Lost 1889 - Wooden sailing ship ('ship' rig)
Little has been published about this site, so some details are uncertain. If you can add to its story, please email info@shipwrecks.bm.
The Richard P. Buck was an American square-rigged sailing ship built at Bath, Maine, in 1882, in the last great era of Maine-built wooden ships that carried bulk cargoes round Cape Horn between the US East and West coasts. Through the 1880s she was commanded by Captain J. T. Carver.
In April 1889, on a voyage from Philadelphia to San Francisco, she was at Bermuda when fire broke out on board. London shipping news reported that she was scuttled; a modern list dates the loss to 13 April 1889 and says she burned and sank following a storm. Scuttling a burning wooden ship in shallow water was the usual way to put out a fire in the hold and save what could be saved.
Where exactly her remains lie is not recorded in any source found, and she is not on the government's buoyed dive-site list.
No identified or buoyed dive site. If her hull was scuttled in or near a harbour it may have been salvaged or lie buried; there is no public location.