Early Riser

History

Early Riser was one of the boats of Bermuda's pilots - long, light open craft that could be rowed or sailed. She pulled eight oars and also carried two masts, so she could race out under sail or oar to meet incoming ships. Gig racing was introduced to Bermuda by British garrison officers in the 1830s, and the pilots soon took it up for real: the first pilot to reach a ship usually won the job of guiding her through the reefs, and the fee that went with it.

On the morning of Thursday 24 February 1876 a gale was blowing onshore at St George's. The brigantine G. A. Coonan, bound from Wilmington, North Carolina, for London with resin and turpentine, had parted one of her cables in Murray's Anchorage and was dragging towards the shore near the Naval Tanks, while her master, Captain Adair, was on land. The St George's pilot James Richardson agreed to take him out in his gig, the Early Riser, with a crew of five: Thomas Smith, George Robinson Richardson, William B. Richardson, Samuel Smith and Samuel Tucker. They put the captain aboard, waited a few minutes for a lull and started back. About halfway to land a heavy sea caught the boat astern and threw her bottom up. Thomas Smith, a good swimmer but heavily clothed, disappeared at once. The other five clung to the upturned gig, were washed off it again and again, and near the shore struck out for land. George Richardson drowned within reach of the beach. William Richardson was thrown, torn and bruised, onto a rock about 20 ft from the shore, and Gunner George Dew of the Royal Artillery plunged into the surf, swam out to him and brought him safely in. An inquest on 1 March found that Thomas Smith and George Robinson Richardson had been accidentally drowned, and a few weeks later the Royal Gazette used the tragedy to argue that Bermuda should buy two lifeboats.

Teddy Tucker said that her wreck has never been located, and that is no surprise: a small open boat that capsized close inshore is unlikely to have left any wreck site at all, and whatever divers may call the 'Early Riser' is probably something else. Early Riser was chosen as one of the subjects of Bermuda's 1986 shipwreck postage stamps (the 5-cent value), alongside the fishing sloop Alert.

Diving the wreck today

There is nothing to dive. Whether the gig was recovered after she capsized is not recorded, but a small open boat overturned close inshore is unlikely to have left a wreck site, so any site called the Early Riser is probably something else.