 " The Open Boat " is a short story by American author Stephen Crane ( 1871 – 1900 ) . First published in 1897 , it was based on Crane 's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent . Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship , the SS Commodore , sank after hitting a sandbar . He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat ; one of the men , an oiler named Billie Higgins , drowned after the boat overturned . Crane 's personal account of the shipwreck and the men 's survival , titled " Stephen Crane 's Own Story " , was first published a few days after his rescue . 
