New England wrecks for Google Earth

[sean22]

John,
This is the first day that we have been blown out, we even got a dive in yesterday AM before all h#ll broke loose!

We we're in Boston Harbor and out off of Hull on Sunday and Wednesday, off Manchester on Tuesday, and out off of Plymouth on Monday. We plan on heading to Sandwich and hit a couple spots in lower Cape Cod Bay tomorrow.

I think we all needed today to rest!

Dennis

It's been nasty in RI all week. There has been a big heave on for the last few days.
We are hoping to get to the Trojan tomorrow. We have a night dive at Castle Hill tonight. Let me guess, in Hull you dove the Kiowa, Manchester was the New Hampshire,
Plymouth was the Mars and Cape Cod Bay will be the Henry Endicott. Am I close?

 

[wreckedinri]

It's been nasty in RI all week. There has been a big heave on for the last few days.
We are hoping to get to the Trojan tomorrow. We have a night dive at Castle Hill tonight. Let me guess, in Hull you dove the Kiowa, Manchester was the New Hampshire,
Plymouth was the Mars and Cape Cod Bay will be the Henry Endicott. Am I close?

Actually, in Hull we dived the Mohave, in Manchester we dived the Gallatin and the Colburn - as well as the New Hampshire, in Plymouth we checked out the Colbrook, and in Cape Cod Bay today we hit the Catherine Marie. We had pretty good luck this week with getting out. With SW winds there is usually somewhere in MA that we can dive. Gary's off to dive with other people he knows in the Boston area and on to the "outside" of the Cape. He plans be back in a couple of weeks to spend a long weekend with us and hit the Poling Bow, Northern Voyager, and maybe the "Two Anchor" or Coyote if the weather cooperates.

Hope you get out this weekend. Gonna turn in now and get some much needed sleep!

Be Safe,
Dennis

 

[Diesel298]

whats the collbrook?

 

[wreckedinri]

whats the collbrook?

From an earlier post:

This wreck first piqued my interest when I read about it in Donald Ferris' book Exploring the waters of Cape Cod many years ago. There are LORAN coordinates in Mr. Ferris' book but no GPS #'s. Several weeks ago my dive partners and I headed out to locate the wreck using a LORAN unit that I installed during the winter. Fortunately Mr. Ferris provided accurate TD's and we found her in short order. We did not dive her that day as the weather was a bit too crappy for our liking to be doing a fairly deep dive. I wanted to know more about this wreck so I asked around.

Heather Knowles of Northern Atlantic Dive Expeditions was gracious enough to share this information with me in an e-mail on Thursday, June 22, 2006 10:31 AM.

"The COLEBROOK was originally thought to be the June K, but was later identified to be the Colebrook. The June K is a distinct wreck and is to the west of the Colebrook -- it was a wood tug -- low lying debris now, not much there. The Colebrook is a 55-foot long intact steel tug. It sits upright in about 150 feet of water with some good relief. It sank while towing a deck scow barge when it began taking on water in the engine room. Eric Takakjian used to dive it years ago when he ran the Grey Eagle. I have not been on it but have seen video -- vis can be very good there, but it can also be very dark. Have fun and let us know what the present condition of the wreck is."
-Heather Knowles

She was right on with her description of the wreck! However, the visibility was low at about 8 feet or so. It was over 40 until we got below 120fsw then it closed in dramatically. We had good light penetration but there was a lot of particulate matter in the water. The wreck is still intact and upright with some possible penetration into the wheelhouse, which is SMALL, as is the whole wreck. Its diminutive size makes it a difficult target to hook which is how we got on the wreck knowing that it was steel and not wood and thus we would not damage it with our smallish boat. On the 3rd try we hooked a hunk of net balled under the stem of the vessel. Next time we will drop a shot line and tie in onto the "H" bitt aft of the Wheelhouse. It is just a bit deeper than 150 as I hit 159fsw while crawling in the washout and scraping the screw to see what it is made of.

It is Bronze.

Regards,
Dennis

Please Note: I have seen the name of the wreck spelled two different ways, both as the COLBROOK and COLEBROOK. Donald Ferris wrote COLBROOK and Heather wrote COLEBROOK. I do not know which is correct:huh:. But hey, what's one letter among friends!

 

[Diesel298]

wow i dont know how i missed that.
thats sounds like a cool wreck worth checkin out
thanks

 

[wreckedinri]

wow i dont know how i missed that.
thats sounds like a cool wreck worth checkin out
thanks

We dived another neat little wreck called the Catherine Marie. It was also profiled in Donald Ferris' book. We located it with LORAN and some numbers that Gary had. She is a fishing vessel (dragger) in about 80fsw about 7 miles out from Sandwich Town Beach. Vis wasn't great at about 6 - 8 feet but I think that it can be very good there. There may be people around the Cape that are diving there but no one I spoke to knew anything about the wreck. I have the numbers but they are not solely mine to give away. I can't release them until I ask the others that helped if it's OK. Perhaps there is someone else out there that has been diving that wreck that also has the numbers that would part with them?

Dennis

 

[mstudley]

If anyone cares I'm starting in on this project again since I haven't been able to dive lately.

You can get the most recent kmz file (for Google Earth) from the link in the first post of this thread.

I haven't changed much since last year but I'm working on adding more locations/descriptions/images and looking for more input from all of you as to how I can make this project better/more useful.

If there are new numbers for knowns/unknowns you would like included in the project (and of course given proper recognition for them) please let me know.

Thanks everybody.

-- Matt

 

[wreckedinri]

If anyone cares I'm starting in on this project again since I haven't been able to dive lately.

You can get the most recent kmz file (for Google Earth) from the link in the first post of this thread.

I haven't changed much since last year but I'm working on adding more locations/descriptions/images and looking for more input from all of you as to how I can make this project better/more useful.

If there are new numbers for knowns/unknowns you would like included in the project (and of course given proper recognition for them) please let me know.

Thanks everybody.

-- Matt

This can be a neat little dive that affords easy access: Barge & Crane N41 29.241 W71 24.293 in Narragansett Bay

CHRONOLOGY OF OFFICIAL EVENTS:

At approximately 1:46 p.m. on December 23, 2004, the Coast Guard was notified that a 130' x 30' crane barge being towed by the tug HUDSON had capsized in the West Passage of Narragansett Bay. Current severe weather precludes an exact determination of the barge's position, or a determination of pollution, if any. No people were onboard the barge when it capsized. The Coast Guard is working with the barge's owner to mark the barge's position to alert mariners, and to arrange for salvage operations.

On December 29, 2004, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers located the sunken barge at exact location 41°-29'-14.5"N, 71°-24-17.5"W. The part of the barge nearest to the surface of the water is at a depth of 18.9' at Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW).

On December 30, 2004, the Coast Guard permitted certain shallow draft vessels to transit the waterway. Opening of the waterway to all vessel traffic was pending the placement of a lighted buoy to mark the sunken barge. The Coast Guard continues to work with the barge's owner to arrange for salvage operations.

On December 30, 2004, the Coast Guard established a red 'WR 8"
quick flashing buoy in position 41°-29'-14.5"N, 71°-24-20.5"W, to mark the sunken barge which remains at a depth of 18.9' at MLLW. This buoy will remain in place until the sunken barge is removed. The West Passage of Narragansett Bay is re-opened to all vessel traffic. However, vessels that choose to transit the West Passage of Narragansett Bay in the vicinity of the sunken barge should do so only by exercising extreme caution when navigating in this area.

On January 2, 2005, SS Divers descend on the site to explore and photograph the wreckage.

Dennis