Gosford
Sailing Ship · United Kingdom · Lost 1893 · The Channel Islands
A British four-masted barque, laden with coal, burned and sank at Cojo Anchorage near Point Conception in 1893.
Become Captain of RecordSee Shipwreck on Map
The Vessel and Her Loss
Gosford was a steel-hulled, barque-rigged sailing ship built at Greenock in 1891 for a Glasgow owner. In 1893, while carrying roughly 3,500 tons of coal from Liverpool to San Francisco, her cargo caught fire. The captain attempted to anchor at Cojo, near Point Conception, to save the ship and crew, but the vessel was lost there. All 36 aboard survived. Salvage attempts followed but were abandoned, and the wreck remains on the sand bottom of Cojo Anchorage.
Vessel
- 1891
- Official No. 98687
- Not established
- Greenock, Scotland
- Steel
- 281 ft
- Not established
- 2136
- Sail
- Not established
Loss
- November 21, 1893
- Fire
- Cojo Anchorage, near Point Conception, Santa Barbara County, California
- Pacific Ocean
- Liverpool, England → San Francisco, California
- About 3,500 tons of coal
- 36
- 0
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- 35-55
- Stern mostly gone; bow relatively intact; steel plates, pipes and chains scattered on a sand bottom
- Not established
- Not established
- Within Point Conception State Marine Reserve
Position
- 34.45° N 120.44° W
- General area only
- Point Conception, Santa Barbara County, California
General area only: coordinate of Cojo Anchorage from the USGS Geographic Names Information System, marking the named place of loss recorded for this vessel, not a surveyed wreck position.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Documented (75/100)
Exact wreck coordinates and a precise sinking date within the November 1893 timeframe are not firmly established in the sources reviewed.
Wreck condition, depth, dive characteristics.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Point Conception SMR
Confirmation of wreck location within the marine reserve.
coordinate of the named place of loss
