Experts believe debris may have come from historic SS Savannah

A chunk of weather-beaten flotsam that washed up on a New York shoreline after Tropical Storm Ian last fall has piqued the interest of experts who say it is likely part of the SS Savannah, which ran agroundand broke apart in 1821, two years after it became the first vessel to crossthe Atlantic Ocean partly under steam power.

The roughly 13-foot-square piece of wreckage was spotted in October off Fire Island, a barrier island off Long Island.

“It was pretty thrilling to find it,” said Betsy Demaria, a museum technician at the park service’s Fire Island National Seashore.

Explorers have searched for the Savannah for over two centuries but have not found anything they could definitively link to the famous ship. The newly discovered wreckage, though, “very well could be”a piece of the historic shipwreck, said Ira Breskin, a senior lecturer at the State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx. “It makes perfect sense.”

Evidence includes the 1-to1.3-inch wooden pegs holding the wreckage’s planks together, consistent with a 100-foot vessel, park service officials said in a news release. The Savannah was 98 feet, 6 inches long. Additionally, the wreckage’s iron spikes suggest a ship built around 1820. The Savannah was built in 1818.

The Savannah, a sailing ship outfitted with a 90-horsepower steam engine, traveled mainly under sail across the Atlantic, using steam power for 80 hours of the nearly monthlong passage to Liverpool, England.

The Savannah was transporting cargo between Savannah and New York when it ran aground off Fire Island. It later broke apart.