The captain of the Peter Rickmers knew he was getting into trouble as he slid by the South Shore of Long Island one stormy night in late April 1908.
The four-masted German bark - built in Scotland in 1889 - sailed past Zach’s Inlet in a heavy gale when the captain lost his way in the darkness amid the wind and the rain. He ran aground on a shoal near the inlets as the sailing ship drifted too close to shore, later telling the New York Times that he didn’t even realize how close he was until the bow grated on the bar.
All that night and the next day, pouding waves kept the sailors from launching lifeboats and it was too far from shore for rescue crews to reach the troubled vessel with breeches buoys, essentially zip lines that are shot from the shore to a distressed ship to evacuate crewmembers.
As day broke the next morning, the Rickmers was seen to be drifting slowly into shore; the breeches buoys were readied again just in case. More than 30 lifesavers were waiting on shore to assist in the effort. The breeches buoy failed to reach the ship on repeated attempts and a tug called the Mohawk was called in to assist the rescue.
The Rickmers was carrying over 120,000 cases of kerosene and crude oil to Burma under charter to the Standard Oil Company. Some of that oil was hoisted overboard to lighten the load and reports said residents on shore scooped up the oil cans and trotted off with them.
More wrecking steamers were called in to assist as well but the storm forced them away and the waves made it impossible to rescue the crew or cargo.
A week later reports told of the harrowing tale of the men who tried to save the ship to no avail. Even with the work of over 100 men, the ship was lost. The masts had broken and water poured into the hold.
Over two weeks after she first ran aground, the New York Times, which had been following the story, reported that “Hope has been abandoned of saving the hull of the big German steel ship…”
The crew had been rescued but the heavy seas continued to take its toll. The captain stayed back to do what he could with the wrecking ships but they were unable to offload much of the cargo.
“The vessel will pound herself to pieces after a time, and become one of the number of fine ships which have stranded on this shore, never to leave it again,” the New York Times reported.
But that was not the end of the excitement.
The Rickmers eventually wrecked on shore at Jones Beach and went ablaze with 100,000 cases of oil still on board. It was suspected that the leaking oil was a danger to shellfish on shore so oystermen had set it on fire to prevent further contamination. A few days later, after the fire went out, the ship broke in two during another storm and some of the oil cans drifted out, picked up again by beachcombers.
According to the U.S. Life-Saving Service logs, the ship was a total loss.
The Long Island Maritime museum reported that the Rickmers was valued at $60,000 and its cargo at $200,000. While there were 33 crew members aboard, thankfully there were no casualties.