The Tragedy of the Coquimbo

The ship

Main features:

The Coquimbo was a 1759-ton ship, 78.94m long and 11.61m wide. She was built in 1890 and it took the Russel and C° shipyard eight months to complete her construction. She was first named Burmah and her hull, made of iron, was entirely white except at the scuttle level.

The Dominique Bordes and Son C° acquired her in 1907 and it was the third ship of the company to bear that name; the first Coquimbo had a wooden hull and that 1175-ton ship was built in 1873. The second one was a 1910-ton ship built in 1876 with an iron hull which was sold to Norway.

The Bordes company:

Antoine Dominique Bordes, the son of a general practitioner, was born in 1815 at Gers. After his studies in Bordeaux, he boarded a ship bound for South America. In Valparaiso he worked for a sea captain from Bordeaux and became