Film crew makes documentary on ship missing 100 years in Argentina — then find it

Long before he was a diver and documentarian, Nicolás Mazzola shared a common interest with his father — the mystery of the Helvecia.

The ship had taken on an almost mythical representation since its disappearance in Argentina’s Lake Nahuel Huapi more than 100 years ago.

There was consensus that the cargo-carrying tugboat sank, but everyone had their own ideas as to how, according to an Oct. 15 news release from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET).

After the death of his father, Mazzola set out to document the mysterious disappearance of the Helvecia in a feature-length film. Then, he found it.

Mazzola, with the help of his audiovisual production company, tried to search for the ship for a few years on their own, and took oral histories from the community to try and reconstruct the last days of the tugboat, CONICET said.

The Helvecia left port from the city of San Carlos de Bariloche in 1906, hauling manufactured goods between Argentina and Chile, CONICET said.

There were many theories on how the boat sank. Some thought it was sabotage or a large explosion while others blamed the lake and believed a large wave pulled the ship down, according to the release.

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Mazzola’s searches were unsuccessful. Then, one of his collaborators read an interview where a researcher talked about an earthquake in 1960 that caused a landslide into the lake, CONICET said. Was it possible this had moved the shipwreck, making the search range they were using incorrect?

The film crew reached out to the Environmental Studies Group of the Andean Patagonian Institute of Biological and Geoenvironmental Technologies, which houses CONICET, because its researchers had conducted extensive research on lake systems in the region, according to the release.

Researchers provided high-resolution topographic maps of the waterbed, original search areas and equipment to help the film crew search again, this time expanding their search area in case the ship was moved during the earthquake, CONICET said.

On the next trip to the lake, Mazzola’s crew saw something in the water during a sweep by an underwater robot, according to the release. The filmmakers put on their dive gear and headed down to the site as the starboard side and stern of the Helvecia came into focus.

Mazzola’s soul was filled with happiness as he got to explore the shipwreck and take footage, CONICET said, and the members of the crew were overwhelmed with emotion when they came back to the surface.

Débora Beigt, a researcher with CONICET, said finding shipwrecks in this lake is especially difficult because of the lack of visibility in the water. Searching the bottom of the lake requires robots or cameras that can see more than a few feet ahead of itself, Beigt said.

The ship has also been declared a heritage site by the national park system, according to Argentinian news outlet La Nacion.

Mazzola told the outlet finding the ship was like receiving a message from his father, who had told him stories of the Helvecia during his childhood.

Although the ship has been found, the exact cause of its demise is still a mystery.

Mazzola’s 85-minute documentary, “La búsqueda del Helvecia” or The Search for Helvecia, is set to debut by the end of the year, La Nacion reported. A trailer for the documentary was shared by CONICET.

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