BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The storm set in suddenly, darkening the midmorning sky. Winds reached 60 miles an hour. Waves towered over the refitted fishing trawler, with swells as high as 26 feet.
The eight people aboard the Polar Mist radioed for help, then donned survival wet suits and flung themselves into the frigid waters. In a daring operation, rescuers dangling from a helicopter harnessed the survivors and pulled them to safety.
Two days later, a Chilean tugboat caught up with the abandoned trawler. But as it was being tugged to dry land, the Polar Mist unexpectedly sank 25 miles off the Argentine coast, near the mouth of the Straits of Magellan, on Jan. 18.
The owners of its cargo say nearly $22 million in unrefined gold and silver went down with it, and they’re asking insurer Lloyd’s of London to foot the bill for the costly recovery operation.
But Argentine news media and maritime experts are asking whether the precious metals were aboard at all. They ask why the crew members ditched the craft when it would have been safer to stay aboard, why they left the engine on full so the ship was left spinning in circles, and why a trawler built in 1979 was being used to transport gold and silver in the first place.
“It’s all very funny, very suspicious,” said Carlos Mey, a maritime history expert who lives on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. “The ship kept floating, it wasn’t in danger of sinking.”
Navy prosecutor Pedro Vargas in Punta Arenas, Chile, is investigating the sinking of the Chilean-flagged Polar Mist, and so is a federal court in Rio Gallegos, Argentina. Both declined to comment because the investigation is ongoing.
Cerro Vanguardia S.A., the Patagonian mine that claims $16.5 million of the submerged freight, said the case is clear-cut.
“There’s nothing mysterious here,” said company President Jorge Palmes. “A boat sank.”
The truth could come out this week, as recovery crews dive 250 feet below the sea to examine the Polar Mist’s hold.
A judge in Rio Gallegos last week authorized the recovery of the cargo and the operation will be carried out by Netherlands-based Mammoet, which helped raise the wreck of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk from the bottom of the icy Barents Sea in 2001.
The operation should take about a week — if the 20,500 pounds of metal, 90 percent silver and 10 percent gold, are there. If not, Palmes said, Lloyd’s will have to reimburse his company.
Officials at Minera Triton Argentina SA, which says it had an additional $5 million worth of gold and silver aboard the Polar Mist, did not respond to phone calls.
Gustavo Maria Giugale, the lawyer representing the underwriters in Argentina of Lloyd’s, said official port records at Punta Quilla, Argentina, show the cargo was loaded. It was destined for Punta Arenas, from which it was to be flown to Switzerland for refining.
That path took it through the Straits of Magellan, at the furthest reaches of South America. Named for the famed 16th-century circumnavigator, the straits have been feared for centuries by seafarers for their violent winds, tumultuous waves and fickle weather.
In the past decades, more than a few cunning seamen have taken advantage of the lore surrounding the Straits to carry out scams, often ridding their companies of unwanted boats to claim the insurance money, Mey said.
The vessel is lying within miles of the remnants of nearly 350 shipwrecks, Mey said — perhaps even an undiscovered vessel from Magellan’s fleet.
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