"Captain Herndon pointed to the thinning clouds and predicted that their breaking up portended an end to the storm. He spoke to the men at the pumps; he cheered the men in the bailing lines. He told them he thought the storm was abating, and that if they would just continue to bail until noon, the steamer might be saved.... Though the passengers received the captain's comments with great cheer, Herndon knew his hope was false. He knew the sea would rise again and the wind would blow with even greater fury. He knew that a ship floating 750 tons of iron with water filling her hold, and more water constantly rushing in, could remain afloat but a short while longer." - Gary Kinder, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea: The History and Discovery of the World's Richest Shipwreck

There have been countless numbers of shipwrecks over the course of history, but few have had as great an impact as the sinking of the SS Central America in a hurricane in September 1857. The California Gold Rush was in full swing, state of the art steamer ships were used to transport the discovered gold back east, and the Central America was one of them. On its fateful voyage, the ship was carrying nearly 600 passengers and a huge haul of up to 20 tons of gold worth an estimated $2 million at the time.

On the way from Cuba to New York City, the Central America was caught in a Stage Two hurricane that it never had a chance of knowing about ahead of time. With winds over 100 miles per hour, the hurricane ripped its sails, and the ship started taking on water while struggling to keep its boiler going. These conditions all but doomed the ship.