Sinking caused by a whale in 1934

“At Lampedusa, a small fishing boat collided, destroying, against a huge whale.”

So the headline in the Domenica del Corriere 04/28/1935, dedicating the entire cover to something that happened in the largest of the Pelagie. But who were the crew of the vessel? And ‘memory of the fact remained on the island? 

Finally we are able to reconstruct at least part of the story , even if you still do not know the exact date. Reconstruction of this I have to thank Giovannino Billeci and Salvatore Giardina.

One day, almost certainly by the end of winter, during the passage of the whales in Lampedusa, a small sailing boat, called into lampedusano,  “sacca a leva”  went fishing near the  island.

The crew consisted of : Partinico Vincenzo, Partinico Francesco Aiello Gioacchino, Di Malta Raimondo.

Just arrived near Cape Grecale, the boat, which was small, was thrown into the air by a flick of the tail of an enormous whale.

Aiello Gioacchino lost his life, the other survivors, they remained for days at the mercy of the sea clinging to the wreckage, until they were retrieved by other fishermen of Lampedusa.

Of the four sailors, the protagonists of the story, I knew only two,  Aiello Gioacchino and Raimondo Di Malta. The first because the grandfather of a friend of mine, the second because I met in person, the greatest shipwright of Lampedusa, “u zu Munniddru”. The famous zu Munniddru since then he did not put more than one foot in sea…