Wreckage may be from pioneering steamship
Experts say a chunk of weatherbeaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last year is likely to be part of the SS Savannah, which was wrecked in the area in 1821, two years after it became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power.
The 4m-square piece of wreckage was spotted in October off Fire Island, and is now in the custody of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, which will work with the National Park Service to identify it and put it on public display.
Explorers have searched for the Savannah for over two centuries. The newly discovered wreckage ‘‘very well could be’’ a piece of the historic ship, said Ira Breskin, a senior lecturer at the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx.
The evidence included the wooden pegs holding the planks together, which were consistent with a 30m vessel like the Savannah, park service officials said. Additionally, the wreckage’s iron spikes suggested a ship built around 1820. The Savannah was built in 1818.
The Savannah, a sailing ship outfitted with a 90-horsepower steam engine, travelled mainly under sail across the Atlantic, using steam power for 80 hours of the nearly month-long passage from its home port of Savannah, Georgia to Liverpool.
After visiting Sweden and Russia and then returning to Georgia, the ship was not a financial success, in part because people were afraid to travel on the hybrid vessel. The steam engine was removed and sold after the ship’s owners suffered losses in a fire that ravaged the city of Savannah in 1820.
The ship was transporting a cargo of cotton between Savannah and New York when it ran aground off Fire Island. The crew made it safely to shore, and the cargo was salvaged, but the wreck later broke apart.