Date Sunk: January 22, 1906
         Cause: Collision
     Location: Vineyard Sound, southwest of Cuttyhunk Island
Coordinates:    Latitude, 41^o - 22' - 33"N.   Longitude,71^o - 00' - 58"W
         Loran: 14291.4 and 43921.4

   Prior to the construction of the Cape Cod Canal, Vineyard Sound was a crossroads of east-west shipping along the New England coast. Although protected from the sea's fury by Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Islands, its western entrance was only three miles wide, which, in restricted visibility, before the invention of radar, was like a hair's breadth.
   Late in the morning of January 22, 1906, a dense fog shut in the southern coast of Massachusetts. Enroute from Philadelphia to Boston the freighter Trojan was moving at reduced speed through the gray shrouded mist with extra lookouts posted. All hands strained to hear the tell-tale sounds of an approaching steamer or surf breaking on shore. Captain Thatcher had, moments earlier, passed the Vineyard Sound Lightship and knew that attempting the western entrance to Vineyard Sound in this fog would be hazardous at best. The prudent course of action would be to anchor until the fog lifted. Ordering all stop, Trojan had not yet lost headway when lookouts spotted the prow of another steamer shoot out of the fog to port.
   It was the liner Nacoochee, from Savannah, Georgia, also bound for Boston. Aboard the liner there was little time to react. Captain Diehl ordered both engines reversed, but the ship's momentum was to great and the great liner struck Trojan just aft of amidships. The force of the impact knocked the freighter's sleeping crew from their bunks. Trojan heeled so far to starboard that Captain Thatcher feared it might capsize. But Nacoochee's engines were still reversed and the two ships soon parted. However, the liner's steel shod prow had cut a huge hole in the freighter's side. Fearing that the other vessel might sink before its crew could be saved, Nacoochee's skipper ordered full speed ahead. "By a fine display of seamanship and daring, Captain Diehl pushed the bow of his vessel into the big hole in the Trojan's side and kept the vessel afloat until Captain Thatcher and all his crew of 27 men had scrambled aboard the Nacoochee. The Trojan went to the bottom in three quarters of an hour."
   Although Captain Diehl's quick thinking probably saved the lives of many aboard Trojan, the Steamboat Inspection Service found that his use of poor judgement and lack of good seamanship, driving his vessel at high speed through the fog, was the cause of the accident. His license was suspended for 30 days.