The SS Cotopaxi departed Charleston, South Carolina, in December of 1925, with a belly full of coal and a crew of 32. Havana was the destination, a routine voyage for a ship accustomed to the predictable monotony of the cargo trade. But the ocean has its own temperament, its own sense of humor, and somewhere along the way, the Cotopaxi simply disappeared. No distress call, no wreckage—just a ship swallowed by the Atlantic, leaving nothing but whispers in its wake.
If this were merely a maritime accident, it would have been resigned to a dusty file in some forgotten archives, a footnote in the long and unromantic history of lost ships. But the Cotopaxi did not slip quietly into history. Instead, it found itself conscripted into the ever-growing legend of the Bermuda Triangle, that enigmatic stretch of ocean where vessels, aircraft, and the occasional overzealous storyteller have allegedly vanished without a trace. The ship became part of a grander narrative, one where compasses spin wildly, time bends, and the laws of physics take an unscheduled coffee break.
For decades, the Cotopaxi was less a shipwreck and more a ghost story, resurrected in speculative books, dubious documentaries, and the fever dreams of conspiracy theorists. It was a victim not only of the sea but of our collective appetite for mystery—an economy unto itself, thriving on uncertainty. In the absence of evidence, the ship became anything we wanted it to be: a casualty of supernatural forces, an interdimensional traveler, or just another Bermuda Triangle casualty, filed away next to Amelia Earhart’s last flight.
But in 2020, the legend took a hit. Marine archaeologists, armed with sonar technology and a dogged refusal to indulge in the paranormal, identified the wreck of the Cotopaxi off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida. It hadn’t been abducted by aliens or transported to another dimension—it had sunk, quite unceremoniously, like so many ships before it. The cause? A likely combination of bad weather and worse luck. It was a profoundly uncinematic demise, the kind that doesn’t lend itself to bestselling paperbacks or late-night television specials.
And yet, the revelation did little to dent the Cotopaxi’s legend. Because reality, while satisfying to the archaeologist, is often less appealing to the public. The Bermuda Triangle, after all, is an asset class in its own right—a franchise that has outperformed logic for decades. The truth is a market correction few investors are willing to accept. It’s much more lucrative to deal in ambiguity, in the space between fact and fiction, where a sunken ship can become an eternal mystery and a financial opportunity all at once.
The Cotopaxi is no longer missing, but the myth? That remains alive and well, a reminder that in business—as in the Bermuda Triangle—perception is often more valuable than reality.
