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The Boat that Kept the Cuban Revolution Afloat

On a windy November evening, a band of rebels huddled anxiously on the banks of Tuxpán River. They were former convicts and future world leaders, Naval officers and weapons smugglers — each willing to risk their life to overthrow a murderous dictator.

Overhead an ominous sky loomed, foreshadowing a harrowing voyage ahead.

Standing between the men and their destiny was a treacherous 1,200 nautical mile journey. And despite stormy seas, poor planning and the infinitesimal odds of overpowering Cuba’s military forces, their ship kept their mission afloat.

That ship was a 58-foot Wheeler warship named Granma.

Granma’s Origins

Howard E. Wheeler Sr. founded The Wheeler Shipyard Corporation in 1910 in Brooklyn, New York, to build high-quality, beautifully designed yachts up to 85 feet in length. By the late 1930s, demand was so high they had to expand their facilities to ramp up production.

Shortly after the United States entered the war in late 1941, the government leased land near the Whitestone Bridge in Queens to the Wheeler shipbuilders. Wheeler immediately switched gears to support America’s defense and began producing a fleet of ships for the Navy, Army and Coast Guard. All pleasure boatbuilding was halted.

Granma was originally designed and commissioned for military use as part of a much larger fleet of ships for the war effort. Her carvel-planked hull was made of long-leaf pine on oak frames designed to accommodate 12 passengers with a cruising speed of 9 knots.

After the war, the military ships built by Wheeler were either sold, scuttled or repurposed for private use.

In 1950, Granma first appeared on U.S. Coast Guard records registered to Baton Rouge businessman Robert Erickson . While on a Gulf cruise, Erickson and his wife fell in love with Tuxpán, Mexico, on the banks of Tuxpán River. They decided to build a vacation home there and slept on their yacht while construction was underway.

One frightening night, the Ericksons awoke in Granma’s cabin to thieves who threatened their lives and took all their valuables. Souring their dream, the Ericksons changed tack and relocated to Mexico City, leaving their beloved boat behind. When a storm rolled through Tuxpán, most likely a direct hit from Tropical Storm Florence in 1954, the story of Granma was almost sunk for good.

Granma’s Unlikely Rebirth

Over a thousand nautical miles away in Cuba, Fidel Castro had instigated an ill-fated armed revolt against the Batista government at the Moncada Army Barracks , which led to a 15-year prison sentence. However, under public pressure, Batista released Castro and his collaborators just two years later, a decision that would come back to haunt him.

Fidel and his brother Raúl fled to Mexico, a hub of anti-Batista activists at the time, including Argentinian Marxist Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Mexican arms dealer Antonio Del Conde . Guevara and Del Conde were the exiles’ closest allies in Mexico City, sharing Fidel’s ideals and arming, hiding, funding, feeding and training his growing rebel band.

While passing through Tuxpán to run errands for the rebels, Del Conde saw a white hull peeking out of the marsh grass on the edge of the river. The ship was clearly wrecked, but the name on the transom was legible: Granma. Del Conde was so captivated by the ship’s beauty, he tracked down the Ericksons in Mexico City. While Granma’s diesels were inundated, her keel was broken and the entire boat was generally a mess after being partially submerged, Del Conde was undeterred in his desire to purchase her. He offered the Ericksons $20,000 — equivalent to more than $220,000 today — to buy a ship requiring significant repairs to ever become seaworthy again.

A Bigger Vision for Granma

Granma became Del Conde’s prized possession. He knew it would take him years to restore the ship to her former glory, but he was committed.

His comrade Fidel was also committed … to plotting a revolution. He fervently believed if he could make it to Cuban shores and survive for 72 hours he would be triumphant in overthrowing Batista. After shooting practice one day, Del Conde went to the river to check on Granma, unaware that Fidel followed him. When he set eyes on the mangled ship, Fidel declared his return to Cuba would be on that very boat.

In an instant, Del Conde’s timeline to restore Granma went from years to weeks. He and his team replaced the keel, planks, generator, lights and wiring. The two diesel engines were sent to a GM factory in Mexico City to be repaired. Del Conde commissioned his armory to fabricate new fuel tanks that maximized the space below deck. Sea trials were conducted to establish fuel burn statistics, but without the tonnage of dozens of men and gear on board, their calculations were merely a stab in the dark.

Sailing into the Storm

November 30, 1956, was the date chosen for an attack against the Cuban military, where allies on the island were expecting Fidel’s amphibious force to lead the fight. Castro knew the journey would take a minimum of five days; yet inexplicably he chose November 25 to depart, ignoring the stormy weather forecast and leaving he and his crew no margin for error.

On the evening of the 25 th , Castro’s band of 140 rebels congregated on the bank of Tuxpán River. This posed the first of many challenges – Granma was designed to carry 12 passengers or up to 25 for short trips. Fidel selected 81 men from the group for the mission, including his brother Raúl, trusted aide Ché Guevara and Norberto Collado , a WWII Naval hero with expert navigation skills and an uncanny resistance to seasickness. They packed onto the ship like sardines, shoulder to shoulder with no life vests, only oranges to eat and the hope that they had enough fuel to get to Cuba.

Under the cover of darkness, they sailed down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico where furious seas and 30-knot wind gusts greeted them with impunity.

Tumultuous waters lifted Granma and threw her from cresting waves so hard that the men feared she would sink beneath their feet. The seasick passengers were packed in so tightly they had no choice but to vomit on one another. With the horrendous stench permeating the ship, things went from bad to worse over the next eight hours. The transmission struggled and the men had to bail water out of the boat after the bilge pump failed and Granma took on dangerous amounts of seawater.

For days, Granma’s heavy load struggled against the waves, wind and current. At the helm, Collado slowed her speed to just 6.7 knots, further delaying the crew’s anticipated arrival time.

Ironically, overloading the ship actually made Granma more stable. The weight provided resistance against the roiling seas, without which she would have likely overturned.

Finally, on the third day, the frontal system passed and gave way to mellower seas and sunny skies. After some engine tinkering and winds that calmed to manageable trade winds of 20 knots, Collado revved up Granma to 7.5 knots and steered her toward Cuba.

Making Landfall

Against all odds, Granma’s sturdy construction had delivered them to this point. But their luck was about to run out.

None of the passengers had anticipated such an arduous journey, and misfortune continued to follow them onto land. Guided by the Cape Cruz light, Granma reached Cuba three days behind schedule and not at Castro’s intended rendezvous point with his allies.

Their nautical charts for the coast had been wrong. Their fuel was low. Dawn was approaching. And unbeknownst to them, Batista had caught wind of their surprise attack.

Fearful of being discovered by enemy air patrols, Castro ordered Collado to run Granma aground at full throttle about 100 yards from mangroves. More shipwreck than amphibious assault, the woozy sailors quickly began loading mortars and machine guns into a dinghy, which promptly sank. They had no choice but to lower themselves into chest-deep water and carry their rifles over their heads into the swamp.

The rebels marched through the mangrove forest, but just three days later, their guide betrayed them by leading them straight into an ambush by government troops.

Nearly all of Fidel’s men were killed or captured. A few lucky souls eluded either fate: the Castro brothers, Ché Guevara and about a dozen other men managed to reach the safety of the Sierra Maestra mountains.

The Aftermath

While the initial coup did not go as planned, Fidel and a handful of his comrades lived to fight another day . They rallied a force of about 300 insurgents who took up arms in a succession of victories against government forces. As Fidel’s forces swarmed to nearly 1,000 men, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic in January of 1959. With the previous dictator gone, Fidel’s revolutionary army seized the capital and put him into power for the next five decades.

Granma Today

Norberto Collado was one of the captured rebels during the unsuccessful coup. His comrades freed him from prison in 1959 and he returned to military service. He rose to the rank of captain, and one of his duties was being the caretaker for their beloved Granma.

The Erickson’s former house in Tuxpán was turned into The Mexico-Cuba Friendship Museum , where Granma’s important role in the Cuban Revolution is on full display. You can find Granma restored to pristine condition in a glass-structure behind the Museum of the Revolution in Havana .

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The Voyage of the Granma and the Cuban Revolution

Fidel Castro's Epic Sea Odyssey

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Ph.D., Spanish, Ohio State University
M.A., Spanish, University of Montana
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In November 1956, 82 Cuban rebels piled onto the small yacht Granma and set sail for Cuba to touch off the Cuban Revolution . The yacht, designed for only 12 passengers and supposedly with a maximum capacity of 25, also had to carry fuel for a week as well as food and weapons for the soldiers. Miraculously, the Granma made it to Cuba on December 2 and the Cuban rebels (including Fidel and Raul Castro, Ernesto “Ché” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos ) disembarked to start the revolution.

In 1953, Fidel Castro had led an assault on the federal barracks at Moncada , near Santiago. The attack was a failure and Castro was sent to jail. The attackers were released in 1955 by Dictator Fulgencio Batista , however, who was bowing to international pressure to release political prisoners. Castro and many of the others went to Mexico to plan the next step of the revolution. In Mexico, Castro found many Cuban exiles who wanted to see the end of the Batista regime. They began to organize the “26th of July Movement” named after the date of the Moncada assault.

Organization

In Mexico, the rebels collected arms and received training. Fidel and Raúl Castro also met two men who would play key roles in the revolution: Argentine physician Ernesto “Ché” Guevara and Cuban exile Camilo Cienfuegos. The Mexican government, suspicious of the activities of the movement, detained some of them for a while, but eventually left them alone. The group had some money, provided by former Cuban president Carlos Prío. When the group was ready, they contacted their comrades back in Cuba and told them to cause distractions on November 30, the day they would arrive.

Castro still had the problem of how to get the men to Cuba. At first, he tried to purchase a used military transport but was unable to locate one. Desperate, he purchased the yacht Granma for $18,000 of Prío’s money through a Mexican agent. The Granma, supposedly named after the grandmother of its first owner (an American), was run down, its two diesel engines in need of repair. The 13 meter (about 43 feet) yacht was designed for 12 passengers and could only fit about 20 comfortably. Castro docked the yacht in Tuxpan, on the Mexican coast.

At the end of November, Castro heard rumors that the Mexican police were planning to arrest the Cubans and possibly turn them over to Batista. Even though repairs to the Granma were not completed, he knew they had to go. On the night of November 25, the boat was loaded down with food, weapons, and fuel, and 82 Cuban rebels came on board. Another fifty or so remained behind, as there was no room for them. The boat departed silently, so as not to alert Mexican authorities. Once it was in international waters, the men on board began loudly singing the Cuban national anthem.

Rough Waters

The 1,200-mile sea voyage was utterly miserable. Food had to be rationed, and there was no room for anyone to rest. The engines were in poor repair and required constant attention. As the Granma passed Yucatan, it began taking on water, and the men had to bail until the bilge pumps were repaired: for a while, it looked as if the boat would surely sink. Seas were rough and many of the men were seasick. Guevara, a doctor, could tend to the men but he had no seasickness remedies. One man fell overboard at night and they spent an hour searching for him before he was rescued: this used up fuel they could not spare.

Arrival in Cuba

Castro had estimated the trip would take five days, and communicated to his people in Cuba that they would arrive on November 30th. The Granma was slowed by engine trouble and excess weight, however, and didn’t arrive until December 2nd. The rebels in Cuba did their part, attacking government and military installations on the 30th, but Castro and the others did not arrive. They reached Cuba on December 2nd, but it was during broad daylight and the Cuban Air Force was flying patrols looking for them. They also missed their intended landing spot by about 15 miles.

The Rest of the Story

All 82 rebels reached Cuba, and Castro decided to head for the mountains of the Sierra Maestra where he could regroup and contact sympathizers in Havana and elsewhere. In the afternoon of December 5th, they were located by a large army patrol and attacked by surprise. The rebels were immediately scattered, and over the next few days most of them were killed or captured: less than 20 made it to the Sierra Maestra with Castro.

The handful of rebels who survived the Granma trip and ensuing massacre became Castro’s inner circle, men he could trust, and he built his movement around them. By the end of 1958, Castro was ready to make his move: the despised Batista was driven out and the revolutionaries marched into Havana in triumph.

The Granma itself was retired with honor. After the triumph of the revolution, it was brought to Havana harbor. Later it was preserved and put on display.

Today, the Granma is a sacred symbol of the Revolution. The province where it landed was divided, creating the new Granma Province. The official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party is called Granma. The spot where it landed was made into the Landing of the Granma National Park, and it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site , although more for marine life than historical value. Every year, Cuban schoolchildren board a replica of the Granma and re-trace its voyage from the coast of Mexico to Cuba.

Resources and Further Reading

Castañeda, Jorge C. Compañero: the Life and Death of Che Guevara. New York: Vintage Books, 1997.
Coltman, Leycester. The Real Fidel Castro. New Haven and London: the Yale University Press, 2003.
Biography of Ernesto Che Guevara, Revolutionary Leader
Biography of Raul Castro
Key Players in the Cuban Revolution
Biography of Fulgencio Batista, Cuban President and Dictator
Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban Boy Who Became a Political Pawn
Buena Vista Social Club: Cuban Music Recaptures the World's Attention
What Was the Mariel Boatlift From Cuba? History and Impact
Cuba: The Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban Revolution: Assault on the Moncada Barracks
Biography of José Martí, Cuban Poet, Patriot, Revolutionary
Population of Cuba: Data and Analysis
Biography of Antonio Maceo, Hero of Cuban Independence
The Haitian Revolution: Successful Revolt by an Enslaved People
The History of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Biography of Toussaint Louverture, Haitian Revolution Leader
The History and Culture of Pirate Ships

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gaddafi-superyacht-hydrogen-viking-project

Gaddafi's abandoned superyacht to become hydrogen-powered pioneer

Grounded in Malta after crashing into a reef, Muammar Gaddafi’s old superyacht Che Guevara was left to rot in a Maltese yard. But now the 28m Sunseeker Predator 95 is to be given a new lease of life as a zero-emission, hydrogen-powered yacht named Hydrogen Viking .

An ambitious project spearheaded by Norwegian shipbuilder Green Yacht has assembled a team of major investors and technical partners.

Norwegian studio Coase Design is also on board and has been tasked with redesigning the Sunseeker into the world’s first zero-emission high-speed luxury yacht.

Speaking to BOAT International , designer Rory Coase described the state of the boat as a “mess” when it was first found at the yard in Malta. After sustaining “considerable damage” in the reef crash, the yacht was “being sold off by Gaddafi’s nearest and dearest for a bargain price” and was picked up by the Green Yacht initiative.

“There was tons of water down in the keel and bilges,” he said. “It wasn’t even a blank canvas.” However, work undertaken by the yard restored the “intact hull”, which was then transferred to Noryards BMV in Laksevåg, Bergen. “It’s solid, it’s true and the structure’s there,” Coase said. Work is already underway to strip and rebuild the yacht, with diesel engines removed and diesel tank cut away.

The ambition is to install hydrogen fuel cells and an electrically driven pod propulsion unit beneath the hull. Energy storage pioneer Corvus Energy will be developing and supplying the hydrogen fuel-cell technology using established technology from Toyota. Hydrogen tanks storing compressed hydrogen will be placed safely on board alongside refuelling systems. Fuel-cell modules and high-capacity batteries will provide electric power, propelling the vessel silently through the water. The only emission from this energy system will be water, which can be used for drinking.

Coase meanwhile has been tasked with the “big job” of entirely redesigning the exterior and interior which, he says, is “totally changing the functionality” of the yacht.

The vision is to outfit the interior into a conference space. “It could be used for school groups and education around Scandinavia, but it could also be rented out for corporate events with a dining space,” Coase explained.

However, Coase is keeping in mind that Hydrogen Viking is likely to be converted back into a hydrogen-fuelled private yacht and sold on the brokerage market in the future. With that in mind, Coase is keen to take advantage of the extra space created by repositioning the propulsion system.

“[With pod drives] you get the engine room back, which is this massive standing space,” he said. “We’re even toying with the idea of putting the master cabin in the engine room, with steps up to the bathing platform. Suddenly you open up a huge amount of extra space.”

The yacht will also retain some original features from its colourful past, including the helm chair that only Gaddafi was allowed to sit in. “Even when it wasn’t his yacht anymore, no-one else was allowed to sit in that chair,” Coase says. “There’s bits of history that are interesting to keep because it’s a very engaging story of the previous owner.”

The hope is that Hydrogen Viking can prove the viability of retrofitting hydrogen technology onto exiting yachts, instead of building hydrogen-specific concepts.

“There are a lot of new concepts coming out with hydrogen power but there are also tens of thousands of yachts all over the world which have got another 10-30 years of life in them,” Coase says. The ambition is to get Hydrogen Viking into the water this year at which point Coase hopes the project will become “a beacon of Scandinavian modern green technology”.