approximately one mile offshore. The resulting collision tore a twelve-foot gash in the ship's hull beneath the waterline near the stern. Firmly wedged on the rock, the forward part of the ship was driven almost sixty feet from the water by the force of the crash. However, the stern of the ship was underwater and under constant pounding from the surf, causing a fear among the officers that the ship could break in two. Soon the ship's lifeboats were lowered with the task of ferrying the passengers to shore. In a move that was later found to be very controversial, Captain Randall himself took command of one of the lifeboats, leaving his unqualified teenage son in charge of the ship. Though Captain Randall would later claim to have been seeking a safe landing for the passengers, conflicting claims confuse whether Captain Randall returned to the wreck. It is known that he spent the night on shore while most passengers were still on board the wreck. Rescue The next day, the Goliah was still slowly progressing along the coast when the ship came upon the forward remains of the Yankee Blade, still filled with the great majority of the ship's passengers. At great danger to his own ship, Captain Haley positioned the Goliah as close as possible to the remains of the Yankee Blade. A line was set up between the two ships, and a lifeboat from the Goliah was soon ferrying the survivors from the wreck, a process which took the majority of the day. Soon after the last survivor was removed, the remains of the bow of the Yankee Blade slipped from the rock and sank. Due to the lack of space on board, the Goliah was forced to leave around three hundred survivors ashore, where they joined the others. The Goliah then dropped off its passengers in Santa Barbara, San Pedro, and San Diego before returning (though two days later due to grounding on a sandbar off of San Diego) to retrieve the survivors and return them to San Francisco. References Shipwrecks of the California coast California Gold Rush Paddle steamers of the United States Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in Santa Barbara County, California Maritime incidents in October 1854