SHIPS AND PORTS OF BRAZIL
In Postcards and Souvenir Albums

SHIPS AND PORTS OF BRAZIL
IN POSTCARDS AND SOUVENIR ALBUMS
A Parade of Palaces Floating along the Estuary

This book’s release presents a challenge to anyone who might try to outdo authors João Emilio Gerodetti and Carlos Cornejo. For though the subject matter is by no means easy to compile, the texts are objective and pleasant to read. Moreover, surpassing this book would be an especially Herculean task because of the abundance of photographs and illustrated postcards found within. During the last century photographers both famous and unknown captured these images—many heretofore unpublished—and they take our modern eye back to a romantic era. Among these artists is José Dias Herrera, who continues to photograph the ships of Santos to this day.

Messrs. Gerodetti and Cornejo have produced a volume that endeavors to preserve the history of Brazil’s main ports and of the ships of various nations, which sailed for renowned companies such as Brazil’s Lloyd Brasileiro and Companhia Nacional de Navegação Costeira, Germany’s Hamburg-Süd, France’s Chargeurs Réunis, Italy’s Italia di Navigazione, Portugal’s Companhia Colonial de Navegação, Spain’s Ybarra y Cia., and the United States’ Moore-McCormack Lines.

Here you will also find an overview of Brazilian Navy vessels, contemplated through the images and memories of celebrated men-of-war, cruisers, torpedo-boat destroyers, submarines, and training ships.

This book, for which I have the honor of writing a preface, brings back countless memories of days gone by in my home city of Santos. Anyone from Santos—whether born there, on a temporary stay, or a citizen at heart—has the sea in his veins. A sea on which ships bring hopes with those who disembark, and leave nostalgic memories with those who find the warmth and affection of Santos’s inhabitants enchanting.

I’ve always been a keen admirer of transatlantic liners. Since childhood, I’ve enjoyed watching them sailing into port. At times my vantage point was Canal 5, in the Embaré neighborhood, where I used to live, and other times, Ponta da Praia [Beach Point], with my father, Doctor Laire Giraud, who was both a sea traveler and a great aficionado of these enormous vessels. At Ponta da Praia the liners passed so close it seemed we could touch them. I also liked to visit the ship models at the maritime agencies on 15 de Novembro Street and Comércio Street, which still bustle with activities related to ships, the harbor, and coffee exports.

I remember the first transatlantic liner I watched cruise into Santos, way back in the 1950s. She was the British ship Andes, and she belonged to the Royal Mail Line, which was known in Brazil as the Mala Real Inglesa. The company’s agency on 15 de Novembro Street displayed a model of the Alcântara in its window. Today this model can be found in the lobby of the Senai Technical School of Santos, in the vicinity of Ponta da Praia.

During the 20th century’s first seven decades, the number of passengers coming and going through the Port of Santos was as great as that through our modern airports. On some days as many as five transatlantic liners would call. The arrival of a passenger ship was quite an event. Hoards of travelers on board, and thousands at the docks waiting to greet them.

At the port there were laughter and tears, auspicious yells, and touching silences, flapping handkerchiefs and waving hands. During this era Santos was a gateway through which voyagers from several nations arrived and departed—immigrants, artists, politicians, businessmen, and church dignitaries, among others.

Even today the arrival of a transatlantic liner is a joyful occasion for the people of Santos, and there has always been a special place where they can go to admire the parade of palaces floating along the estuary. That is Ponta da Praia, a natural lookout where aficionados and bystanders watch the arrival and departure of the ships.

At Ponta da Praia even passing freighters were revered in a silence that lasted as long as it took for the ship to cross the estuary.

What can I say, then, about that glamorous age of renowned transatlantic liners entering the channel leading to the port, gliding by the Fortaleza da Barra fortress, and then sailing majestically toward the old Baggage Warehouse of Santos’s Companhia de Docas [Docks Company]?