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Source: Chronicle of an older diver

Slightly over a month later we were in Sarnia, Ontario on a hot (34C), diving a couple of wrecks under the Blue Water Bridge. One wreck, the “Monarch”, lies in the middle of the St. Clair River at a depth of 60 feet. My log book notes a “moderate” 6 knot current. I have memories of hanging on for dear life, especially when the freighters went overhead.

Read the full entry at deepstop.wordpress.com >>

Source: The Bay City Times

There are still a few days left to see the exhibit ”Great Lakes Titanics: Shipwrecks on the Inland Seas” at the Herbert D. Doan Midland County History Center.

Artifacts, photographs and information about shipwrecks on the Great Lakes will be featured, including that of the Edmund Fitzgerald, in which 29 men perished during a storm on Lake Superior in November of 1975. In addition, visitors can learn about diving and recent shipwreck dives and about the U.S. Life Saving Service, the forerunner of today’s Coast Guard.

The exhibit may be viewed through Sunday. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. The History Center is at 3417 W. Main St. in Midland. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children. For more information, call (800) 523-7649, (989) 631-8250, or log on to www.mcfta.org.

by Jordan Press | Source: Kingston Whig-Standard

Kenn Feigelman and his team of underwater filmmakers planned to spend the summer documenting on film all the known wrecks in the waters around Kingston.

They also hoped to find a new wreck.

They didn’t expect to find four old ships, including one that likely hasn’t been seen for nearly 200 years, along with a debris field of other ships near the city.

One wreck was previously found then lost. The wreck, a large hulk sitting on the bottom of the lake, is believed to be HMS Montreal, a Kingston-built ship that was scuttled after the War of 1812, said Feigelman, who runs DeepQuest2 Expeditions.

“This isn’t just Kingston history, this is North American history,” Feigelman said, referring to the warships his crew stumbled upon.

… The location of the find is being kept a secret. Parks Canada will be made aware of the location of the wrecks, but finds of this nature are kept secret to ensure nobody steals from or damages the remains, Feigelman said.

“We don’t want people to do souvenir hunting,” Feigelman said.

… Among these ships are several from the War of 1812, some of which researchers have been seeking for years. Feigelman said the large ship found this month is believed to be HMS Montreal.

During the war, the British ordered ships built in Kingston to counter the American fleet being built at Sackets Harbor, N. Y., on the south side of Lake Ontario. The Montreal was built in Kingston and launched in 1813.

Originally, she was named after Sir George Provost, the British governor-general who ordered her built. After launching, she was renamed HMS Wolfe and later HMS Montreal in January 1814.

HMS Montreal took part in several battles, including the raid and capture of the fort at Oswego, N. Y.

Read the full story, background of area and hopes of team at the Kingston Whig-Standard >>

By LARRY OAKES | Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune

Somewhere down below, hidden in 500 feet of water, lay the wreckage of the Sunbeam, a wooden sidewheeler that sank with at least 25 passengers in 1863.

Jerry Eliason, Kraig Smith and two friends are determined to find it. They are a rare breed: Adventurers who spend much of their spare time and money searching for the shipwrecks that litter the bottom of Lake Superior.

‘There are only about 50 serious wreck hunters on the whole Great Lakes, and those guys on western Lake Superior are in the top five,” said Brendon Baillod, a maritime historian who runs www.ship-wrecks.net, a Great Lakes shipwreck research website.

About 100 Lake Superior shipwrecks remain unaccounted for, while the locations of more than 200 other submerged wrecks are known.

Eliason, Smith, and their friends Ken Merryman and Randy Beebe already have discovered eight of the lake’s long-lost wrecks.

Much more to this story, video at the Minneapolis Star Tribune >>

Yahoo Video (click to view) hosts a nearly 7-minute ABC News Law & Justice Webcast about the discovery and location of the possible Griffon shipwreck; excellent quality, and shows footage from recent trip over wreck site. Story includes in-person interviews with Door County residents involved in the exploration, as well as an interview with Steve Libert about the current court order to divulge the wreck’s location.

View video here

Based on video shots provided in the news piece, it appears that the wreck is likely not far into Michigan waters, north of Washington and Rock Islands, south of St. Martin Island. They are three in a series of many islands which form a chain from Wisconsin’s Door County to the U.P.’s Garden Peninsula.

by Shelley Nelson | Source: Superior Daily Telegram

Gordy Gebhardt, 80, made the journey to see the Meteor one more time. He has fond memories of the ship and had once imagined himself walking into the crew’s galley for a cup of coffee. That became a reality Friday.

“I grew up on the water, love the water, and I have been a huge boat nerd all my life,” said David Frew, a professor emeritus with Gannon University in Erie.

His current venture is a book about Lake Erie’s historic black Friday storm, when four ships including the James B. Colgate, a sister ship to the SS Meteor, sunk on Oct. 20, 1916.

“One of the things people in Duluth have no concept of is just how rough the water on Lake Erie gets, said Roger Pellett, a member of the Meteor Advisory Committee, which is working to research the ship’s history. “We have vast periods of time where Lake Superior looks like it does today, where it’s like a mill pond. Then there six or eight times a year there are big rollers coming in.”

Lake Erie, which is not as deep as the other Great Lakes, is choppier, particularly on its western end, and is fraught with navigational hazards.

The night of Oct. 20, 1916, created one of those “perfect storm explosions,” Frew said. A storm was rising from the Ohio Valley and clashed with an Alberta Clipper coming from the north.

Capt. Walter Grashaw “went out when others didn’t go, and he was met by this horrific storm,” Frew said. “The captain reported 40- to 50-foot waves and 100 mph winds. It lasted a long time and the direction never shifted.”

The Colgate, a 302-foot steel whaleback, was steaming west from Buffalo with a load of coal when it went down off Long Point, Ontario. Of the 26 men on board, Grashaw was the lone survivor. After 36 hours clinging to rope edges on a raft, he was nearly described as half-dead when he was recovered, according to the New York Times archives.

The black Friday storms also claimed the D.L. Filer, a wooden bulk freight schooner-barge, Marshall Butters, a wooden lumber hooker, and the Merida, a steel freighter with wooden deckhouses, claiming the lives of 58 sailors.

“The Colgate is a famous Lake Erie shipwreck, but it’s a whaleback built here in Superior,” Frew said.

Read the full story about this visit, past & current books at the Superior Daily Telegram >>

Source: Chicago Tribune

Researchers want to know if the bottom of Lake Erie is littered with cannonballs and other ammunition from a pivotal naval battle that was part of the War of 1812.

With the help of an $18,000 federal grant, the Great Lakes Historical Society will survey the lake floor this summer using sonar and magnetic wave technology.

The U.S. victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Erie, fought in September 1813, helped the Americans secure control of the lake and made a hero of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.

The lake’s bottom may have powder kegs and other debris from ships on both sides…

Read more on the technology, goals for this neat project >>

Source: Plain Dealer

Vermilion- Ohio marine archaeologists believe they have finally found the right combination for the record books - a Lake Erie shipwreck worthy of being listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a diver able to commit the time to make it happen.

The 1850 wreck of the Anthony Wayne, a side-wheel steamer, was discovered off Vermilion last summer by diver Tom Kowalczk.

…If the application is accepted, the Anthony Wayne will be the first Lake Erie shipwreck listed on the National Register.

“It’s so unique. You don’t see many side-wheel steamers. This is fresh, this is new,” said Texas A&M grad student Brad Krueger, who is spending five weeks at the Peachman Center, part of the Great Lakes Historical Society.

Read about the painstaking work these grad students are undertaking to measure and diagram the entire wreck at the Plain Dealer >>

Source: WKYC

It was supposed to be an easy run. The big ship took a right turn and headed down the Lake Erie coast bound for Cleveland. They never did make it.

…Now, for the first time, we are getting a look at video showing the wreckage 50-feet below the surface of the water.

In the murky water, you can make out parts of the ship and even what looks like the original paddlewheel.

Photo gallery and video at WKYC >>

By Nate Reens | Source: Grand Rapids Press

GRAND RAPIDS — Vacuum-sealed and frozen for four years, a thumb size piece of wood, possibly from the French sailing vessel the Griffin, was to be handed over to U.S. marshals today.

It marks a measured move — the first step forward in a four-year court battle between the state and an Ohio diving and salvage group — toward solving a 329-year-old international mystery that may end with the shipwreck being identified.

Steve Libert was expected to surrender the artifact, which has been carbon-dated to the 1600s, under a federal warrant issued last month.

Libert, a Virginia resident who heads Great Lakes Exploration Group, sought to keep the wood piece to protect his team’s interest in the wreck.

“We’ve been fighting this long just to try and get the right to make an identification that it is the Griffin,” Libert said. “We believe the rest of the ship, or its artifacts, are scattered.”

Historians consider the Griffin to be the first European trade ship to sail lakes Huron and Michigan. It was built for French explorer Robert de La Salle and was carrying furs from Green Bay, Wis., when it disappeared in 1679.

Libert believes his group has found the vessel on the Lake Michigan floor, identified only as an area between Escanaba and the St. Martin Islands, near Wisconsin.

While the state has contended that Libert’s piece of wood is nothing more than barn timber, it has fought to preserve the government’s right to the potential find. The state lays claim to all shipwrecks discovered in its waters.

Since Libert filed suit seeking salvage rights in 2004, his group and the state have wrangled over the ship. Under the arrest warrant, Libert now must disclose the location to the state so it can inspect the wreckage.

Under federal law, ownership would belong to France, which supports Libert’s salvage efforts and is prepared to send a team to help confirm the ship is the Griffin.

There is still more to this story at the Grand Rapids Press >>

by Erica Blake | Source: The Toledo Blade

Loaded with passengers and a cargo of liquor and wine, the Anthony Wayne had not traveled far on its voyage from the docks of Toledo to a port in Buffalo, when an inexplicable explosion occurred - one that sent it to the depths of Lake Erie.

Now, more than 150 years later and two years after it was first discovered deep beneath the Lake Erie waves, underwater archaeologists are studying the sidewheel steamboat in its final resting place.

Believed to be the oldest steamboat shipwreck in the lake, the Anthony Wayne is broken up and buried in the lake’s muck.

…archaeologists are working to preserve Great Lakes history by measuring and recording every detail of the vessel to re-create how it was built.

“This is part of the heritage of the lakes,” said Texas A&M University graduate student Brad Krueger, who initiated the project. “You can learn a lot from these wrecks. They shouldn’t be salvaged. … By showing the actual value of underwater archaeology, it gives us a better understanding of our Great Lakes history.”

With hopes of “bridging the gap in maritime history,” Mr. Krueger said his project will result in the re-creation of “architectural elements that we just don’t have.”

Full story with underwater photos, images at the Toledo Blade >>

by David Patch | Source: Toledo Blade

Fifty years ago tomorrow, one of the most celebrated ships in Great Lakes history was launched from a Detroit-area shipyard.

Of course, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald didn’t gain renown outside of boat-aficionado circles until more than 17 years later, after it sank in a Lake Superior gale, taking all 29 officers and crewmen aboard 530 feet to the bottom.

A commemorative event tomorrow at Lake Erie Metropark, in southeastern Wayne County near Gibraltar, Mich., will mark the anniversary not of the sinking, but rather the launch of the ship that was the Great Lakes’ largest for more than a decade.

Richard Orgel, a Toledo man who sailed aboard the Fitzgerald during his career as a ship’s mate and was later subpoenaed to testify during the inquest about its sinking, said he plans to attend the event.

“I had friends on that ship,” he said.

Fascinating story, interviews and details at the Toledo Blade >

Randy Boswell | Source: Canwest News Service

An American relic hunter who believes he’s found one of Canada’s most important shipwrecks at the bottom of Lake Michigan is appealing for Canadian heritage officials to get involved in the U.S. legal battle over the site.

The Griffon, which was built near Niagara Falls in 1679 and became the first sailing ship on the Great Lakes, was lost in a storm on its maiden voyage and now ranks among North America’s most sought-after wrecks.

A federal U.S. appeals court ruled last week that the discoverer of the Griffon’s purported resting place - Steve Libert, an underwater explorer from Virginia - does not have to reveal the location to the State of Michigan until another judge sorts out the ownership and future management of the potential heritage treasure.

Robert Grenier, the Canadian government’s senior underwater archeologist, acknowledges that the Griffon is “one of the Holy Grails of Canadian marine history,” adding that the fact that the ship “was not built in Europe makes it more attractive” to scholars documenting Canada’s colonial era.

But Grenier cautions that “diagnostic” proof of the wreck’s identity has not yet been produced, and that the “quite complicated” legal struggle between Libert, Michigan authorities and U.S. federal heritage officials will have to be resolved before Canada or the French government - which could ultimately claim ownership of the Griffon - get involved.

Experts from the Field Museum in Chicago dated some wood samples from the site to the 17th century.

…But further dives at the site and a planned lake-bottom survey for debris were halted four years ago when the State of Michigan claimed exclusive authority over the wreck. That prompted the long-running court battle with Libert and last week’s ruling that a federal “admiralty arrest” should be imposed over the wreck site to continue protecting the submerged artifacts until the ownership dispute is settled.

Libert, who accused Michigan of “trying to legally steal” the Griffon, has stated in the past that the wreck lies between Escanaba, Mich., and the St. Martin Islands near Wisconsin.

Read the full story, more details to this complex story at CanWest News Service >>

By RICK OLIVO | Source: AP/Mlive.com

In her day, she was the archetype of the trim, speedy Great Lakes schooner.

Carrying a full set of canvas aloft, with cargos of grain and iron ore, she was a magnificent vision; widely regarded as the biggest, fastest and most beautiful of all the three-masted lakes schooners of the age.

She was the “Moonlight,” a wooden ship in an era of iron men and near-mythic triumph and tragedy on the Great lakes. She is renowned in sea-shanties that recall her grace, beauty and speed, her epic sailing duels with other schooners, racing the wind for home, and she is sadly remembered for her ignominious end, foundering in a fall gale near the Apostle Islands in September of 1903.

On July 30, 2004, shipwreck hunter Jerry Eliason is conducting a systematic searching for the legendary bulk freighter Marquette, which had sunk in the area of Michigan Island.

Instead, in some 240 feet of water, he discovered something he hadn’t even been looking for: the broken remains of the once majestic Moonlight.

Later that year, Bob Olson, Rick Peters and Ken Merryman, divers for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society, found the vessel to be an astonishing archaeological treasure trove, amazingly intact after more than a century in the icy, preserving cold waters of Lake Superior. There the divers found the ship’s china, lanterns, anchors and the original steering wheel — all items that are commonly quickly looted from the sunken remains of vessels in shallower, more accessible waters.

… The State Historic Preservation Review Board of the Wisconsin Historical Society met last week and voted to include the Moonlight shipwreck on the state registry.

“It’s a time capsule,” Thomsen continued. “Everything that went down with her — the items the crew had brought on board — everything is there and it hasn’t been touched; it’s only been dived on by a few divers. For an archaeologist, it’s amazing.”

Read the rest of this fascinating story at MLive.com >>

Related Links:

• GLMHC Website
• PDF Flyer about the Center (PDF)

By Jim Geyer | Source: WEYI NBC 25 (photos, video)

[At t]he Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center … people can explore shipwrecks through pictures, lectures, live video feeds and by way of one very impressive animated globe.

… The center contains displays of artiacts that have been recovered from approximately 200 shipwrecks. You can also look through the windows into the research section of the Maritime Center where scientists are continuing to analyze and catalog new objects recovered from the depths of Thunder Bay.

Full video, photos, rest of article at WEYI NBC25 >>

Source: International Herald Tribune

TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan: An appeals court has ruled that the U.S. government should have authority for now over a Lake Michigan shipwreck that could be the Griffin, a 17th century vessel built by the French explorer La Salle.

Great Lakes Exploration Group LLC wants the federal government to have jurisdiction but to appoint the company as custodian until the courts determine who has ownership and salvage rights. The company says the French government may want to submit a claim.

The state is seeking title, saying federal law gives it ownership of all abandoned vessels “embedded in the state’s submerged lands.”

More about the Griffin’s secret location and potential value to the French at the International Herald Tribune >>

By Irene Liguori | Buffalo News

…the church, which turns 190 this year, took shape using the bones of a famous Lake Erie shipwreck.

A massive hand-hewn cross in one of the church’s illuminated entryways is also a fragment of the first steamboat to ever ply the Great Lakes.

Fatter than railroad ties, the strong wooden beams supporting the church at 5461 Broadway and its steeple were taken from the splintered remains of the historic 338-ton side-wheeled steamboat Walk-in-the-Water, according to church historian Jim Allein.

…A terrifying storm on Lake Erie in early November 1821 drove Walk-in-the-Water onto a beach near the Buffalo Lighthouse, according to an account in the Cleveland Weekly Herald. All 75 passengers and Capt. J. Rogers’ crew survived.

Some time later, one of Lancaster Presbyterian’s 13 original members — a War of 1812 veteran named James Clark who survived the Walk-in-the-Water shipwreck — decided to salvage the boat’s timbers to help build the church.

Full story, photo at the Buffalo News >>

Source: Kingston Whig-Standard

Brian Prince, president of Save Ontario Shipwrecks, said his group runs workshops and classes [about preserving underwater wrecks] with the help of instructors from Parks Canada and the Ministry of Culture.

“We have nice shipwrecks and we have warm water all the way to the bottom,” he said. “That’s why it’s the world’s best secret here.”

The secret is quickly being let out as more people are wanting to dive in the area. Prince said there are about 20 charter operators that take people diving just to see wrecks in this area compared with only a handful operating on the Great Lakes.

“I’d say it’s getting more and more popular all the time,” Prince said.

That’s where the educational aspect kicks in. The more that divers go through the wrecks and touch them, the more susceptible they are to falling apart.

The Robert Gaskin, a shipwreck near Brockville, lost two large chunks to the riverbed over the past year. The pieces fell a further three metres to the bottom of the river only weeks after Prince went diving in the area.

“We try to use education to say, ‘Look, you need to respect the wrecks, not touch them or touch them minimally,’ ” he said. “That all adds wear and tear.”

Read the full story at the Kingston Whig-Standard >>

Posted by Eric Gaertner | The Muskegon Chronicle

Two upcoming shipwreck events in Holland will give people an opportunity to see some fascinating underwater video and listen to intriguing stories of sunken ships and explorations.

On Saturday, the Southwest Michigan Underwater Preserve is hosting a program that will focus on the Carl D. Bradley, a freighter that sank Nov. 18, 1958 in northern Lake Michigan, and the Titanic, the “unsinkable” cruise ship that sank on April 15, 1912.

The show, Dive into Maritime History: Links to the Forgotten Past, will be at 7:30 p.m. at the West Ottawa Performing Arts Center, 1024 136th Avenue. Tickets can be purchased for $10 in advance by visiting the group’s Web site or by phoning (616) 994-3483. A book-signing detailing the sinking of the Bradley in northern Michigan will be at 5 p.m.

Frank Mays, the lone remaining survivor of the Bradley tragedy that claimed 33 lives, is one of the program’s speakers. Mays and Elmer Fleming were the only survivors, rescued the next day on a raft that was launched after a terrible storm caused the Bradley to sink. Mays co-authored a book about the tragedy that rocked the Bradley’s home port, Rogers City, where most of the men had resided.

John Scoles and John Janzen are scheduled to make a presentation about their dives that recovered the bell from the Bradley. The bell resides in Rogers City as a memorial to the lost crew, and a replica was placed on the sunken ship. High definition video of the bell recovery dives will be shown.

The event’s featured speakers are Cris Kohl, a noted author, and his wife Joan Forsberg. They will tell stories of the regional connection to the Titanic, in which 345 of the passengers were heading to Great Lakes destinations.

On May 3, Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates and the Joint Archives of Holland are hosting the 10th annual Mysteries and Histories Beneath the Inland Seas. The event is scheduled for 7-9:30 p.m. at the Knickerbocker Theatre, 86 E. Eighth.

Tickets cost $12.50 each and can be purchased in advance by visiting the MSRA Web site at www.michiganshipwrecks.org. Tickets are $15 at the door.

Two well-regarded shipwreck hunters will be speaking at the event, including Ralph Wilbanks, a member of best-selling author Clive Cussler’s National Underwater and Marine Agency exploration team. NUMA is working with MSRA in a search for Northwest Flight 2501, a lost airline that crashed in Lake Michigan on June 24, 1950. The 58 people who died in the crash made it the worst commercial aviation disaster up until that time.

David Trotter, a Great Lakes shipwreck explorer, will be discussing 30 years of his Undersea Research Associates’ shipwreck discoveries.

MSRA members will be making presentations concerning recent discoveries, including a 19th century schooner off Saugatuck, and West Michigan’s most enigmatic lost shipwrecks.

by Jasmine Boney | Source: AmericaJR.com

ShipWreck! Pirates & Treasure features artifacts from the Steamship Republic. The SSR has been known as one of the greatest shipwrecks during the Civil War era. Going to the Atlantic Ocean more than 1,700 feet below the ocean surface, the Odyssey recovered over 50,000 coins and 14,000 artifacts.

Among other prized possessions in the exhibit, ShipWreck! Pirates & Treasure have hands-on experiments for everyone to try. There is a 75-mph hurricane tube that allows visitors to feel the winds of nature at hurricane speed … There is also a robot “submersible” that people can pilot. And the robot is real.

…Another exhibit on loan is the Edmund Fitzgerald, according to the Detroit Science Center. Coming from the U.S. Steel, they are showing antique bottles, a cannon ball, a spittoon and other collectibles.

Tickets are 15.95 for adults and $13.95 for children and seniors.

For more information please visit www.detroitsciencecenter.org or call (313) 577-8400