Laurindo Pitta is a museum ship and former tugboat of the Brazilian Navy, subordinated to the Directorate of Historical Heritage and Documentation of the Navy (DHHDN). She is the oldest boat of the navy still in service, being built by the British shipyard Vickers, Sons & Maxim, Ltd, in 1910. The tugboat is 39 meters long and displaced up to 514 tons in weight. She belonged to the Naval War Operations Division, part of the Brazilian squadron sent to patrol the northeastern African coast during World War I. In World War II, she participated in helping to defend the port of Rio de Janeiro. Laurindo Pitta was decommissioned on 16 September 1959, but was still used by the Brazilian Navy until the 1990s.
The Navy decided to restore her in 1998, and since then she has served the institution as a museum ship, subordinated to DHHDN. In this department, the boat is used in the Guanabara Bay tour and as a historical source for tourists who visit the Navy's Cultural Space, where she is stationed. Pitta participated in naval events such as the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of Brazil, in 2000, and its centennial, in 2010, when the tugboat was presented with the title of Honorary Member of the North American Classic Yacht Association (CYA).
History
Construction and features
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Brazilian government was studying plans for the modernization of its war navy, which, after the imperial period, was completely outdated. Two plans followed: Admiral Júlio Cesar de Noronha's, in 1904, and Admiral Alexandrino Faria de Alencar's, in 1906. Although the first plan was approved by the legislative congress, with the change of government, the plan that materialized was the latter. The battleships Minas Geraes and São Paulo were acquired in 1910; cruisers Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul, as well as several other smaller ships, among them the tugboat Laurindo Pitta.
Service
The Laurindo Pitta was the first boat of the Brazilian fleet to bear this name, as she was a tribute to Laurindo Pitta de Castro, a deputy from the state of Rio de Janeiro, who died before seeing the finished fleet that he had heartedly defended. In 1913, she underwent two small repairs to clean and paint the bottom of the hull, one between 1–3 April, and another between 6–11 November. Due to the torpedoing of several Brazilian cargo ships by German submarines during the First World War, Brazil declared war on the country. In 1918, the Naval Division in War Operations (NDWO) was created, a squadron composed of the cruisers Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul, the destroyers Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Parahyba and Santa Catarina, the auxiliary ship Belmonte and the tugboat Laurindo Pitta, armed with two 47mm cannons, which aimed to patrol the northeast African coast, from the city of Dakar to the Strait of Gibraltar.
The tugboat's trip took place on 8 April, with stops in Bahia and on the island of Fernando de Noronha. On the latter, the tugboat suspended all the days the division was there, between 24 April and 1 August, providing all the means for her proper operation, such as towing, mooring, and unmooring services, even during periods of intense sea agitation. The naval division left the island on 1 August toward the port of Freetown, Africa. During the journey, on 25 August, at 8:15 pm, Lieutenant Ernesto de Araújo, aboard the cruiser Rio Grande do Sul, saw a flash of light followed by a loud bang, which he thought was a cannon shot from one of the squadron's ships. Minutes later, the officer observed a straight line in the sea and soon concluded that it was a torpedo heading towards the stern of the Belmonte, which was ahead of the Laurindo Pitta. The garrisons of the tugboat and the other vessels of the division waited for the impact that did not occur, due to the deviation that the torpedo made before hitting the auxiliary ship, passing 20 meters away.
The division operated in those waters for the months of August, September, October, November, and December with very few losses among the convoys it protected. There were 57 convoys with 579 escorted ships and only 5 lost, meaning less than 1% of the total ships protected. No enemy vessels sunk by the division were credited. The most critical episode happened when the squadron mistook a school of dolphins, which was crossing the division's route, for the sail of a German submarine, taking several shots at them, an event known as the Battle of the Porpoises. The crew of the tugboat and other NDWO vessels were hit hard by the Spanish flu pandemic, which caused the death of numerous crew members. By 31 December, the entire squadron was anchored back in Rio de Janeiro. The NDWO was disbanded on 25 June 1919.