USS ''Hector'' (AC-7) was a collier acquired by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

prior to

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. She carried

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

to those ships still using it as fuel to build up steam for their engines, and continued that service until her wrecking and sinking in 1916. She was the

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

of .

Construction and career

''Hector'' — the second ship to be so named by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

— was launched on 3 July 1909 by the Maryland Steel Company,

Sparrows Point, Maryland Sparrow's Point is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Dundalk. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelm ...

and commissioned on 22 October 1909. She was on special service with the Atlantic Fleet from commissioning through 1913, when she was stationed at

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...

. From there, ''Hector'' served as a fuel ship, ferrying freight and fuel up the

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and down to the Caribbean, especially Guantánamo Bay and

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...

Sinking of ''Hector''

''Hector'' was battered by winds of for 16 hours during the Charleston Hurricane of 1916 while at sea in the Atlantic Ocean off

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

. She was disabled when hatches gave way and her boiler room flooded. The ship was wrecked on a reef off Point Romaine, South Carolina on 14 July 1916, breaking in two and sank three days later.

References

External links

USS ''Hector'' (Collier # 7), 1909-1916
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hector Colliers of the United States Navy Ships built in Sparrows Point, Maryland Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean 1909 ships Maritime incidents in 1916