In trying to find out what happened with the yacht Sant Mikael III, the
French mariner Valetoux Philippe, who is also a researcher of the naval history, has tried his last chance: he has posted a message on the internet, as a kind of SOS message, with the hope that somebody may see it and offer assistance. All his previous efforts to find out what happened with this yacht, after she left Nantes for Montenegro, were without result.

Mr. Valetoux was in the possession of information where and for whom the yacht was built and sold and how at the end of the 19th century, this yacht has connected the lives of the prince Nikola of Montenegro (later to become the king) and the famous French writer of science fiction, Jules Vern.

Mr Valetoux was trying to get the information from his colleagues, the mariners coming from this side of the Adriatic. In desperation, Mr Valetoux has tried the chance by posting the message on the waves of the cybercpace – the internet. The message has reached dr Caslav Pejovic, professor of maritime law, originally from Montenegro, but presently teaching maritime law at Kyushu University in Japan. He established the contact with Mr Valetoux, and has transmitted the message to PCNEN, a Montenegrin website.

The search than continued with joint forces and that was the beginning of an interesting story on the search itself; the search team was joined by the journalists from two Croatian newspapers, Novi list and Glas Istre, both from Rijeka.

The search focused on historical documents and archives. The traces of the Sant Mikael III were found in Montenegrin newspaper Glas Crnogorca of April 22, 1886, but here the yacht was under different name – Sybil. There is no doubt that the news related to the yacht mr Valetoux was looking for.

“The Montenegrin yacht came from Nantes under the command of the captain Savo Petkovic. Let's the God help us that in the future our flag will fly in even more distant countries”, read the news in this newspapers. This yacht is actually the yacht mr Valetoux was looking for. She was renamed, apparently immediately after the purchase, at the request of the prince Nikola, who previously had another, but smaller yacht with such name.

The information of this yacht was published also in the book Historija pomorstva i ribarstva Crne Gore do 1918. godine (History of Shipping and Fishery of Montenegro until 1918), written by Dinko Franetovic and published in 1960 in Titograd (now Podgorica). According to the author of this book, this luxury yacht was built by marquis Préaulx Angevin The same information is found in the text of Mr Valetoux , with an additional detail; apparently marquis Préaulx was “very rich and his life was only occupied by ships and women.”

Both authors state that the marquis has sold the yacht because he was not happy with the size of the yacht, considering it to be too small.

The Yacht was then sold to Jules Vern, who gave the yacht the name Sankt Mikaël III after the name of his son, same as for his previous two ships.

Acoording to Franetovic, the price paid for this ship was 60,000 francs.

Jules Vern resold the yacht on March 13, 1886. Valetoux states that “the newspaper “The Yacht” announced that the ship has been sold to the Prince of Montenegro and that he will soon leave Nantes for Dulcigno.”

According to Franetovic, captain Savo Petkovic was entrusted to bring the yacht to Montenegro. Franetovic explains that prince Nikola was obviously informed in advance that Jules Vern wanted to sell the yacht, so he dispatched to Nantes the captains Savo Djurkovic and Ilija Mihajlovic to arrange the purchase. Franetovic hints that probably prince Nikola was even more interested in purchasing this yacht, because her owner was the famous French writer. In his book Franetovic gives additional information on the crew that was in charge of the Sankt Mikaël III on her voyage from France to Montenegro, giving the names of all members of the crew, as well as their wages for this voyage.

On its way to Dulcigno (presently Ulcinj), the yacht stopped at Bijela where it was anchored. At that time Bijela was part of Austro-Hungary (today Bijela is in Montenegro), and according to Franetovic, the local police did not allow the crew to wear in the town the Montenegrin caps bearing the initials of prince Nikola. Soon after the purchase of the yacht Sybil, the prince Nikola has decided to sell her. Franetovic does not give the reasons for this decision, but a letter sent by captain Slavo Djurkovic to a person called Niko indicates that the maintenance expenses of the yacht were high, which was most probably reason for this sale. According to other unnamed sources (some other captains), prince Nikola believed that the yacht was not convenient for long voyages.

The yacht was sold on February 19, 1891 in Trieste for 12,500 forints, according to Franetovic (who relies on a telegram as source for this iinformation). Since 1891, the yacht was owned by the Croatian Coast Steamship Company from Senj, called “Sokol”, even though he yacht was apparently sold to someone from Marseilles. Four years later, the property of the yacht, under the name “Sokol”, was ttransferred to a Hungary-Croatian Steamship Company located in Rijeka, where it stayed until 1913. Franetovic completes the story on his yacht by information that it was sold to Marko Martinolic from Mali Losinj, who gave the yacht new name “Toto”.

At this stage, the traces are lost so a new SOS signal was sent to the State Archive in Rijeka.

Soon after the request a kind but not very promising reply was received: “We inform you that we are not in position to undertake requested research, as it would be time consuming with uncertain outcome”, was the beginning of this reply sent by Mr. Ivan Peranic, who also explained that the yacht Sybila was not registered in the books of the archives.

Another confusion was created by the fact that in the annual Bijela flota hrvatskoga Jadrana (White Fleet of the Croatian Adriatic) written by Radojica Fran Barbalic’, Ivo Marendic’, and published in Rijeka, 1997, in addition to the ship Sokol, the ship named Sybil was also mentioned, so the issue was whether the ships with names Sybil and Sybila were one or two different ships. In this text, there is an information about the steamship Sokol, which was bought together with another steamship Zvonimir by the Hungary-Croatian Steamship Company in 1894. This information corresponds with the text of the Franetovic's book, who only states different year: 1895 instead of 1894.

The copy of relevant parts of this Croatian annual was sent by Mr. Peranic to PCNEN.

At this point, the search for destiny of the vessel was faced with a dilemma whether the trace was correct, or the search is focusing on the wrong vessel.

Then the encouragement came from Rijeka and Mali Losinj. Branko Suljic, a journalist of Novi list, announced that he is joining the search, and the Tourist Association of Mali Losinj informed us that they transferred the message to a local historian Julijan Sokolic, who might be able to help with information. Mr. Suljic immediately confirmed that the steamship Sokol was owned by Hungary-Croatian steamship company from Rijeka and was employed to maintain the line Senj – Bakar – Rijeka.

In a text that he later published in Novi list under the title “Our newspaper joins an international search”, Suljic wrote that after the war there could be found no information on either Sokol or Toto steamships. In the text, Suljic express the view that it is very likely that Marko Martinolic bought the yacht, as he was the owner of a shipyard, well known for acquiring used vessels, which would be then repaired, refreshed and resold.

The son of Marko Martinolic, Nikola, became the owner of the shipyard and he sold it before the World War II. After the war, the shipyard was taken over by the state, and its archive was destroyed. Most probably, that is how the traces of Sokol were lost. Suljic left as ppossibility that he might be able to get additional information from the wife of Nikola Martinolic, who is now an aged woman living in Trieste.

The story from Novi list was taken by Glas Istre, another newspaper from Rijeka. They have additional interest in this story, which was disclosed by Davor Sisovic, the journalist of this newspaper. Sisovic is from Pazin, a small town in Istria, where Jules Verne Club was established in 1998, an association which gathers information on ties between Jules Vern and this part of Croatia. One such well nown relation is the book Mathias Sandorf, published in 1885, in which some of the actions take place in Pazin, Rovinj, Dubrovnik and Boka Kotorska. This book was the direct motive for establishing the Jules Vern Club and its activities.

Sisovic wrote that several years ago he also attempted to search for the vessel that could be St. Michel, after hearing on radio a story that in an Adriatic port there was an arrest of the vessel, previously belonging to prince Nikola. His search was fruitless, since neither maritime experts nor port authorities from Zadar and Split were able to find any information on this ship. Sisovic wrote that he was fascinated that this topic was opened and that more people can achieve better results if they join hands.

The journalist Suljic, from Novi list, has invited the readers that have any information that might be helpful to provide such information.

We expect the same from the readers of PCNEN. S.O.S.

Dragoljub Dusko Vukovic
Translated by Caslav Pejovic