Divers Found a Lost Shipwreck So Remarkably Preserved, They Couldn’t Believe Its Age
Divers Found a Lost Shipwreck So Remarkably Preserved, They Couldn’t Believe Its Age
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
-
A Canadian dive team scouring Lake Ontario for a shipwreck discovered far more than they expected.
-
The team was diving to find a 1917 wrecked ship, but instead believe they stumbled on a vessel possibly 100 years older.
-
The two-masted schooner was fully intact—a rarity in Great Lakes shipwreck finds.
A team of five divers descended over 300 feet into Lake Ontario’s dark waters near Toronto and found much more than they were dreaming of. In a search for what the team surmised could be a ship lost in 1917, they instead found a shipwreck they believe is possibly 100 years older.
The divers discovered a two-masted schooner sitting upright, with both masts still fully intact, in what the Ontario Underwater Council called an “extraordinary state of preservation for a Great Lakes vessel.” After some preliminary investigation, the team believes the ship may come from an under-documented period of Great Lakes shipbuilding, sometime between 1800 and 1850.
“It took us a few moments to calm ourselves down because it’s overwhelming finding a pristine wreck that is all in one piece,” Heison Chak, the president of the Ontario Underwater Council, told the CBC. “It’s got its shape. It hasn’t broken down both masts. We saw two—both masts were standing, which is pretty rare. In all the rest that I have dove, either they have fallen off, because boats come across them, anchors wreck them, [or] divers damage them.”
A fiber-optic cable survey of the lake from Buffalo to Toronto alerted experts to an anomaly sitting on the lakebed, leading experts to surmise it could be the Rapid City vessel, an 1884-built schooner lost in 1917.
Now, though, they don’t think it can be that recent a wreckage.
James Conolly, Trent University archaeologist and diver, said there were features that just weren’t common for ships built after 1850, a period that experienced a bit of a technological leap for Great Lakes ships. Post-1850s ships had metal rigging, whereas the one found is rope-rigged. “It immediately puts it into, likely, the first half of the 19th century,” Conolly said.
Other features were different than what the team was expecting to find, including the ship having no wheel on the aft deck, an early windlass design, and no centerboard winch that became a standard movable keel for Great Lakes ships during the 1850s.
While the 1850s may have seen a modern boon for shipbuilding in the Great Lakes, the previous 50 years helped kickstart lake-travel trade, even if the ships built were commonly lost due to storms and mishaps. Much of the history of the era is also lost.
“This is deep enough that I don’t think anyone’s been on it,” Chak said. “I think we’re the first group and that joy was just overwhelming.”
Not everyone is so readily convinced. Charles Beeker, a Great Lakes shipwreck expert and professor at Indiana University, told the CBC it’s too early to say the vessel is from 1800 to 1850. “I don’t want to diminish the value of it,” he said. “They may be able to identify the vessel, maybe identify the shipyard, and that would be useful to look at an actual intact vessel on the bottom to compare to what little we do have in terms of drawings, and tonnage, and information from these vessels, and the older you go, the less information we have.”
More in U.S.
“Jeopardy” champ arrested on charges of felony secret peeping
Entertainment Weekly55
Video of giant snake with unexpected discovery in its stomach sparks outrage: ‘Definitely not what we want’
The Cool Down106
Alabama: Woman who alleged priest paid her for sex beginning at 17 says there’s ‘no real winner’ after his resignation
The Guardian1.3K
Layers of invasive quagga mussels cover much of the woodwork, eroding the detailing. “Where a wreck might once have survived intact for centuries,” Conolly said, “we now have only decades to study it before biological and environmental factors take their toll.”
The team plans to further explore the wreck, hoping to get more detailed measurements, photography, and wood sampling to pinpoint the ship’s age and history.
“We don’t know, but if it is really that era,” Chak said, “from 1800 to 1850, I think we will have even more celebration because we hit the jackpot where there is very little history or studied documented material about shipwrecks, ships, or shipbuilding in that era.”
You Might Also Like
-
The Do’s and Don’ts of Using Painter’s Tape
-
The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere
-
Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
The Surface Water Ocean Topography satellite captured high resolution measurements of this summer’s Pacific tsunami. The satellite imagery is the first of its kind, bringing new detail and insight to how these massive waves form.
Killer Grannies explores the terrifying boarding home kept by Dorothea Puente, who allegedly buried one victim alive.
Oxygen
Thomas Joe Kratzer was officially reported missing in February 2014 — and an investigation into what happened remains ongoing
People
Denny’s diner chain is closing many of its stores around the United States.
Yahoo News
The relentless early-season cold isn’t letting up, as multiple clipper systems will bring reinforcing shots of cold air into the weekend. Here’s when it will arrive, who it will affect and how cold it will get.
President Trump apparently made a big, pivotal decision while out on the golf course. The 79-year-old President of the United States spends a lot of time out on the golf course. President Trump, who took office in January, has already played dozens of rounds this year. He owns several courses in …
The Spun
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sparred with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl in a heated back-and-forth after she was confronted about her inflammatory rhetoric. Greene’s recent political transformation from MAGA loyalist to Trump critic came with a vow to stop “taking part in toxic politics.” But her appearance Sunday on CBS News’s 60 Minutes suggested that the Georgia congresswoman, who intends to resign from Congress next month, isn’t quite ready to tone down her trademark combativeness.
The Daily Beast
Pamela Smith, who was catapulted into national attention after President Donald Trump moved to federalize Washington’s police force and who worked to confront rising violence in the nation’s capital, is stepping down as the city’s police chief, Mayor Muriel Bowser said Monday. Smith, appointed in 2023, had been brought in to stabilize a department facing staffing shortages and a city shaken by post-pandemic crime.
Associated Press
Firefly popularized space westerns, but few shows since have captured its spirit as perfectly as this overlooked show.
Kristi Noem squirmed when confronted with reports that her alleged boyfriend—and top adviser—may cost her her job. The Homeland Security Secretary nervously laughed off rumors that Donald Trump is considering firing her over her extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, which has been dubbed as D.C.’s “worst-kept secret.” “I don’t have any indication of that,” Noem, 54, said during an event at Tampa International Airport in Florida on Monday.
The Daily BeastPowered by WPeMatico