Boats

The Gundel in Sweden.

 

GUNDEL

In 1948, a group of Latvian refugees, who had fled to Sweden four years earlier, were so alarmed by increasing pressure to make them return to their occupied homeland they decided to flee once again, this time heading across the Atlantic.  

The Latvians raised $12,000 to buy the 50-year-old Gundel, a 64-foot-long (19.5 meters) ketch. After preparing it in secret for the long ocean journey, the boat left Göteborg, Sweden, on May 22, 1948. There were 29 people on board—25 Latvians, two Swedes, a Lithuanian, and a Russian. They included 15 men, seven women, and seven children. This was one of the only Viking boats in Jüri Vendla’s book, Unustatud merereisid (Forgotten Sea Journeys), with no Estonian passengers. 

Janis Rosenbergs (John Rosenberg), 63, the ship’s captain, relied on a second-hand Japanese sextant, a watch, and a nautical chart for navigation.

The Gundel planned to sail to Cape Town, South Africa, but it encountered a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic that blew it off course, forcing the refugees to head to Canada instead. But the boat only made it as far as Boston, Massachusetts, and with no food or money left, the refugees asked for permission to stay.

Two Massachusetts congressmen, John W. McCormack and John F. Kennedy, took up their cause. “To send them back would be Imposing a death sentence,” McCormack told the New York Times. The refugees were eventually allowed to stay. 

Life magazine publicized the Gundel’s journey on August 2, 1948:

“Pilgrims from Latvia: Refugees cross the Atlantic in ketch smaller than the ‘Mayflower’”

At midnight of July 20, 29 refugees from Soviet Europe finished a long voyage to the U.S. and freedom. They were Latvians who in 46 days at sea had sailed in the 64-foot (19.5 meter) ketch Gundel from Sweden to England, then across the Atlantic to landfall off Bermuda, and finally to Provincetown, Mass. A day later they sailed on to Boston…Weary of the sea but in good health, its passengers arrived with almost no food and $27 in cash among them.” 

Known crew and passengers:

  • Janis Rosenbergs (John Rosenberg) and his wife
  • Janis (John) Lamberts, wife, Amanda Lamberts, and sons Haralds, 4, and Arnis, 2
  • Valja Tipans
  • Harolds and Arnis Lamberts and their mother
  • Adolf and Lucia Gailitis and their children Rolands, 12, Ilga, 7, and Edith, 5
  • Fritz and Lena Hervarts and their daughter Tabita
  •  Arrid Strelis
  • Robert Guth
  • Arnold Stravtinsh

The Toronto Star published a photo story about the Gundel’s passengers, July 27, 1948 

New York Daily News, July 23, 1948 

Photograph reproduced with permission from the Estonian Maritime Museum.