SS Eider

SS Eider was a 4,179 ton German ocean liner built for Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1884 by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow as the fourth ship in the. She had four masts and was a two-funnelled steamer 430 ft long, with a crew of 167, and capable of carrying 1,204 passengers. However, she had a short service history, being lost in what is remembered as one of the most impressive and memorable shipwrecks on the coast of the Back of the Wight, a region on the Isle of Wight, England.

Wreck
On 31 January 1892, the Eider was heading up the English Channel to Bremen through thick fog. Around 10 p.m. the ship ran hard aground on the Atherfield Ledge, a hard outcrop of rock projecting from the large bay of the Back of the Wight. Captain Heinecke jettisoned cargo and called for tugs. The new Atherfield lifeboat approached from a recently established station on the cliffs, but the captain refused her offer of help.

The tugs did reach the Eider, but a gale had arisen that made it impossible for them to get close enough in case they struck the rocks as well. At 10 a.m. the captain decided to evacuate the passengers; however, it was now too rough for the small Atherfield lifeboat, the Catherine Swift, to be launched. The bigger lifeboats located at Brook and Brighstone were launched, but they had much farther to travel. The Brighstone lifeboat, the Worcester Cadet, arrived first and carried a dozen women and children to Atherfield beach. The Brook lifeboat, the William Slaney Lewis, reached the Eider five hours after being launched and rescued another load of women and children.

By 2 p.m. the sea had worsened to the point where rollers were reaching over the stern, but by 3 p.m. the water had calmed and the lifeboats were relaunched. All the passengers were saved, but the crew stayed onboard.

On Tuesday the gale reached storm force and the lifeboats evacuated the crew and bullion from the now badly holed and sinking vessel.

Result
The rescue brought praise for those involved from all around the world. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) awarded medals to some crew members, and Kaiser Wilhelm II gave each coxswain an engraved gold watch and donated £200 to the RNLI. The ship was later salvaged and declared a total loss.