Falken

The voyage of the Falken to Argentina was organized by Dr. Ludwig Lienhard, a German with close contacts in Estonia. Lienhard had originally bought the former Swedish Navy training ship for 160,000 kronor with Swedish government funds originally allocated to repatriate Swedes living in Estonia during the German occupation.

The Falken was a beautiful sailing ship built in 1877. It was 78 feet long (23.7 meters) and 20.5 feet wide (6.23 meters), with a two-masted brig and rapier sails. It had served the Swedish monarchy for 66 years until it was decommissioned in 1943.

Is the Falken lost?

The Falken left Stockholm under Swedish Captain Nils Halfdan Lundquist on December 30, 1947, with 18 Baltic refugees. Since the ship was well known, the Swedish press closely followed its movements. Newspapers reported that the Falken encountered fierce winter storms and had to seek shelter and make repairs near Karlskrona and Simrishamn harbors in Sweden. It then continued to Helsingborg, where a reporter for Välis-Eesti interviewed Mr. Lienhard and two Estonians on board, engineer Erich Hans Jaago and his wife Ethel. Evald Vilbaste, Salme Eriks, and Johannes Putnik joined the ship on January 28 in Göteborg. Ms. Eriks paid 700 kronor for passage and also worked as a galley maid in the kitchen.

The ship stopped at Källö-Knippla, an island west of Göteborg, before leaving Sweden on Feb. 4, 1948, with eight Germans, five Estonians, five Finns, two Danes, and a Swede on board. The crossing to England was very stormy and took two weeks instead of four to five days. Some of the passengers and crew, including the captain, disembarked when it reached Southampton, England.

After staying a month, the Falken stopped at Swanage and then, under a new Finnish captain, Olevi Pemanheimo, set course for Madeira. When the ship reached the island after 12 days of sailing, everyone except for the Estonians, whom the local residents considered to be communists, was allowed to go ashore. Two more stops were made in Praia, Cabo Verde, and Recife, Brazil, before the Falken reached Buenos Aires.

The Falken arrives in Argentina, Eesti Teataja, July 7, 1948

Despite battling a fierce cyclone for three days off the coast of Brazil, the Falken’s crew and passengers arrived in Argentina on June 26, 1948, following a difficult six-month journey where food was always in short supply. According to Lienhard, nearly all of the trip was completed under sail power alone. After the Falken arrived, Välis-Eesti reported that the refugees did not recommend taking such a long journey on such a small ship because the challenges, which only became apparent after departure, were far greater than could be imagined at the outset.

All the refugees had visas, so they were allowed to enter Argentina.

Known crew and passengers:

Captain Nils Halfdan Lundquist (left ship in England)
Captain Olevi Pemanheimo (joined ship in England
Ludwig Lienhard, wife, and four children, aged 2 to 8 years
Karl Holleck-Wheitmann
Erich Hans Jaago and wife Ethel
Evald Vilbaste
Salme Eriks
Johannes Putnik

Photograph reproduced with permission from the Estonian Maritime Museum.