The event was immortalized when passenger and author Stephen Crane, who was traveling as a war correspondent for the Bacheller-Johnson syndicate, wrote the classic short story "The Open Boat" about his experience.

He and three other men (including the captain, Edward Murphy) floundered off the coast of Florida for a day and a half before attempting to land their craft at Daytona Beach.

The results of this fieldwork were eventually incorporated into a Master's Thesis[2] produced by Kimberly Eslinger Faulk,[3] then a graduate student at East Carolina University's Maritime Studies Program.

For two weeks in May 2002, Faulk, a crew of technical divers from the Cambrian Foundation, representatives of PILHA and videographer Rick Allen from Nautilus Productions completed the first archaeological survey of the wreck site.

These dimensions are a perfect match with the schematics for the single-expansion steam engine built by the Neafie & Levy yard in Philadelphia as listed in the 1882 survey produced when Commodore was first registered.