THE OPEN

BOAT
A TALE INTENDED TO BE
AFTER THE FACT: BEING
THE EXPERIENCE OF
FOUR MEN FROM THE
SUNK STEAMER
COMMODORE (1898)

BY STEPHEN CRANE
THE SUNK STEAMER COMMODORE
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COMMODORE?
• The Commodore was a steamer which sank on January 2,
1897, only two days after sailing out of Florida, US.
• The steamer was bound for Cuba, where its inhabitants
were fighting for their independence from Spain.
• At some point, the ship started taking on water and its
bilge pumps started failing. So the crew were forced to
abandon it.
• Only one lifeboat avoided foundering. It carried four
members of the crew: the captain, a cook, an oiler and a
correspondent.
• Despite the huge waves, all but one sailor survived
when, after 30 hours, the dinghy made it to the Mosquito
Inlet lighthouse (Ponce de Leon Inlet - Florida).
HOW IS STEPHEN CRANE, THE WRITER,
RELATED TO THE COMMODORE?
• Crane was one of the three survivors in the dinghy. He
immortalized the experience in the short story “The Open
Boat”, written one year after the shipwreck.
• At the time, Crane was a reporter who was very eager to
cover the combat in Cuba. He signed on as a seaman to cover
for his actual reporting mission, but never made it there.
• He was 25 years old when this happened.
• Crane died three years later, at the age of 28. Unfortunately,
after this experience, his health weakened and he became
vulnerable to disease. He succumbed to tuberculosis in 1900.