Shipwreck enthusiasts crowded the community room of the Bellville library recently for a presentation by Nautical Historians and divers Mike and Georgann Wachter of Avon Lake, OH.
LAKE ERIE; A WATERY GRAVEYARD--
The highest concentration of shipwrecks per square mile in the world exists in our very own neighboring body of water--Lake Erie.
There are 1,750 known wrecks of commercial vessels over 50 feet in length—a figure that completely ignores the sinking of smaller, private watercraft.
Even more stunning is the fact only 300 of those sunk vessels have been found.
“The largest loss of life in a single, Lake Erie sinking occurred in 1850 when the G.P. Griffith, a passenger vessel, burned and sank with the loss of 290 lives,” explained Mike Wachter during a recent presentation at the Bellville library with his wife Georgann, historical enthusiasts and divers from Avon Lake, OH.
Their rapid-fire, he said/she said, hour long presentation neatly chronicled this morbid history on our lake which is the next to smallest of the Great Lakes with an average depth of a mere 55 feet and just 210 feet at its maximum.
But, its relative shallowness of depth means a passing storm can quickly stir its surface to frothing, nautical mayhem.
The Wachter’s interesting presentation stirred memories of my earliest Coast Guard experience in Charlevoix, Michigan, where, just after my arrival there from recruit training, the ore boat Carl D. Bradley sank nearby in a violent Lake Michigan storm on November 18, 1958.
I was promptly assigned to near constant duty in our watch-tower and manned the station radio and log book during the search and rescue operation. There were 35 men on the Bradley. Two survived.
The Bradley was then the largest, self-unloading ore carrier on the Great Lakes at 623 feet in length and with a 65 foot beam. Waves during that storm were estimated at 30 feet in the 65 mph winds.
To put her size in perspective, had the Bradley sunk in Lake Erie and laid on her side, her opposite gunwale would be sticking 10 feet above the surface of Erie’s average depth!
Photos of the wreckage, submerged in over 300 feet of water, prove the vessel broke in half on the surface before sinking quickly. Her bow and stern could have been hoisted by the towering waves leaving her mid-ships section hovering over the trough of those monster waves—thus breaking her back.
While my experience was not on Lake Erie, it certainly brought to real life the stories shared by the Wachters.
LAKE ERIE; A WATERY GRAVEYARD--
The highest concentration of shipwrecks per square mile in the world exists in our very own neighboring body of water--Lake Erie.
There are 1,750 known wrecks of commercial vessels over 50 feet in length—a figure that completely ignores the sinking of smaller, private watercraft.
Even more stunning is the fact only 300 of those sunk vessels have been found.
“The largest loss of life in a single, Lake Erie sinking occurred in 1850 when the G.P. Griffith, a passenger vessel, burned and sank with the loss of 290 lives,” explained Mike Wachter during a recent presentation at the Bellville library with his wife Georgann, historical enthusiasts and divers from Avon Lake, OH.
Their rapid-fire, he said/she said, hour long presentation neatly chronicled this morbid history on our lake which is the next to smallest of the Great Lakes with an average depth of a mere 55 feet and just 210 feet at its maximum.
But, its relative shallowness of depth means a passing storm can quickly stir its surface to frothing, nautical mayhem.
The Wachter’s interesting presentation stirred memories of my earliest Coast Guard experience in Charlevoix, Michigan, where, just after my arrival there from recruit training, the ore boat Carl D. Bradley sank nearby in a violent Lake Michigan storm on November 18, 1958.
I was promptly assigned to near constant duty in our watch-tower and manned the station radio and log book during the search and rescue operation. There were 35 men on the Bradley. Two survived.
The Bradley was then the largest, self-unloading ore carrier on the Great Lakes at 623 feet in length and with a 65 foot beam. Waves during that storm were estimated at 30 feet in the 65 mph winds.
To put her size in perspective, had the Bradley sunk in Lake Erie and laid on her side, her opposite gunwale would be sticking 10 feet above the surface of Erie’s average depth!
Photos of the wreckage, submerged in over 300 feet of water, prove the vessel broke in half on the surface before sinking quickly. Her bow and stern could have been hoisted by the towering waves leaving her mid-ships section hovering over the trough of those monster waves—thus breaking her back.
While my experience was not on Lake Erie, it certainly brought to real life the stories shared by the Wachters.
They have authored three books on “Erie Wrecks…” and their web site is here: http://www.eriewrecks.com/.
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