Queen of the Pacific
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The steamship Queen of the Pacific sailed from San Francisco early on the afternoon of April 28, 1888. Shortly after midnight, the ship was found to have begun taking on water into a watertight compartment known as the starboard alleyway. At the time of this discovery, the ship had a list of from 5 to 8 degrees to starboard; this increased to an angle of 30 degrees when the ship reached Port Harford (later renamed Port San Luis [1]) roughly 5 hours later. When about 500 feet yards from the pier, she sank to the bottom in about 23 feet of water. Fortunately, there was no loss of life.
The misfortune of the Queen of the Pacific was a key incentive in bringing forward the installation of the Point San Luis Lighthouse in San Luis Obispo County. More than twelve years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the liability for the damage to the cargo. The case was 180 U.S. 49, THE QUEEN OF THE PACIFIC, No 130, Decided January 7, 1901.
[edit] References
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[edit] Queens of the Pacific
[edit] Ships
- The Queen of the Pacific, a wooden side-wheel steamer built for the Morgan and Garrison San Francisco-Nicaragua line [2], was launched in 1857. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the next owner [3], renamed it the Ocean Queen for transatlantic service. It was later owned and operated by the Quartermaster's Department [4] of the United States Department of War; the New York-Aspinwall service [5]; the Pacific Mail Steamship Company; and Ruger Brothers [6] [7], before being broken up in 1874.
- The Empress of Japan, hailed as the Queen of the Pacific [8], was a 25,000-ton 3-funnel steam ocean liner commissioned in 1891 for the trans-Pacific run. The ship's figurehead is preserved in the original in the Vancouver Maritime Museum and in replica in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
- The Hikawa-Maru, an NYK Line passenger liner built in 1929, was nicknamed the Queen of the Pacific by its passengers [9]. The only mainstream Imperial Japanese passenger liner to survive World War II, it is retired from service and since 1961 has been permanently berthed near Yamashita Park in Yokohama, Japan.
- The USCGC Taney, Queen of the Pacific as the unofficial flagship of the United States Coast Guard Pacific Area commander. Cruise books for this Queen of the Pacific, Viet Nam 1969-1970, are preserved in the collection of the Coast Guard Cutter Cruise Book Preservation Center.
[edit] Places
- Acapulco, Mexico, Queen of the Pacific [10] [11]
- California, "the youthful queen of the Pacific, in her robes of freedom, gorgeously inlaid with gold," in a speech by William H. Seward [12] to the United States Senate, March 11, 1850. (Text of Seward's "Freedom in the New Territories" speech.)
- Honolulu, Hawaii, Queen of the Pacific [13]
- Old Panama City, the Queen of the Pacific, before pirate Henry Morgan burned it [14]
- Tahiti, the Queen of the Pacific in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea [15]
- Sydney, Australia, Queen of the Pacific Rim [16]
