SS Arctic

1854

Collins Line, no woman survived Location: Atlantic Ocean, 50 nmi south of Cape Race, Newfoundland · Coordinates: 46.30°N 52.17°W · Casualties: ~300 · Survivors: ~85 · Depth: 4,200 m · Cause: collision — Rammed by the French iron screw steamer SS Vesta in fog on the Grand Banks at 12:00 on 27 September 1854. The Arctic's wooden hull took on water faster than the Vesta's; she sank over five hours while the crew and male passengers seized the lifeboats by force. The Vesta survived. · Fate: abyssal · not located · Type: passenger liner · Collins Line · Tonnage: 2,856 tons · Crew: 150 · Flag: United States · Launched: 1850 Flagship of the American Collins Line, transatlantic paddle steamer. Rammed by the French steamer SS Vesta in fog off the Grand Banks on 27 September 1854, she sank slowly over five hours. The crew seized the lifeboats first; not a single woman or child among the passengers survived, including Captain Luce's twelve-year-old son. The scandal ruined Collins Line within five years. The Vessel The SS Arctic was a paddle steamer of the American Collins Line, one of the four sister ships (with Atlantic, Baltic, and Pacific) built between 1850 and 1851 to compete with the Cunard Line for the transatlantic mail and passenger trade. She was 86 metres long, 2,856 tons, with a wooden hull and a pair of side-mounted paddle wheels driven by Oscillating Steam Engine Works of New York. She entered service on 27 October 1850 and won the transatlantic speed record from Pacific the following year with a 9-day 17-hour Liverpool-New York passage. The Collins Line, officially the United States Mail Steamship Company, was the first American transatlantic line to be competitive with the British Cunard service. It operated under a $858,000 annual U.S. Post Office mail contract and was the visible commitment of the American government to contesting British maritime supremacy on the Atlantic. The four Collins ships were the largest, fastest, and most luxuriously appointed American passenger ships of their generation. Arctic was widely considered the fleet flagship. Her master from 1851 was Captain James C. Luce, a 53-year-old Massachusetts mariner of forty years' deep-sea experience. Luce had commanded Arctic on her eastbound record voyage and was the most respected American ship's captain of his generation. The Disaster The rapid westbound movement increased the rate of water entering Arctic's hull. By 15:00 on 27 September 1854 she was taking on water faster than her pumps could expel it. Captain Luce gave the order to lower her six lifeboats and evacuate the passengers. What followed was the single most shameful episode in American maritime history before the Lusitania. The lifeboats were seized almost immediately by Arctic's crew. The engineers and stokers, who had been ordered to remain at their stations to keep the pumps running, left their positions and rushed for the boats. The firemen fought with the passengers. Captain Luce attempted to maintain order on the deck and, by several surviving accounts, personally ensured that at least two lifeboats were launched with passengers aboard; he could not control the general chaos. The crew's commandeering of the boats was the proximate cause of the disaster's particular shape. Of the 85 survivors eventually rescued, 61 were crew members and 24 were passengers. Not one of the 81 women and children among the passengers survived. Among the dead were Mrs Edward Collins, her daughter Mary Ann, her son Henry Collins, and the wife and two children of the company treasurer. Arctic sank at 17:00 on 27 September 1854. Captain Luce was one of the survivors; he had gone over the side as the ship went down and had been picked up by one of her boats. The specific details of the crew's behaviour became public when the surviving passengers reached New York i