Her journey ended wrecked on a reef at the island of Mopelia from Tahiti in the Society Islands, part of French Polynesia. The ship needed maintenance so that her hull could be scraped clean but she was too big for Mopelia's harbour and so had to lay anchor outside the reef. Disaster struck when on 2 August 1917 a large tidal wave lifted the ship and smashed her on the reef, totally destroying the ship. Luckily no prisoners or crew were killed. Luckner and some crew sailed for Fiji, where they were captured and imprisoned. The French schooner "Lutece", of 126 tons, was captured by the remaining crew on 5 September 1917. They sailed to Easter Island as "Fortuna", arriving on 4 October and running aground there, after which they were interned by the Chilean authorities.