Posted by Brendon Baillod on December 30, 19103 at 01:18:19:
In Reply to: Re: Lake Huron #1 Lake for Shipwrecks? posted by Robert Underhill on December 29, 19103 at 21:02:54:
Most of the wrecks along the east shore are buried in the sand under the beaches. The vast majority of Lake Michigan wrecks were caused by vessels being driven on the sand bars and torn to pieces. I identified a total of 50 historical total loss wrecks in Oceana County waters alone. There are considerably more in the counties to the north and south where larger towns attracted more vessels. However, the main wreck locations on Lake Michigan are the areas around Chicago and Milwaukee. Huron and Erie probably have the most divable wrecks, but Michigan probably has the largest number of wrecks overall. That said, the number of wrecks between Michigan, Huron and Erie is very close.
BB
: I suppose my intuition is a bit skewed, having spent a life time diving what little shipwrecks there are along Lake Michigan’s east shore.
: RGU
: : Swayze's book is way out of date from his
: online database. Lake Michigan leads Lake Huron by a narrow margin.
: : BB
: : : : I just got Dave Swayze's book, SHIPWRECK! and was surprised to find in his research that Lake Huron leads Lake Michigan 33% to 21% for lake with the most shipwrecks. It is based only on the 3,673 wrecks in his data base does anyone know if this difference would hold if we added all possible wrecks?
: : : : thanks,
: : : : Dave
: : : I don’t think this is all that surprising. The two major cargos moving on the Lakes 100 years ago were: grain moving up and around from ports along the Wisconsin shore to the East Coast, and iron ore coming down from Lake Superior to the steel mills in Cleveland. That is why the majority of wrecks at Whitefish Point were built to haul iron ore, while most of the wrecks in the Straights were grain haulers. Lake Huron has always had more shipping traffic. It is only logical to assume that it would have more wrecks