Naufrágio Aquidabã

The battleship Aquidabã was built at the Samuda & Brothers shipyard in England, launched at Poplar on 17 January 1885 and went through the Mostra de Armamento on 14 August 1885, measuring 85.40 m in length. Its name honors the Aquidabã stream, a tributary of the Paraguay River, where on 1 March 1870 the battle that ended the Paraguayan War was fought. The ship's armor sparked a controversy that earned it the nickname 'couraçado de papelão' (cardboard ironclad), given by its first captain. During the Revolta da Armada, on 16 April 1894, it was hit by the torpedo boat Gustavo Sampaio at the northern bar of Santa Catarina, ran aground in shallow water, half-submerged, and was abandoned. Having withstood the artillery during the Revolta da Armada, it earned the nickname 'Casaca de Ferro' (Iron Coat). After its capture it was renamed 'Dezesseis de Abril' and, shortly afterwards, 'Vinte e Quatro de Maio', and only got its original name back in 1898. The ship was repaired at the Vulcan yard in Stettin and the Elswick yard in Newcastle.

In January 1906, the Aquidabã anchored in the Enseada de Jacuacanga with the division that was studying the site for the new Navy Arsenal. At 8:45 pm on 21 January 1906, the ammunition magazine of the aft turret exploded, and the ship broke in two and sank within a few minutes, stern first. The cause of the explosion was never proven, and cordite, an unstable explosive, is pointed to as the most likely one. Records differ on the number of victims: some count 212 dead, among them part of the ministerial party, the captain and three admirals, with 96 or 98 saved, and others count 112 dead. Because several bodies could not be recognized, the Navy later created a unit to identify crew members.

In 1927, a salvage operation removed many parts of the ship, including one of the gun turrets; the other turret remains on the bottom with its 203 mm gun, along with the three boilers and the conical turret of a Nordenfelt machine gun. In 2001, the wreckage was described as broken up and half buried in silt into which an arm sinks up to the shoulder. The starboard side, almost intact from bow to stern, is covered in large gorgonians and has many nets caught on it. Older diver records noted few fish and a few small schools.