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The Story of a Comet Hunter's Life

My 50 years with Comets

Part 51: Whereabouts of the tsunami rescue boat "Kotengo", part 2

    What an incredible boat he built! Mr. SS's idea of rescuing people in distress stemmed from the lessons he had learned from the 1946 Great Nankai Earthquake. The idea was to build a rescue boat which would not sink in the roughest stormy seas and could navigate close to the bottom of the sea, a safer method than going on the surface. By that time, the trial production of the boat had already been made by this inventor Mr. SS.
    This submarine completed the last sailing around the Japanese Archipelago around 1985 and subsequently retired from active duty. The captain died in 1990. Thus, all its duty was completed. With the support of a benefactor, the boat was preserved and to be permanently preserved in the corner of Ryoma Memorial Museum at Katsurahama giving dreams to young people.
    Another ship-related happening occurred several years earlier. Mr. Kazuo Kanda, who was an expert narrator for the planetarium of Osaka City Science Museum, set sail on an around-Japanese Archipelago trip with his wife and visited me when they arrived at Kochi port from Kagoshima. Kotengo itself started on an around Japan-voyage later. Mr. SS and Mr. Kanda knew each other very well through the planetarium project. Mr. SS, who built East Asia's second planetarium, had been assisted in the project by Osaka City Museum. Mr. Kanda sometimes visited Kochi to supervise the planetarium operation. I suspect Kotengo was a result of the exchange of ideas between them, but don't know how it actually happened.
    The following incident occurred soon after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in March, 2011. A friend of mine was right in the calamity. We occasionally exchanged letters throughout the disaster. One day I received a peculiar letter from him. According to him, after tsunami waves subsided, an unusual boat was found moored at the shore of Kesennuma city with the name "Kotengo" painted on the side. Also a fisherman, while sailing after the earthquake, had seen a peculiar boat (submarine) sailing in the bay as if drifting.


Moored "Kotengo"

    "It isn't right. Kotengo should be resting at Ryoma Memorial Museum at Katsurahama", I thought and went there to check it. To my amazement, the Museum's garden was completely empty with no sign of Kotengo anywhere. The information board on Kotengo was also missing. "Where on earth has Kotengo gone?" I can't imagine the ghost of Mr. SS had taken it away. Kotengo is gone, but when I think of the passion that the inventor Mr. SS had, I cannot help but think his rescue boat is working hard somewhere for sea rescue.


"Kotengo" once on display at the garden of Ryoma Memorial Museum



Copyright (C) 2019 Tsutomu Seki.