By Clarisse Kim

One tragic shipwreck that Stephen Haller and John Martini discussed during ShipWRECKED! was the City of Rio De Janeiro. 

For years, the City of Rio De Janeiro had sailed through the Pacific, carrying immigrants from Hong Kong to San Francisco. During her last trip, the ship was carrying 210 passengers.

In mid-February, 1901, the City of Rio De Janeiro arrived at the Golden Gate Strait. As soon as they started to enter, the fog closed in.

“Most wrecks were caused by strong currents and a lack of wind to navigate them,” Haller said. “But in the case of the Rio De Janeiro, her demise was caused by the fog.”

Blinded by the fog, the ship crashed into a rock and tore its hull open. Ice-cold water flooded below decks.

“The boiler goes. The electricity goes. Hundreds are screaming in the dark,” Martini said. “Ten minutes, and she’s at the bottom.”

The wreck resulted in the death of 128 people – most of them Chinese and Japanese immigrants. It was declared one of the worst maritime disasters in San Francisco’s history.

“She’s a mud-covered coffin,” Martini said. “Nobody was going to go down after her.”

For 100 years, no one knew exactly where she sank. However, in 2014, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used a sonar scan to find the wreck. The Rio De Janeiro was found next to Fort Point.

Haller and Martini both hope that similar scans and technology can be utilized to identify other wrecks and bring closure to the families and stories of the sunken. 

Read more about the Western Neighborhoods Project’s ShipWRECKED event here: https://sfrichmondreview.com/2023/11/10/hundreds-celebrate-mystery-of-ocean-shipwrecks/