Close to Shore - Michael Capuzzo [9]
A generation before the Roaring Twenties rise of professional sports, Oelrichs was a star of heavily publicized sporting stunts for which the public hungered. He challenged the champion John L. Sullivan to a boxing match, putting up a $10,000 purse of his own money. Sullivan declined. Fighting an adversary who had no choice in the matter, Oelrichs wrestled a caged lion to a draw, to the thunderous approval of the press and his fans. Many of the passengers of the Hildegard had no doubt seen Oelrichs in the Atlantic off Newport, Rhode Island, demonstrating he was stronger than any fish in the sea. As the press and the cream of New York society, including Whitneys and Vanderbilts, crowded the cliffs over the ocean, Oelrichs challenged a fisherman in a boat to reel him in as a “human fish.” For twenty minutes the fisherman struggled and failed to reel in the stout sportsman on a line fastened to his waist, providing society with what newspapers called “the most interesting incident of the Summer.”
Now, aboard the Hildegard, a hundred miles from shore, several large sharks appeared starboard. Conversation ceased as the big fish moved silently, fins slicing high through the waves. Whispers traversed the deck as Oelrichs quickly changed to his bathing clothes, murmurs growing to shouts as the sports in the crowd urged him on. Oelrichs directed his hands to move the ship closer, and approached the railing. While side wagers were made, men snatched their white boaters against the wind, and women leaned over the railing to watch, long dresses whipping erratically. Others averted their eyes as the water received the powerful athlete.
Oelrichs disappeared for a moment, then surfaced between heaving four- and five-foot waves. Shaking the water from his brow, he stroked away from the boat, knifing through the waves atop a thousand feet of ocean. In ways unknown by the boating party, the sharks detected the presence of a large mammal thrashing noisily in the water and began to move in eerie concert.
Yet to the astonishment of the shipboard party, Oelrichs thrashed boldly in the presence of the sharks, quickly scattering the most fearsome-looking fish in the sea as if knocking out a dozen John L. Sullivans at once. As the sharks disappeared into the deep, Hermann Oelrichs, flushed with pride and exertion, climbed back aboard his yacht, victorious. The passengers of the Hildegard cheered wildly, waving boaters, handkerchiefs, and scarves in the briny air. It is not known whether it was a harmless species or dangerous makos or oceanic whitetips that had fled into the deep. A century later, scientists would not have been surprised to see any of these sharks avoiding a man, not preferred prey in such a chance encounter. The big sharks attack in stealth or in defense, and a small, sluggish, finless mammal would hardly represent a threat. The truth of the encounter was impossible for men to discern that afternoon in 1891, and couldn't compete with the legend that reached New York City that evening: Hermann Oelrichs had conducted an experiment, man versus shark, and the outcome was plain for any man to see. The sportsman had swum among ferocious sharks, and sent them fleeing.
The great fish were no match for a man.
The moment would have been emphemeral, a parlor trick at sea, yet Oelrichs, like the fish he challenged, possessed his own qualities of myth. Fifteen years later, in November 1906, Oelrichs was crossing the Atlantic on the Kaiser Wilhelm—returning to New York from “taking the waters at Carlsbad” to recover from the exhaustion of assisting in the relief efforts of the San Francisco earthquake—when