A hundred years ago today, October 15, 1914, the United Fruit Company passenger steamer Metapan, bound for New York from Colon, and the American-Hawaiian line steamer Iowan, crashed near the entrance of New York Harbor. The Iowan suffered only slight damage, but The Metapan, with 76 passengers aboard, sank rapidly after the crash. Thanks largely to the ship being equipped with wireless, everyone got safely ashore. The Metapan was raised six days later and taken to Brooklyn for repairs.
The Metapan. Popular Mechanics, January 1915.
Until a few weeks prior to the crash, the Metapan had flown the British flag. With the war, she was hastily registered as an American ship and flew the neutral U.S. flag.
The first ship to respond to the SOS was the British cruiser Lancaster. The dredge Atlantic quickly sent two steam launches, and a number of other small boats gathered quickly. According to press reports, a group of English passengers were singing “It’s a long way to Tipperary” as they boarded the lifeboats.
According to the report in the New York Evening World, the Metapan’s wireless operator, realizing the ship’s predicament, switched over to a storage battery to send the SOS.
The Iowan. US Navy photo, Wikipedia.
.jpg){kind=link}
The Iowan had entered service only months earlier, and resumed inter-coastal service via the Panama Canal after repairs. In 1916, the Iowan came under Navy control and served as a troop carrier. The ship resumed civilian service after the war and in 1942, was transferred to the Soviet Union under lend lease, and was renamed the SS Tashkent. After World War 2, the ship remained a Soviet merchant vessel until 1966, when she was transferred to North Korea for use as a fish processing ship. She was finally scrapped in 1969.
References
Popular Mechanics, January 1915
Master, Mate & Pilot, Nov. 1914
New York Evening World, Oct. 15, 1914.