Re: P M 18, or Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 ?

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: I continue to be astounded that nobody's found the M&B2 yet. However, there are plenty of unsubstantiated claims to having found her. I wouldn't be surprised if, after her find is finally announced, divers come forward and claim to have been diving her "for years." : As to the PM18, one of the mains reasons I'm interested in finding her is precisely that she is probably not divable by most tech divers and would be accessible only by ROV. It would spare us all the usual tech diver chest thumping and sniping about who gets to dive it first and which divers had the proper tech diving philosophy, and who took what from the wreck. : The problem is the distance from shore. Unlike the M&B2, we know for certain the PM18s location within a 5 mi by 5 mi grid. We have a trail of boxcars pointing to her and eyewitness accounts from vessels that were there when she went down. It's largely a matter of time, equipment and weather. : : : We all know about the carferry "Milwaukee", lost off Milwaukee's northern suburbs on Oct. 22, : : : 1929, but not found until 1976 (but, happily, well within safe diving limits!!). And there's been : : : much discussion on this board recently about the Pere Marquette 18, lost 19 or 20 miles off : : : Sheboygan, Wisconsin on Sept. 9, 1910. As most of us know, the PM 18 had a wireless, and : : : called for and received help from a sister ship, the PM 17, which arrived just as PM 18 listed : : : heavily to starboard, and sank stern first. There were 33 survivors, and apparently 28 deaths. : : : Before this desperate final act, PM 18's Captain Kilty ordered that many of the freight cars : : : be run off the stern to lighten ship (to deal with an influx of water filling the lower compartments : : : (perhaps from a fractured stern tube, a broken stern gland, or maybe a failed sea cock. : : : But realistically, I'm looking at NOAA Chart No. 14903, showing the west shore of Lake Michigan : : : out to mid-lake in the Sheboygan area. All the depths in the areas about 20 miles east of : : : Sheboygan are over 350 feet! I agree, it would be terrific to find PM 18, but for those of us : : : who dive, well 350 + feet may as well be in the Marianas Trench, unless you own a submersible. : : : In reading through the comments about PM 18, only Ross Richardson mentioned the near- : : : sister to PM 18 and S.S. Milwaukee, the "Marquette & Bessemer No. 2", lost in (you guessed : : : it) another miserable autumn storm, but this time on Lake Erie, presumable somewhere between : : : its last port of Conneaut, Ohio and its destination, Port Stanley, Ontario, with over 30 freight : : : cars on board, and the loss of its entire crew (variously reported as 31 to 38 crew, and perhaps : : : one unfortunate passenger. : : : Now there were three major carferry disasters in the Great Lakes in the 20th Century: The : : : Marquette & Bessemer No. 2, on Dec. 7, 1909, the PM 18 the following year on Sept. 9, 1910, : : : and the Milwaukee on Oct. 22, 1929. All three involved total losses, all involved 338-foot : : : railroad carferries (338 x 55 x 19.5), and all were constructed by American Shipbuilding in : : : Cleveland, Ohio. Of the three, only PM 18 had a wireless, so only PM 18 got any help when : : : it ran into trouble, and only PM 18 had any survivors. After the losses of near-sisters M & B : : : No. 2 and PM 18 within ten months, somebody apparently looked at the design (none of these : : : ships were originally equipped with stern gates). Milwaukee was then retro-fitted with a : : : stern gate, the twisted remains of which can still be seen dangling from its stern in a little over : : : 100 feet. : : : My point is that, with one exception, all the signs point to us hearing first about the M & B : : : No. 2 being found, way ahead of the PM 18. For one thing, there are a whole lot of divers : : : searching for the M & B No. 2 right now, and there almost seems to be a coordinated effort : : : of sorts to cooperate on search areas and grids. For another, Lake Erie is a lot smaller and : : : shallower lake. Think about it. Most of Lake Erie is 100 feet in depth or less, and the deepest : : : point in the entire lake is only 200 feet! Lake Michigan has a whole lot of underwater real : : : estate, including the entire area off Sheboygan, at depths greater than 300 feet, and the : : : deepest spot on Lake Michigan is well over 800 feet. The only thing PM 18 has going for : : : it, is that it left survivors from its crew, plus the crew of the Pere Marquette 17, who saw it : : : sink and who have left at least a rough idea (no GPS coordinates in 1910, sadly!) where it is. : : : But that advantage is largely offset by the fact that searchers for the M & B No. 2 have already : : : covered such a wide area of likely resting spots, on both sides of Long Point on the Canadian : : : Lake Erie shore, and along a wide swath between Erieau and Conneaut, and Port Stanley : : : and Conneaut. : : : So there you have it. My money is on the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2. I'm betting that : : : those of us who love the carferry Milwaukee will be loading our dive gear into our cars in the : : : next two or three summers to visit the Canadian Lake Erie shore, and compare notes on the : : : similarities and differences between the two wrecks. : : : If you think about it, what's really amazing is that the M & B No. 2 hasn't been found already : : : (if indeed it hasn't -- I got an e-mail about a week ago from an Ontario boater, reporting yet : : : another rumor that some divers were sent out to investigate a pinched underwater gas line : : : [Come on -- are there gas lines just laid along the lake floor anywhere in the Great Lakes?] : : : they dropped : : : directly onto four railroad cars on the bottom, and found the gas line draped right over them, and : : : and over a nearby shadowy object which of course turned out to be the M & B -- but they're : : : keeping quiet until they can have some fun exploring to their heart's content before reporting : : : it, etc. etc) : : : But I digress. The thing is, how the heck has it taken so long to find a ship that must stand : : : (as the Milwaukee does) at least 40 feet off the bottom, in a lake with an average depth of : : : 100 feet!!!??? You'd think your depth sounder/fish locater/sidescan sonar would jump off : : : its mounting when you idled over this underwater office building, wouldn't you?? : : : And that returns me to my original reaction to all the talk in this forum about finding the PM : : : 18. I hope we do find it, and soon. But look how long it's taken to find the M & B No. 2, : : : in what you'd have to think is a much smaller and shallower target area. : : : : I did some diving in Lake Erie off Long Point,we had hooked up with a guy who had purchased a bunch of “hot” numbers, about ten years ago. He claimed to have the numbers to the M&B #2. To make a long story, involving a bunch of idiots, short; I actually wound up doing a ten minute drop to 190-feet on the alleged M&B #2. The ship turned out to be an old wooden steamer that had burned down to the main deck, at least in the bow area that I was on. I was really surprised to find that the bottom area around Long Point is so soft that most of this ship was under the mud- the bottom was at 190, and the main deck was 185. I think the main reason that the M&B #2 hasn’t been found may be that it is under the Lake bottom in the area off Long Point

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