SS City of Chester
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | SS City of Chester | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | steamboat | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Collision | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Sea / ocean | San Francisco Bay | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | United States | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 3 km from land |
| Position | 37.8139, -122.4670 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
The SS City of Chester was a steamship built in 1875 that sank after a collision in a dense fog with SS Oceanic at the Golden Gate in San Francisco Bay on August 22, 1888. She was owned by the Oregon Railroad Co. and leased by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company.
City of Chester had been purchased in October 1876 and brought from New York around South America to Portland, Oregon in March 1877 and used in coastal trade. At the time of the collision the ship was in service from San Francisco to Eureka and other locations in the vicinity. City of Chester was outbound with Oceanic inbound from Hong Kong. Though the ships sighted each other findings indicated the smaller vessel was caught in a tidal current, cut almost in two by the liner and sank in about six minutes with loss of sixteen passengers and three crew.
The wreck was relocated in May 2013 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Coast Survey Navigational Response Team 6 with multi-beam sonar.
Diving & visiting
The wreck is located in 216 feet (66 m) of water just inside the Golden Gate Bridge at 37°48′50″N 122°28′00″W and was found in May 2013 by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coast Survey Navigational Response Team 6 using multi-beam sonar. It is only 400 feet (120 m) from where it was located by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, one of the ancestor agencies of NOAA, in September 1888 in a hydrographic survey using a wire dragged from the tug Raymond.
An exhibit on City of Chester is to be created at the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary office at Crissy Field.
Location
- Recorded position: 37.8139, -122.4670 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: San Francisco Bay
- Nearest coast: United States
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article SS City of Chester (revision 1346565185), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Discovery of wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- SS City of Rio de Janeiro 2 km
- Frederick Griffing's 6 km
- Lydia 1907 · 8 km
- King Philip shipwreck 1878 · 8 km
- USS Thompson 40 km
- USS Conestoga 46 km
Browse more: North America wrecks · wrecks off United States · San Francisco Bay