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July 26, 2007

The Search for Shipwrecks

By Katy Wheeler

The image “http://editorial.jpress.co.uk/web/Upload/SEJJ//TH1_257200711webNautilus.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.Explorer and scuba diving enthusiast Ken Barella is taking to the seas with his boat Nautilus to research old shipwrecks

The diving support boat has been a labour of love for the 55-year-old who has spent the last five years restoring the 16.5-tonne vessel.
Now he hopes the boat will help him explore, identify and research the shipwrecks hidden beneath the surface of the North Sea,
Ken, from Roker, said: "The boat had been on the quayside since the early 1990s and would have probably been scrapped due to its neglected condition.
"I saw the potential to turn her into a nice boat through hard work, which others wouldn't have been prepared to take on. I couldn't have managed without the help and patience of my friends and family.
"I will be able to relax once sea trials are complete and any teething troubles have been ironed out."
The £25,000 boat was lifted into the Wear's half-tide basin on Friday night – a proud moment for Ken, the chief attendant at Sunderland Central Library.
Over the years he has meticulously carried out the major overhaul, which included shot-blasting and painting the hull, installing a new 210 horsepower engine, fitting out the foredeck saloon and renewing steering, gearbox and wiring.
He said: "It's extremely rewarding to discover an item which can lead to the positive identification of one of the many wrecks off the local coastline. "
Discovering a ship's name puts life and meaning into what is otherwise just a lump of metal."

Posted by victoria at 10:51 AM

Treasure Trove 'found by octopus'

The image “http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44020000/jpg/_44020439_diver_getty203bod.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.An octopus with a porcelain plate stuck to its suckers has led to the discovery of a hoard of ancient pottery, South Korean scientists say.

A fisherman caught the octopus off South Korea's west coast in May. He said the animal appeared to be hiding under a plate.

Archaeologists searched the area and discovered a 12th Century wooden wreck buried in mudflats.

They said more than 500 pieces of porcelain had been recovered so far.

"These are the highest quality artefacts ever discovered in our seas," said Yun Yong-i, a Korean art history professor from Myongji University.

Moon Whan-suk, from the National Maritime Museum, expressed surprise that the tiny octopus - about the size of an orange - had managed to hold on to the plate.

He told Reuters news agency: "I can't believe how such a small octopus managed to cover its shell with such a large plate.

"I guess it meant for us to discover the artefacts."

The porcelain, found near Taean, south-west of the capital Seoul, is thought to date from the Goryeo dynasty, which ruled Korea from the 10th to the 14th Century.

Experts say the 7.7m-long (25ft) wreck could contain up to 2,000 further pieces, including ancient bowls, plates and other types of pottery.

Several shipwrecks laden with relics have already been found along the west coast of South Korea.

BBC Asia-Pacific

Posted by victoria at 10:48 AM

July 25, 2007

Diving the Andrea Doria

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/ADmarschall.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Due to the luxurious appointments and relatively good condition of the wreck, with the top of the wreck lying initially in only 160 feet (50 m) of water, Andrea Doria is a frequent target of treasure divers and is commonly referred to as the "Mount Everest of scuba diving."

The day after Andrea Doria sank, divers Peter Gimbel and Joseph Fox managed to locate the wreck of the ship, and published pictures of the wreck in TIME magazine. Gimbel later conducted a number of salvage operations on the ship, including salvaging the First Class Bank Safe in 1981. Despite speculation that passengers had deposited many valuables, the safe, opened on live television in 1984, yielded little other than American silver certificates and Italian bank notes. This disappointing outcome apparently confirmed other speculation that most Andrea Doria passengers, in anticipation of the ship's scheduled arrival in New York City the following morning, had already retrieved their valuables prior to the collision. The ship's bell was taken in the late 1980s, and the statue of Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, for whom the ship was named, was removed from the first-class lounge, being cut off at the ankles to accomplish this. Examples of the ship's china have long been considered valuable mementos of diving the wreck. However, after years of removal of artifacts by divers, little of value is thought to remain.

As of 2007, years of ocean submersion have taken their toll. The wreck has aged and deteriorated extensively, with the hull now fractured and collapsed. The upper decks have slowly slid off the wreck to the seabed below. As a result of this transformation, a large debris field flows out from the hull of the liner. Once-popular access points frequented by divers, such as Gimbel's Hole, no longer exist. Divers call the Andrea Doria a "noisy" wreck as it emits various noises due to continual deterioration and the currents' moving broken metal around inside the hull. However, due to this decay new access areas are constantly opening up for future divers on the ever-changing wreck.

Deaths

Artifact recovery on the Andrea Doria has not been without additional loss of life. Fourteen scuba divers have lost their lives diving the wreck, and diving conditions at the wreck site are considered very treacherous. Strong currents and heavy sediment that can reduce visibility to zero pose as serious hazards to diving this site. Dr. Robert Ballard, who visited the site in a U.S. Navy submersible in 1995, reported that thick fishing nets draped the hull. An invisible web of thin fishing lines, which can easily snag scuba gear, provides more danger. Furthermore, the wreck is slowly collapsing; the top of the wreck is now at 190 feet (60 m), and many of the passageways have begun to collapse.

  • 1985 — John Ormsby dies of being caught in wires and of drowning
  • 1998 — Craig Sicola, Richard Roost and Vincent Napoliello all died diving on the Andrea Doria.
  • 1999 — Christopher Murley died of an apparent heart attack preparing to dive.
  • Also, in 1999, Charles J. McGurr died of a heart attack preparing to dive the Andrea Doria the second time in a day.
  • 2002 — William Schmoldt died from decompression sickness.
  • In 2006 researcher David Bright died from decompression sickness.

Posted by victoria at 10:08 AM

Andrea Doria

By Jack Kelly

Fifty one years ago today, on July 25, 1956, two large passenger liners off Massachusetts were steaming toward each other through the night at a combined speed of 40 knots. In spite of ample room to maneuver, in spite of the radar that let them spot each other from a distance, and in spite of clear rules intended to avoid collisions, the Stockholm crashed into the Andrea Doria and ripped the luxurious ship open amidships. It was to be the last great drama of the age of transatlantic passenger liners.

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Andrea_Doria_at_Dawn.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

The reason for the accident 50 miles south of Nantucket would be debated down the years. For the time being, a much more pressing issue loomed. The Andrea Doria was listing alarmingly to starboard, and seawater was pouring in. The enormous ship was in danger of sinking. Its 1,660 passengers and crew were in imminent peril.

The Andrea Doria had put to sea in 1951 from Genoa to accommodate the booming postwar demand for ocean travel. Almost 700 feet long, she ship could cruise at a brisk 23 knots and was noted for her luxurious appointments. The Italian Line had spent a million dollars on art and decoration, the food and service were superb, and even third-class passengers enjoyed an on-deck swimming pool. Many observers considered the Doria the most beautiful ocean liner ever launched.

The Stockholm, which had left New York that afternoon, was a more modest ship, 525 feet long and capable of carrying 570 passengers. She was fitted with a reinforced icebreaker prow to handle northern winter waters.

Several factors contributed to the collision. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea stipulated that ships in fog “go at a moderate speed.” The Andrea Doria’s captain, Piero Calamai, was steaming ahead at nearly 22 knots through dense fog in order to keep to his schedule. At that speed, it would take the vessel three miles to stop. Those same rules dictated that when ships were meeting nearly head-on “each shall alter her course to starboard” to avoid a collision—keep to the right. But the rule did not apply to ships that were likely to “pass clear of each other.”

Assuming the ships had plenty of room to pass on the left, Calamai veered slightly to port to allow more clearance. Johan-Ernst Carstens, the Stockholm third mate who was commanding the bridge, turned his ship to the right for the same reason, putting the two vessels on a collision course. When the Andrea Doria emerged from the fog, the crew saw the oncoming lights of the Stockholm. Carstens ordered a turn 20 degrees farther to the right, but failed to signal the maneuver with his ship’s whistle.

Aboard the Doria, Captain Calamai had seconds to make a decision. He chose wrong, sending his ship into a hard left turn. The 29,000-ton vessel skidded across the path of the Stockholm and received her ice-cutter bow at almost a 90-degree angle.

The ships rammed together just after 11:00 p.m. to the sound of sirens and bending steel. The Stockholm’s prow crashed 40 feet into the side of the Andrea Doria, through cabins filled with sleeping passengers. Forty-six of them were killed in the collision, along with five Swedish crewmen who slept in cabins in the bow of the Stockholm.

The ships hung together for a few seconds, then parted. Though her bow had been sheared off, the Stockholm was in no danger of sinking. But the Andrea Doria, with 500 tons of seawater rushing into her empty starboard fuel tanks, listed 20 degrees. Because she was leaning over so badly, her crew could not lower the port lifeboats. The Doria, like the Titanic 44 years earlier, now had lifeboats for only half its passengers.

Crewmen from the Stockholm began to ferry passengers from the stricken ship in their own motorized lifeboats. It was a slow process; Andrea Doria passengers were forced to negotiate steeply sloping decks and clamber down ropes or netting to reach the floating lifeboats. Some panicked and jumped. One man tossed his young daughter into a boat, fracturing her skull. She later died.

On board the Stockholm, a sailor discovered 14-year-old Linda Morgan entangled in the wreckage near the bow. He could not find her name on the ship’s passenger list. He was startled when she revealed that she was a passenger on the Andrea Doria. Linda, who became known at the “miracle girl,” had been thrown from her bed onto the other ship during the collision, which had killed her half-sister and stepfather.

The image “http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f3/Stockholm_heads_to_NY.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

A distress signal announcing “need of immediate assistance” quickly brought help, including the freighter Cape Ann and a Navy transport vessel. But by two o’clock almost a thousand people were still awaiting rescue on the Andrea Doria, which was listing even more steeply. At that point the passenger liner Ile de France arrived, having turned back from its own crossing to Europe. Its blazing lights produced “incredible joy” among those on the Andrea Doria and created a surreal scene reminiscent of a movie set.

By dawn all of the passengers and crew had abandoned the Andrea Doria. Captain Calamai had held out hope she could be towed to shallow water and saved, but he now knew that was impossible.

“There were exclamations of surprise and awe,” one survivor remembered, “as the Andrea Doria trembled and lurched to one side.” The great vessel rolled over and went down in 225 feet of water. Her captain telegraphed a terse message to his employers: “Doria sank 10:09—Calamai.”

A $30-million ship had been lost and 51 persons had died, but seamen had also pulled off the greatest peacetime rescue in history, saving more than 1,600 lives.

No final adjudication was ever made of who was to blame for the accident; the numerous lawsuits were settled out of court. New rules were put into place afterward, dictating certification of radar operators and requiring approaching ships to establish radio contact.

The Andrea Doria still rests on the sea floor. Because the ship lies well below the maximum safe scuba-diving depth, she has taken on the role of the Everest of diving. Hundreds of souvenir hunters have explored her wreck; a dozen have died trying.

The sinking of the Andrea Doria did not mark the end of the ocean liner. It simply sounded a melancholy note in the dirge of an industry already doomed. In 1958, two years after the collision, airlines began offering nonstop jet travel between the United States and Europe. The leisurely five-day crossing on a well-appointed passenger ship became a relic of a bygone era.

Posted by victoria at 10:06 AM

July 18, 2007

USS Truxtun to sail once again - Lanier Phillips update

Those of you familiar with our site probably know the story of Lanier Phillips. Growing up in fear in the Klan controlled State of Georgia; Phillips joined a segregated Navy as a teenager. One February night in 1942, his ship was wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland. When a local resident saved him from hypothermia, Phillips thought, "Here is a white man who wants me to live." The kindness he received from these white strangers as they nursed him through the night was a miracle that allowed him to recognize his future was worth fighting for. The love and hope he found in the community of St. Lawrence would continue to empower him throughout the course of his life.

His inspiring story was told in the documentary Dead Reckoning: The Lanier Phillips Story. Last month Lanier Philips was on hand as they christened the sixth USS Truxun, the ship Phillips was on the night of the wreck.

Truxtun SURVIVORS

USS Truxtun (DDG-103) is a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer currently under construction. Her keel was laid down on April 11, 2005. DDG-103 suffered a major electrical fire during construction at NGSS Ingalls, Pascagoula, Mississippi May 20, 2006 engulfing two levels and causing damaged believed to be in the millions of dollars. She was christened on June 2, 2007 at NGSS Ingalls in Pascagoula Mississippi.

For more information on Lanier Philips you can order a copy of the documentary from our Shop. You can find the wreck of the Truxtun on our Shipwreck Map (including video) or you can watch a pieces on Lanier Phillips from the CBC.

"They that go down to the sea in ships;
That do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep."

Posted by victoria at 10:29 AM

July 16, 2007

Reading Shipwreck Ceramics

Old porcelains recovered from shipwrecks aren’t just pretty objects – they’re a window on the past.

By JOHNNI WONG

Ancient shipwrecks with Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese ceramics are important in that they can tell us how maritime trade in South-East Asia had an impact on kingdoms like Sirivijaya, Angkor, Ayutthaya and Malacca. 

According to Bangkok-based South-East Asian Ceramics Museums director, Dr Roxanna Brown, the ceramics offer an insight into how the maritime trade enriched these centres of development.  

Treasure from the sea: Dr Roxanna Brown with blue and white ceramic recovered from the Desaru wreck off Johor.

Based on the types of ceramics found, as well as excavation sites, a chronological order of trading activities, empire development, and even the building of temples like Angkor and Borobudur can be verified, said Dr Brown who will be delivering a lecture on Shipwreck Ceramics and the Fall of Malacca at the 31st annual general meeting of the South-East Asian Ceramics Society, West Malaysia Chapter on July 21 at Muzium Negara, Kuala Lumpur. 

In her lecture, Dr Brown will make her case that Chinese ceramics dating to the Ming (1368-1644) and pre-Ming dynasties are important historical markers. In an e-mail interview, she cautioned collectors against buying ceramics that come from undocumented wrecks. 

“History is destroyed if ceramics are looted and sold before there is a proper excavation and documentation of a shipwreck site. I hope participants to my lecture will see how trade ceramics are more than just pretty objects. I will show how they can be used to open new windows on old historical events.  

“Since 1974, more than 150 shipwreck sites have been reported in South-East and East Asia. There are enough sites now that one can begin to mine them for new perspectives on historical questions. 

“An average five to six new shipwreck sites seem to be discovered every year,” added Dr Brown. 

However, looters, as well as unwitting buyers of such shipwreck artefacts, contribute to the destruction of historical evidence. The treasures are often smuggled out of territorial waters to be sold in private transactions for profit or to fund more such “expeditions”. 

Dr Brown thinks bulk trade in Chinese ceramics started around AD800-850 with Srivijayan ships. The trade contributed immensely to the empire’s coffers, leading to temple construction activities. 

“It is very difficult to escape the conclusion that the early shipping of Chinese ceramics was in Indonesian – NOT Chinese – hands. This situation persisted for perhaps 400 years, until the 13th century when written records indicate that Chinese ships sailed as far as India,” said Dr Brown. 

The sudden increase in wealth being concentrated in Indonesia, contends Dr Brown, must have sent jitters to other places in South-East Asia. 

Pretty but fake: Dr Brown holding up a fake antique she found in an antiques shop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. — DR ROXANNA BROWN

“One imagines the timing for the beginnings of the bulk trade, the building of Borobudur, and the founding of an Angkorian dynasty are not a coincidence.” 

Then Ming emperor, Hongwu (1328-1398), banned private overseas trade in Chinese ceramics at the beginning of his reign. The 50% drop in Chinese ceramics found in shipwreck cargoes dating from those years – discovered so far – must have been a reaction to the ban. 

The surprise is that the amount of Chinese ceramics dropped even more dramatically at the end of the Yongle’s (1403-24) reign. This second drop in market share must have been a reaction to Zheng He’s voyages being suddenly curbed in 1424. One consequence from these shortages in Chinese trade ware was that South-East Asian manufacturers filled the void – the so-called Ming Gap. 

Based on the percentage of Chinese, Thai (Siamese) and Vietnamese (Champa) ceramics found in shipwreck cargoes of the Ming era, Dr Brown can draw conclusions on the impact of China’s maritime trade policy on empires in South-East Asia.  

“The end of Zheng He’s voyages had two major effects. First, the proportion of Chinese trade ceramics dropped to 1% and less during the middle 15th century. Second, this shortage was filled by massive cargoes of Thai classic celadon.  

“Ayutthaya experienced a sudden windfall of amazing proportions as a result of this. After 1424, until about 1470, Thai ceramics made up some 95% of shipwreck cargoes. And not only did Thailand take over the production and export of ceramics, it seems it also became a shipping base.” 

Although more and more shipwreck ceramics are becoming available in the market, fake ones have started appearing on the scene. Dr Brown enclosed a photograph of some which she had encountered, saying, “The antiques dealer said he went regularly to the seashore to ask fishermen if they had found ceramics. He said he only bought the best ones, and that they came from many different sites. Of course, he could not name a single site.  

“A buyer should be able to look up the published finds from a shipwreck site. If there is nothing published, then the material is fake or has been looted, and he is wilfully participating in destroying history.” 

Dr Brown describes herself as an art historian. Her studies began at the University of Singapore where she did her Master’s degree from 1971 to 1974 under William Willetts, the late founder of the South-East Asian Ceramics Society. 

Asked what attracted her to this field, she said, “I’ve had fun using trade ceramics to help explain historical events like the beginnings of major temple-building in South-East Asia, the fall of the Angkor Empire, the Ming Gap, etc.” 

And how did she end up in Bangkok? 

“I visited Thailand several times during the Vietnam War. I was a freelance journalist in Vietnam 1968-1975, and did my degree at University of Singapore during that time. I moved to Bangkok full-time in 1980, but in 1982 I was badly injured in a traffic accident and spent 14 years in and out of hospital and mostly in a wheelchair.  

“Finally technology caught up and I was able to have an artificial leg that fitted well enough that I was finally able to walk without pain,” she revealed. 

The director of Bangkok’s South-East Asian Ceramics Museum said, “Our staff continuously keeps up to date on new finds and research of all kinds concerning Thai ceramics and the types of foreign ceramics found in Thailand.” 

Posted by victoria at 10:01 AM

July 13, 2007

Cussler's Airplane Search Continues

BY JAMES PRICHARD

ASSOCIATED PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS — The quest to locate the Lake Michigan site where an airliner carrying 58 people went down decades ago could help uncover the cause of the mysterious crash, even if the wreckage itself never is found, says the woman leading the search.

“I feel very strongly that it’s not so much finding the wreckage that’s going to provide the answers. I think we’re getting the answers in the course of the search for the plane,” Valerie van Heest said Wednesday from her Holland home.

From late April through late May, the expert diver and her group, Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates, scoured a 23-square-mile area of the lake off South Haven but found no sign of the crash site of Northwest Airlines Flight 2501. They were helped by a three-member underwater-search team provided by author and shipwreck hunter Clive Cussler.
The flight, a DC-4 carrying 55 passengers and three crew members, originated in New York City and was ultimately bound for Seattle. It crashed into the lake late on June 23, 1950, killing all aboard in the nation’s deadliest airliner accident up to that time.
The crash happened during a raging thunderstorm but no cause could be determined.
While a Coast Guard cutter found debris in the water about 18 miles north-northwest of Benton Harbor, no one is certain exactly where the aircraft went down.
Van Heest hopes to pin down the site by finding at least one of the plane’s four engines on the lake’s bottom.
Her organization, with Cussler’s assistance, started searching for Flight 2501 in fall 2004. The team conducted additional searches in spring 2005, spring 2006 and again this past spring, and plans to return to southern Lake Michigan next year.
Van Heest, who has put her marketing and graphic design career on hold to focus on the search, has tracked down representatives of more than 30 families who lost loved ones in the crash and updates them on her efforts. She contacted each one to give them the bad news about the latest unsuccessful search.
Van Heest has obtained courtroom transcripts from a liability lawsuit that some of the victims’ relatives filed years ago against Northwest. So far, she has read about 300 of the 2,500 pages of transcribed testimony from witnesses and crash experts that she believes contains information that will be of great help during her next search.
“As much as I am distressed that it’s been four years and we haven’t found this, I’m almost looking forward to another year because I think in that year, I’ll learn more than I would learn if we’d found the wreck this year,” she said.

Posted by victoria at 03:58 PM

July 03, 2007

Lake Erie's 'holy grail' of Shipwrecks

Competing quests hunt the lake's most elusive shipwreck this summer.
By DEBORA VAN BRENK, SUN MEDIA

At least two dedicated quests for the "holy grail" of Lake Erie shipwrecks are set to take place this summer -- one originating in Port Dover and one in Ohio.

The Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 vanished in a winter gale on Dec. 7, 1909, somewhere between Conneaut, Ohio, and its Port Stanley destination.

Laden with 30 railcars full of coal, it had no gate at its stern and the roiling waves probably swamped it.

The ship has never been found.

Some claim -- late at night, if you strain to listen -- you can still hear its whistle.

Port Dover diver Rob Cromwell plans to head out onto the lake starting this week, in a search that will use side-scan sonar and a torpedo-like metal detector called a magnetometer.

"It's not a really valuable ship -- but it's the last big one that hasn't been found," he told The Free Press.

"This is the holy grail of shipwrecks now," says Ohio researcher David Frew, author of Long Gone, considered a definitive book on the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2.

Hundreds of other ships dot the floor of the shallowest Great Lake, but few have attracted the same attention as this coal-hauling ferry.

Perhaps that's because few other lost wrecks are 100 metres long.

"It's a football field long. It's enormous. Where is it?" asks Chris Gillcrist, executive director of the Great Lakes Historical Society, based in Vermilion, Ohio (www.inlandseas.org). "We are searching for it this summer."

Last month, his group announced it had found the long-lost General Anthony B. Wayne steamship that went down in 1850 about 12 kilometres from Vermilion.

Port Stanley historian Frank Prothero, who has written his own book on the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, says it's a great story -- "a Port Stanley story" -- that has sparked the imaginations of mariners and historians.

Theories abound about the ship's whereabouts.

Ohio researcher Frew believes its captain turned her back toward Conneaut when he realized she wasn't going to find harbour in Port Stanley. He says some of the crew left the ship in a life raft near the Ontario shore and the rest stayed aboard until it sank.

Frew believes the boat is upside-down and mostly silted over. "I'm one of those that believes it was near enough to Conneaut that the captain's wife heard the whistle."

Gillcrist, of the Great Lakes Historical Society, also believes she's on the American side of Erie.

Port Dover diver Cromwell will search across from Long Point, on the Canadian side of the middle of the lake, where he believes the boat is lying on her side.

Prothero believes it's in deep water off Long Point.

He says a customs agent spotted her battling the 70-knot gale off Port Stanley on Dec. 7, 1909.

"She reportedly turned westward and was never seen again," Prothero says.

Maybe it headed for Erieau, a port with even less protection. More likely, her captain changed direction and made for the deeper waters of Long Point, where dozens of other ships had found shelter.

"From an historian's point of view, it's certainly the most mysterious of the shallow-lake shipwrecks," Prothero says.

"It's been called the Mount Everest of Great Lake shipwrecks."

Prothero is pleased the Ohio group is searching, but "I don't think their chances are much better than anybody else's."

Cromwell's theory of her location is based on wind direction, currents and drift rates. "The lake that night was like a big milkshake."

But finding it might take a while. "I think it's anybody's game right now," he says.

If found in Ohio waters, the wreck would become property of the state; and it would be Ontario's to manage if found on this side.

Finding the Marquette & Bessemer "is just a matter of time," Gillcrist says. "We hear the rumour about every two years it's been found by divers using it as their personal sanctuary" while keeping it secret. He doubts that.

Prothero is also skeptical:

"Divers are people who, when they are under the water, can't open their mouths. When they're out of the water, they can't shut them."

Meanwhile, the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 is a ship of mystery.

Is it a ghost ship?

Seasoned mariners dismiss the idea, but some say they've heard its distinct whistle when no other boat is nearby.

What about the tale that one man jumped aboard the ship at the last minute, his pockets full of cash to buy a Port Stanley fish company?

Prothero has his doubts. For one thing, the purported $50,000 would have been enough to buy every boat in Port Stanley, never mind a single company. And the man couldn't have stashed the cash inside the ship safe, as the story goes -- because, Prothero points out, the ship didn't have one.

No, the biggest secret remains its resting place.

"History is about trying to find answers to the unknown," says Gillcrist.

"I think now the Marquette-Bessemer is one of the top five wrecks to be found on the Great Lakes."

THE MARQUETTE & BESSEMER NO. 2

- 335 feet (100 metres) long, steel ferry, with a cargo of 30 railroad hopper cars full of coal

- Left Conneaut, Ohio, Dec. 7, 1909, for Port Stanley

- Encountered a winter storm blowing 70 knots.

- Some accounts say a customs official saw her off the Port Stanley coast, headed west. Others say the captain's wife, in Conneaut, heard its whistle.

- A lifeboat with nine frozen bodies, and the ice-encrusted clothing of a 10th person, found three days later.

- Despite numerous ventures by sport divers and scientific searchers, the ship has never been found.

Posted by victoria at 01:14 PM

 
     
     

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