the Southern Ocean.  These latitudes of fierce gales circle Antarctica, and were the inspiration for the name of the route of the majestic clippers which dominated maritime commerce for a century.  Their cargoes of spices, tea, saltpeter, copper and more moved back and forth between Asia, the Americas, and Europe repeatedly rounding the ever-difficult Cape Horn, which took them well to the South, to the Antarctic side, of the “Forties”. 

Every man that participated in such adventure has indelibly imprinted within him, however worn-out by time he may be, the images of the changing skies and storms and the sound of the water sliced by the cutting edge of the graceful bow.

And up, above the straining sails of the masts, the wings of the albatross in its mighty flight remind us of the souls of those sailors whose lives were taken away by the experience of cruel reality, those who in wandering seek of the love of their lives:  the sea.

Today when the profession of a seaman – those who know the sea – relates to a very few, we sadly experience the loss of these professionals, expert in commanding sailing ships with no other elements than a sextant and their own intuition.

And these men continue to die, there are few men of the epoch of sail that still resist the inexorable end to which we are destined.  They gather through this common love of the sea, to which they dedicate their lives, and form the honored heart of the Brotherhood of Cape Horn Captains, “Cape Horners” or “Caphorniers”, founded in Saint Malö half a century ago.

In this Brotherhood, everything is symbolic.  The president is the Grand Mât, the main mast, and its members are named for sea birds.

The principal members, those who were Captains in charge of merchant sailing ships rounding The Horn are named for the majestic “albatross”, and indeed these men who live among us are very few in number.

One of the last of these Captains, there remain perhaps five of them in our small and globe-circling group, pertained to our own Chilean Section, created in Valparaiso seven years ago:  Captain Raul Bennewitz Decher.

For those who had the opportunity to know him, he was a reserved and wise man, characteristics typical of this profession.  At eighty-one years of age, he still accomplished his duties as captain of a fishing vessel – a modern replacement of the sailing ships that he once commanded.

At the age of twenty-five he was first mate of the “Guaitecas” a three masted bark of 1.179 GRT, later ascending to command another bark, “Calbuco” in 1942, and on to command the five-masted schooner “Condor” in 1945.

Captain Bennewitz was a true seaman.  He experienced incredible adventures aboard Condor, aboard which in the old style, his wife and children traveled with him. Their miraculous survival of a terrible fire, ending Condor’s last voyage, inspired various stories in Chile and abroad including a book Pasión y Muerte del Velero Condor (Passion and Death of the Sailing Vessel Condor) by Carlos Vega Letelier.

The heart of this master of sailors stopped beating and he began a quiet flight to join his deceased wife Avis (a Latin name which, by strange coincidence, means “Bird”), who left her home in Durban to join this reserved and capable seaman.  He has begun his journey to the other world attired in the uniform of the Chilean Caphorniers, an organization to which he belonged as founding Member and Director.

The Albatross and the Bird will fly side by side forever, surpassing forgetfulness and death.  Thus we feel, the Cape Horn Captains who knew him and benefited from the privelege of sharing his experiences and friendship.

The best homage we can pay to his memory is to strengthen the consciousness of this maritime country in which we were born.  To encourage youngsters to follow the call of the sea whether in marine trade, military vessels, fishing or in nautical sports, so that they can know the privelge of spirit which is rounding Cape Horn.  This human challenge that the sea has provided and still presents; the opportunity for free men to resolutely confront the uncertainty and dangers of the future - this that the Founders of the Brotherhood named the “Spirit of Saint Malo”.