SYNOPSIS

Tales of shipwrecks and lost treasure have always captured the imagination. The tragic story of the loss of the 1857 S.S. Central America in a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina has fascinated people for over 150 years. In the 1980's and 1990's, the Columbus-America Discovery Group's location of the sunken ship and the recovery of $100 million in treasure again attracted the attention of the world. And nearly three decades later, as treasure hunters returned to the ship's final resting place on the floor of the Atlantic, the S.S. Central America proved once again that her story is not over. 

The SS Central America is the most tragic and fabled of the great luxury liners that carried treasure, tycoons, and "Forty-Niners" between the California gold fields and New York's banks during the 1850's. The SS Central America embodied a brave new spirit. The visual impact of her graceful architecture, juxtaposing three-masted sail rigging with 750 tons of coal-fired machinery, at 278 feet in length, captured the dramatic essence of the revolution that launched America into the industrial age.

On her forty-fourth transit, returning to New York from Panama, with a stopover in Havana, the Central America steamed into the fury of hurricane some 200 miles off the southeast of the United States. Three days later, on nightfall on September 12, 1857, with engines cold, her leaky hull full of seawater, and her exhausted crew and passengers gathered on deck ready to cast themselves upon the darkened waves, she sank. Of the 600 passengers onboard, 435 were killed, it was the greatest loss of life on a commercial passenger vessel during the 19th century. 

The news shocked the world and contributed to the financial crash known as the "Panic of 1857." It was called the "Ship of Gold" because it carried over $2 million in gold specie onboard (Today valued at over $500 million). It is also a tale of heroism by Captain Herndon and crew, who saved all the women and children from near certain death. 

Brad Moseley & John Damiano have written an original screenplay of this epic last voyage from August 20th through September 12th detailing this perilous shipwreck story as it happened. Dan Kaplow will produce it.