Boats
The Inanda, Brill, and Linda lined up in the Port of Miami.
BRILL
The Brill set out from Göteborg, Sweden, on June 30, 1946, with eight or nine men, three women, and a 3-year-old child on board. Under the command of Captain Arnold Tamm, the 40-foot-long (12.2 meter) fishing boat mostly followed the 8,000-mile (12,900-kilometer) route of the Inanda, which had left Lysekil harbor a month earlier. It stopped in Norway, Ireland, and the Madeira islands before reaching Miami, Florida, on September 9. Like many of the Viking boats, the Brill’s passengers almost ran out of food during the 71-day journey and only had oatmeal to eat by the time arrived in America.
“It was a sheer accident where we landed,” passenger Oskar Linder told the Chicago Times in 1994. “Our map had been printed in the 1880s and showed only St. Augustine and Key West as cities in Florida.”
Invitation to the 20th-anniversary reunion of passengers on the Inanda, Brill, and Linda.
The 40-year-old Brill was in very bad condition by the time they docked in Miami. “We were desperately fighting to keep it from sinking as we made port,” Linder said. Without anyone on board to bail it, the boat sank several times at the pier. Later, the Brill was taken out to sea and ceremoniously scuttled in the presence of journalists.
To read how the Brill’s passengers were received in America, visit the Linda.
Known crew and passengers:
- Captain Arnold Tamm
- John Madison, wife, and their daughter, Vieeno, 3
- August Pirts and En Linas-Pirts
- Oskar and Aino Linder
- Vladimir Vilbas
- Voldemar Tolli
- Riho Voog
- Alfred Kiipus and wife
Photographs reproduced with permission from the Estonian Maritime Museum.