Caponka
Wooden Steamship · United States · Lost Beached at Tappahannock by 1926; burned to the waterline in a fire reported by local accounts around the late 1940s · The Potomac & the Virginia Chesapeake
A World War I wooden steamer of the Ghost Fleet found a second life as a Rappahannock River grain hulk before it burned to the waterline off Tappahannock.
Become Captain of Record
The Vessel and Her Loss
Caponka was built in 1918 as part of the rushed Emergency Fleet Corporation wooden steamship program, but the war ended before she saw military service. After a brief commercial voyage that ended in a Mediterranean sale, she returned to the United States and joined the Potomac's laid-up wooden fleet. In 1924 Capt. Plummard Derieux bought her and moved her up the Rappahannock to Tappahannock, where she was beached near Prince Street. Stripped of metal and used for storage, she remained a fixture of the town's waterfront skyline for two decades until an accidental fire burned her to the waterline.
Vessel
- 1918
- Not established
- Seattle, Washington
- Wood
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Steam, single screw
- U.S. Emergency Fleet Corporation; later Capt. Plummard Derieux
Loss
- Beached at Tappahannock by 1926; burned to the waterline in a fire reported by local accounts around the late 1940s
- Fire
- Hoskins Creek at Tappahannock, Rappahannock River, Virginia
- Rappahannock River
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
- Burned hulk remains grounded in mud near the edge of the main channel
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Tappahannock, Virginia
Evidence
Overall confidence: Partially documented (55/100)
The exact year of the fire and the vessel's original builder are not firmly established in the sources reviewed.
Vessel history, move to Tappahannock, fire loss narrative
Confirms wreck location and burn date context
