The PS Lady Elgin was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamship that sank in Lake Michigan off the fledgling town of Port Clinton, Illinois, whose geography is now divided between Highland Park and Highwood, Illinois, after she was rammed in a gale by the schooner Augusta in the early hours of September 8, 1860. The passenger manifest was lost with the collision, but the sinking of Lady Elgin resulted in the loss of about 300 lives in what was called "one of the greatest marine horrors on record". Four years after the disaster, a new rule required sailing vessels to carry running lights. The Lady Elgin disaster remains the greatest loss of life on open water in the history of the Great Lakes.
Deutschland was an iron passenger steamship of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line, built by Caird & Company of Greenock, Scotland in 1866.
The Carroll A. Deering was an American five-masted commercial schooner launched in 1919 and found run aground without its crew off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in January 1921.
Over 1400 ships have been wrecked on the coast of Western Australia. This relatively large number of shipwrecks is due to a number of factors, including:
SS Valencia was an iron-hulled passenger steamer built for the Red D Line for service between Venezuela and New York City. She was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons, one year after the construction of her sister ship Caracas. She was a 1,598-ton vessel, 252 feet (77 m) in length. In 1897, Valencia was deliberately attacked by the Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The next year, she became a coastal passenger liner on the U.S. West Coast and served periodically in the Spanish–American War as a troopship to the Philippines. Valencia was wrecked off Cape Beale, which is near Clo-oose, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on 22 January 1906. As her sinking killed 100 people, some classify the wreck of Valencia as the worst maritime disaster in the "Graveyard of the Pacific", a famously treacherous area off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island.
Edward Lee Spence is a pioneer in underwater archaeology who studies shipwrecks and sunken treasure. He is also a published editor and author of non-fiction reference books; a magazine editor, and magazine publisher ; and a published photographer. Spence was twelve years old when he found his first five shipwrecks.
SS Pacific was a wooden sidewheel steamer built in 1850 most notable for its sinking in 1875 as a result of a collision southwest of Cape Flattery, Washington. Pacific had an estimated 275 passengers and crew aboard when she sank. Only two survived. Among the casualties were several notable figures, including the vessel's captain at the time of the disaster, Jefferson Davis Howell (1846–1875), the brother-in-law of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The sinking of Pacific killed more people than any other marine disaster on the West Coast at the time.
The SS Vienna was built in 1873 during the era when steamers were built with sail rigging. She had a 19 year career marked with maritime incidents including sinking when she was just three years old. She sank for her final time in fair weather in Whitefish Bay in Lake Superior after she received a mortal blow when she was inexplicably rammed by the steamer Nipigon. Although there were no deaths when the Vienna sank for the last time, more than 100 years later her wreck claimed the lives of 4 scuba divers, the most of all the wrecks in the Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve that now protects her as part of an underwater museum. Her wreck was stripped of artifacts that resulted in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources seizing her artifacts in a raid on the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in 1992. Her artifacts are now on display in this museum as loan from the State of Michigan.
The Narara was a wooden carvel screw steamer built in 1900 at Jervis Bay, that was wrecked when it sprang a leak while carrying general cargo between Sydney and the Hawkesbury River and was lost at 2 ml SE off Little Reef Newport near, Barranjoey, New South Wales on 29 May 1909. The vessel commenced her runs from Sydney Harbour to the Hawkesbury River in January 1900 and continued on this run till the time of her final 1909 sinking. During 1903 the vessel was burned to the water line and sank at its mooring only to be refloated and rebuilt and started back on the same run.
Carrier Pigeon was an American clipper ship that was launched in the fall of 1852 from Bath, Maine. Her value was estimated at US$54,000. She was wrecked on her maiden voyage off the north coast of what was then Santa Cruz County in the state of California.
Algoma was a screw steamer built in 1883. She sank off Mott Island near Isle Royale in Lake Superior in 1885 and some of her remains are still on the lake bottom. The wreck was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
SS Mataafa was an American steamship that had a lengthy career on the Great Lakes of North America, first as a bulk carrier and later as a car carrier. She was wrecked in 1905 in Lake Superior just outside the harbor at Duluth, Minnesota, during a storm that was named after her. She was built as SS Pennsylvania in 1899, and renamed Mataafa when she was purchased in the same year by the Minnesota Steamship Company. After her 1905 wreck, she was raised and repaired, and served for another sixty years before being scrapped.
The Wisconsin was an iron-hulled package steamer built in 1881 that sank in 1929 in Lake Michigan off the coast of Kenosha, Wisconsin, United States. In 2009 the shipwreck site was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
SS United States was a merchant steamship launched in 1864 and lost off Cape Romain, South Carolina, in 1881. She was the most expensive steamer built by the American shipbuilding firm of S. Gildersleeve & Son, which built 120 vessels. The vessel was named for her country and sported the United States' national symbol, an American eagle, as her figurehead.
The SS Benjamin Noble was a lake freighter that operated on the Great Lakes. Built in 1909 by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company, she was 239 feet (73 m) in length and had a beam of 40 feet (12 m). She was built as a "canaller," a vessel designed for use in what were then the dimensions of the Welland Canal, but was converted by her owners for service in the open Great Lakes. Heavily laden and top-heavy with a cargo of railroad rails, she sank in a Lake Superior storm near Knife River, Minnesota, in April 1914 with the loss of all hands.
SS Jarvis Lord was a wooden-hulled American Great Lakes freighter in service between 1872 and 1885. She sank without loss of life in the Manitou Passage on Lake Michigan on August 17 or 18, 1885, while loaded with iron ore.
SS Chester A. Congdon was a steel-hulled American lake freighter in service between 1907 and 1918. She was built in 1907 by the Chicago Shipbuilding Company of South Chicago, Illinois, for the Holmes Steamship Company, and was intended to be used in the grain trade on the Great Lakes. She entered service on September 19, 1907, when she made her maiden voyage. In 1911, Salt Lake City was sold to the Acme Transit Company. A year later, she was transferred to the Continental Steamship Company, and was renamed Chester A. Congdon, after lawyer and entrepreneur Chester Adgate Congdon. She was involved in several accidents throughout her career.
United States
