Smuggler Yacht for sale
In November 1966, The Pearl was brought to the pilot bridge with 800,000 cigarettes and tables Skælskør: as she lays there in Skælskør harbor, with a cow-eye sign for sale, She looks quite innocent, my slightly ravaged. She is The Pearl, an 11 meter long and 3 m wide Motor Yacht, built by Kalmarpine on oak. But The Pearl has a very varied, amoral and exciting past. She was at that time in the happy 60 is Denmark's most talked about Smuggling Yacht.
The fastest
The Pearl was built in Norway in 1959, and was purchased by a gentleman in Gentofte. The Yacht was born with two engines. Back then, she could shoot at 35 knots an hour, and could sail from anyone. Now she has only one engine and is not sailing so fast. But it may be possible to get her sailing fast again, says Niels Alsing from Sani Boats in Stubbekøbing. It is he who has the boat in commission.
Contraband in the cargo
In November 1966 The Pearl was also at quay in Skælskør harbor. Back then she was a Queen of the Night. Black painted She had changed owner, and had been brought to the lodge in Skælskør outer fjord with two men on board and 800,000 cigarettes and 50 bottles of booze. Contraband for Danish customers. The two men were Carl Emanuel Petersen and Fritz Christian Nielsen, who had previously been heads of a very large smuggling case, which had been wound up six years earlier. F. C. Nielsen was arrested. But C. M. Petersen managed to get away from the Customs. He got a lift with a few anglers to Skælskør, hired a taxi and drove to North Zealand, from where he moved on to Sweden. And from there if probably on to Eastern Europe. It is said that Carl Emanuel Petersen started his smuggling career during the occupation of sailing Jews to Sweden. He could handle the excitement, and in the 1960s the cargo became cigarettes and booze, which was a major outlet in Denmark, especially in the metropolitan area.
A coup
The Motor Yacht and the seized contraband goods were a great story in the Zealand Journal on November 28, 1966. And for the Criminal Police and the Customs, it was a big coup. It was Customs Officer Eigil Jensen, Gulf Harbor, who had seen in his binoculars the fast-moving Motor Yacht south of Stignæs. And that sounded alarm.
Sold at auction
The Pearl lay in Skælskør harbor until May 8, 1968, where it was sold at auction for the benefit of the Treasury. A man from Lolland bought it. And then it went back to sea as a smuggling Yacht between Eastern Europe and Denmark. But already on October 11 of that year, it was seized again. This time in Onsevig Harbor on northwest Lolland, tells the current owner, who has explored a little in the history of The Pearl.
Incarcerated Customs Officer
The seizure became somewhat dramatic. Where the skipper staggered to sea with Customs Officer, which were locked inside. However, the boat searched the harbor of Karrebæksminde, where the Customs Officer came ashore, and the Yacht seized. Since then, The Pearl has had several different owners, and the current one has used it as a family holiday Yacht for, among other things, peaceful canal sailing. Should there be some of our readers who know more about the history of the famous smuggling Yacht, we here at the editorial board would like to hear about it.