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SS Caracas

SS Caracas (1881–1889) was a coastal passenger steamship built by William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia. She was the older sister ship to Valencia. Both Caracas and Valencia served the route between New York City and Venezuela. The short life of Caracas ended in 1889, when she ran aground in Yaquina Bay under the name Yaquina Bay.

History
Red D Line had operated a line of sailing vessels to Venezuela since 1839, which continued for almost 40 years. She displaced around 1,589 tons and began her maiden voyage in June of 1881. She was renamed Yaquina Bay. She was intended to serve between Yaquina City, Newport and San Francisco, California, where Yaquina Bay was to replace the earlier Yaquina City, which had run aground a year earlier. The Oregon Pacific Railroad also operated a railroad line between Yaquina City through Corvallis. By having a combination of steamship and rail service through Yaquina City and Corvallis rather than the usual route through Portland, over could be cut from the journey between California and Chicago. With Yaquina Bay restarting the company's steamship service, travel time from California to Chicago could once again be shortened. Unfortunately, Yaquina Bay was to never see this ambitious service. While being delivered on December 9, 1888, Yaquina Bay broke free from the steamer which was towing her and ran aground at the bay of her namesake near the remains of Yaquina City and was declared a total loss. Having lost a considerable amount of money from the wreck, Hogg stopped his ambitious project and left Oregon a broken man. Local residents believed that the Portland-based companies purposely sabotaged both of Hogg's vessels, so as to prevent him from taking away potential customers from their business. She became a coastal liner on the west coast of the United States, serving from San Francisco, California to Alaska via Seattle, Washington. In January 1906, Valencia suffered a similar fate to the Caracas when she ran aground off Vancouver Island. She was ripped apart and sunk by the pounding surf, killing 116 people. ==References==
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