The steamer burned five miles (8.0 km) below the mouth of the Salt River, a high wind fanned the flames. She either sank or was scuttled short of the beach. One of her deck hands died.[1]
4 January[]
List of shipwrecks: 4 January 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The full-rigged sailing ship was wrecked near Waterford, Ireland, United Kingdom. 28 crew died.[2]
The clipper ship started to leak during heavy weather on route from Penarth, Wales to San Francisco, California. She started to sink after the loss of deck hatches and was abandoned in the Bay of Biscay on 5 January 1888.[3]
The steamship was driven ashore and wrecked at Overton, Glamorgan. Her crew were rescued by the Port Eynon Lifeboat or rocket apparatus. She was on a voyage from Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, to Alexandria, Egypt.[5]
The steamer collided with the steamer (flag unknown) in the Atlantic Ocean off New York City, United States, and holed. She put into New York for repairs and later returned to service.[6]
The iron barque wrecked in Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand. She was inward bound from London carrying general cargo.
25 January[]
List of shipwrecks: 25 January 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The schooner was wrecked on near Isle au Haut. The crew of eleven men remained on a desolate island a week before they were discovered and taken off.[4]
26 January[]
List of shipwrecks: 26 January 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The schooner was wrecked on , Shelburne County, Nova Scotia. She struck on the ledges at 2:00 in the morning, in the height of a severe gale. One crewmember drowned and one died of exposure getting a line to shore so the crew could get off the ship, survivors rescued in the afternoon.[7]
28 January[]
List of shipwrecks: 28 January 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The steamer swamped in a heavy squall in the Columbia River near Astoria, Oregon. Three passengers died.[1]
United States
The schooner was heavily damaged by high seas on on 18 January, drifting rudderless in snow storms. The crew was taken off by the schooner (United States) an hour before she sank on 28 January.[4]
February[]
2 February[]
List of shipwrecks: 2 February 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The schooner was wrecked on at Lockeport, Nova Scotia. The crew were saved.[4]
10 February[]
List of shipwrecks: 10 February 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The schooner was wrecked at Rye Beach. The crew were saved.[4]
27 February[]
List of shipwrecks: 27 February 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The ferry's boiler exploded at causing her to burn to the waterline and sink. The fire also set on fire 600 feet (180 m) of the wharf, large vats of petroleum, the telegraph office, and freight depot. 30 to 40 killed and 14 wounded.[1][8]
The pilot boat Enchantress went down with all hands in the Great Blizzard of 1888. Pilots John Johnston, John Martineau, Daniel B. Jones, Henry Sequin, Jr., Frederick Whitehead, boatkeeper, and five sailors were among those that were lost.[13]
During a voyage from Matanzas, Cuba, to Boston, Massachusetts, with a cargo of sugar, the 258-foot (79 m), 1,080-net register toncargo ship, a screw steamer, was wrecked on the Nantucket Shoals off Nantucket, 2 nautical miles (3.7 km; 2.3 mi) southeast of the United States Life-Saving Service station at Surfside, Massachusetts, with the loss of one life. There were 23 survivors.[14]
The South Shields steamship, built of iron at Hartlepool, England, in 1865, disappeared with the loss of her entire crew of 15 after departing Penarth, Wales, bound for Oporto, Portugal, on 24 March with a cargo of coal. A Board of Trade report on her loss did not speculate on its cause, but she may have been overloaded.[15][16]
April[]
13 April[]
List of shipwrecks: 13 April 1888
Ship
Country
Description
Yorouba
France
The ship was on a voyage to Le Havre, France, when she hit a rock west of Guernsey in the Channel Islands in fog and sank 2 nautical miles (3.7 km) from shore and 7 nautical miles (13 km) from Les Hanois Lighthouse. All passengers and crew were saved.[17][18]
16 April[]
List of shipwrecks: 16 April 1888
Ship
Country
Description
Belgium
The steamer sank in the North Sea following a collision with another ship.[6]
The 184.93-gross register ton, 103.2-foot (31.5 m) two-mastedcod-fishing schooner sank at sea in the Territory of Alaska's Shumagin Islands during a storm. All 19 members of her crew abandoned ship in eight dories, but 12 of them perished in the boats. Over the month following the sinking, the seven survivors were rescued, the last two from a dory on 4 June by the schooner Kodiak (United States).[20]
The ship was stranded in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England. She was salvaged and later was renamed Providence and operated out of Penzance.[23]
Nulli Secundus
Germany
The brigantine was stranded in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England. Under the name Tobaco, she previously had been stranded on the Eastern Green in Mount's Bay in 1865.[23]
June[]
4 June[]
List of shipwrecks: 4 June 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The vessel was beached during a storm three miles (4.8 km) west of the West Pass of St. Andrew's Bar.[24]
7 June[]
List of shipwrecks: 7 June 1888
Ship
Country
Description
Gleam
United States
The yacht was sunk in a collision with (United States) in Chesapeake Bay near Seven Foot Knoll Light (39.1572°N 76.4034°W), in the mouth of the Patapsco River. One man died.[1]
14 June[]
List of shipwrecks: 14 June 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The tow steamer capsized and sank during a turn on Muskegon Lake. Her engineer drowned.[1]
23 June[]
List of shipwrecks: 23 June 1888
Ship
Country
Description
United States
The pleasure launch struck a dike in Newark Bay and capsized. Six, men and women, drowned.[1]
27 June[]
List of shipwrecks: 27 June 1888
Ship
Country
Description
Unknown launch
United States
The pleasure launch was sunk in a collision with (United States) one mile (1.6 km) above Newburg, New York. Six rescued, two women drowned.[1]
The 109-ton sidewheel paddle steamer was wrecked when her inebriated crew ran her onto rocks in Burrard Inlet at Prospect Point in Stanley Park in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The partially stripped wreck sank in July 1892 when struck by the wake of the passing steamer Yosemite (flag unknown).
The 114.4-foot (34.9 m) whalingbark was wrecked on a reef 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) northeast of Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska during a gale. Her entire crew of 37 survived.[25] Her crew was rescued by the revenue cutterUSRC Bear (United States Revenue-Marine).[20]
The 327-ton, 114.7-foot (35.0 m) whalingbark was wrecked on a reef 4 nautical miles (7.4 km; 4.6 mi) south of Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska during a gale.[26] Her crew was rescued by the revenue cutterUSRC Bear (United States Revenue-Marine).[20]
Young Phoenix, or
United States
The 355-ton, 107.3-foot (32.7 m) whalingbark was crushed against the shore by ice and lost near Point Barrow in the Territory of Alaska during a gale. Her entire crew of 38 survived.[27] Her crew was rescued by the revenue cutterUSRC Bear (United States Revenue-Marine).[20]
The frigate foundered in the Pacific Ocean 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) off an unspecified "Palmer Island," possibly an island west of Fiji. Her two survivors came ashore on the island, where one died in 1890 and the other finally was rescued by a German ship in 1893.
The schooner was wrecked on a rocky beach in Lake Michigan off Liberty Grove, Wisconsin, during a gale and eventually sank.
United States
The tug was caught in the suction of a foreign vessel she was aiding and capsized and sank off Wilmington, Delaware. Her engineer died. Survivors rescued by Philadelphia (United States).[28]
During a predawn race with the tugMerrill (United States) in the harbor at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 72-foot (22 m), 50.62-gross register tonscrew steam tug disintegrated when her boiler exploded, killing four members of her six-man crew. The accident was blamed on her engineer suddenly turning on the water feed to her boiler while she was carrying a full head of steam. Her remains lie on the harbor bottom at 43°01.532′N087°51.339′W / 43.025533°N 87.855650°W / 43.025533; -87.855650 (A. W. Lawrence).[32]
Illustration "The Collision Between the 'Umbria' and 'Iberia,'" from Harper's Weekly, 24 November 1888. Iberia is at left, Umbria in the center, and Iberia's severed stern is at right.
During a voyage from the Persian Gulf to New York City with a cargo of 28,000 crates of dates, a few bales of hides, and coffee, the 1,388-gross register tonsteamcargo ship sank in 60 feet (18 m) of water in the North Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island, New York, about 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) off the Long Beach Barrier Island, after the Cunard Lineocean linerUmbria (United Kingdom) collided with her in dense fog on 10 November, shearing off 14 feet (4.3 m) of her stern. Her entire crew of 30 had survived the collision on 10 November and abandoned ship on 11 November, and a salvage crew of three on board when she sank escaped safely in a longboat.[33]
The fishing schooner left Gloucester, Massachusetts on 13 November and vanished, probably lost on 24 November on the Georges Bank in a gale. Lost with all 12 hands.[41]
The schooner-rigged passenger steamer disappeared in a storm in the Arabian Sea with the loss of all 746 people on board sometime after she was last sighted off Mangrol, India, on 8 November.
The barque was abandoned in the North Atlantic. Crew rescued by Deutschland (Germany) and later transferred to Pieter de Coninck (Belgium) which landed them at Boston, United States.[6]
Civitas Carrera
The barque was lost at Manasquan, New Jersey. Her wreck was buried until a storm uncovered it and it was salvaged in 1937.[43]
^Chesneau, Roger, and Eugene M. Kolesnik, Conway′s All the World′s Fighting Ships, 1860-1905, New York: Mayflower Books, 1979, ISBN0-8317-0302-4, p. 317.].
^"Levant (SS..)"(PDF). HM Stationery Office. 1888. Archived from the original(PDF) on 12 July 2021. Retrieved 12 July 2021 – via Southampton City Council.
United States
United Kingdom
Canada) in the East River off Blackwell's Island. Her fireman drowned.[1]
Belgium
French Navy
France
Germany
United States
United States Revenue-Marine).[20]
United Kingdom) in fog in San Francisco Bay and sank with the loss of sixteen lives. She was on a voyage from San Francisco to Eureka, CaliforniaCite error: A 
Italy
Norway
Chile
Russia
British India
Norway