About 8:00 p.m. on the evening of September 12, 1857, S.S. Central America gave up the fight and slipped below the waves off the coast of the Carolinas. The side-wheel paddle steamer had been battered by a slow-moving category 2 hurricane with winds of over 105 miles per hour. Despite a gallant three-day effort by her captain, William Lewis Herndon, and his crew, the steamship could not be saved. Of the 477 passengers and 101 crew on Central America, 425 died. It was her cargo, however, that has kept her in the news. Central America was sailing from the Panamanian port of Colón with more than ten tons of gold aboard. Her wrecksite was first found in the 1980s but legal cases have held up further exploration. This year Odyssey Marine Exploration was selected to resume salvage work. https://youtube/watch?v=2Pytoo2qym4
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 17:37:06 +0000
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