MSilvia
Contributor
Several years ago, my parents invited me to a meeting of the Scituate Historical Society at which Ben Cowie-Haskell from the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary would be giving a presentation on the Portland and several other wrecks following a nice dinner at Pier 44 on Scituate Harbor. I've never been one to say no to the combination of shipwrecks and dinner, so I happily attended and enjoyed both the food and the lecture.
Following the presentation, I asked Ben if there were any plans to dive on the many wrecks they'd found within the sanctuary, and he told me that they were planning to use an ROV for much of the work on the Portland, but that they were planning to go out and investigate some of them in person when they found the time. I offered to help out if there was anything I could do, and over the course of the next several months I stopped by the NOAA sanctuary headquarters several times to meet folks there, talk with Ben about the progress they were making, and eventually get the necessary paperwork, medical forms, and dive history processed so that I could do a check out dive and get my NOAA Observer Diver qualifications so that I could join recon missions and be legit.
I was very excited about doing some dives on "virgin" wrecks, but it was months before I got a call. Unfortunately, the day before we were scheduled to go out I found out the dives were being called off. Someone had offered the use of a side-scan sonar for that day, and they rightly felt they could learn more in a day of imaging multiple wrecks than they could in a day of diving one of them. It was almost a year before I got another email asking if I was still interested.
Naturally, I said I was, and I was assigned to a volunteer team consisting of myself, a couple members of the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, and an underwater videographer. My team was given a packet containing non-disclosure agreements (no, I can't tell you where the wrecks are), sonar images of the wrecks, their locations, and such other information they had been able to piece together. Yesterday, we went out to have a look.
I arrived at the dock at 5:45am, and by quarter past six was loaded in and getting the tour of Marcie Billinski's boat, a beautiful Sea-Ray with all the comforts and electronics you could reasonably ask for. She showed me where the drinks were, where the sandwich fixins were, and then pulled out a bag of banannas. She started to say how she had gotten them for snacks, then paused and said "These are bad luck on boats, aren't they?" I nodded, Butch (who was to shoot video) shrugged and said he wasn't superstitious, and Marcie put the bag back on the dock.
We left promptly as scheduled, and were making good time out to the coordinates for our first site, which the sonar image indicated was two wrecks right beside one another in just over 100fsw. Unfortunately, halfway there the bottom sounder cut out on us.
Marcie switched it off and turned on the fishfinder, which likewise failed to give any reading. We all discussed the issue, did a little troubleshooting, and decided there must be something interfering with the transducer they both used. We continued on with no way to locate the wreck in the hope that we'd be able to sort it out once we got there. Shortly before we arrived, we bounced over a wave hard enough to shake the sun shroud off from one of the instruments, and the depth finder suddenly started reporting again.
Unfortunately, when we got out to the site, the water depth was over 180fsw. Clearly something wasn't right, and we assumed it was an error in the coordinates. The chart confirmed the depth the fishfinder reported.
About that time, Butch noticed we had less than a quarter tank of fuel in each engine... the result of Marcie breaking with her regular practice of fueling according to the log book, and instead relying on what turned out to be inaccurate fuel gauges. We headed for the nearest land, and an hour or so later were refueling at Race Point in Provincetown. Discouraged with our not having been in the right place, I was going over charts and the numbers we were given, and trying to figure out what had gone wrong. To my suprise, I discovered a second set of coordinates that were different from the ones we visited... or at least, they appeared to be.
This was news to everyone on board, so I'll fill you in on something we learned: There are (at least) two popular systems used for Lat/Long coordinates. The first, which the onboard navigation system used, breaks each degree into 60 minutes. The second breaks each degree into decimal units. In other words, what the first system calls 42.30 (42 degrees 30 minutes) the second calls 42.50 (42.5 degrees). We had entered the decimal coordinates into our minutes-based navigation system and had understandably gone to the wrong location.
Now fueled up and squared away, we headed off to what we hoped was the correct location... sure enough, the depth was as expected.
After making numerous passes over the spot however, we saw nothing but flat bottom on the fishfinder, and began to suspect that both wrecks might have a cover of sand over them. We decided to check out the second site instead, and motored over to what we suspected was a fishing trawler that was sunk as part of an insurance fraud scam. We located it quickly, and dropped a shotline with a ball on the end to mark the position.
There appeared to be a strong current at the surface however, and a combination of polypro' line and insufficient weight made for a line that went out too slowly, and wasn't at all secure on the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a second try.
We had a second marker with nylon line that was spooled between to lobster bouys on the same stick. The only problem was we didn't know how much line was on it. Naturally, our luck held and while the line spooled out quickly and smoothly, it never seemed to touch the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a third try.
This time, we added weight to the polypro line and put the whole thing overboard so the boat wouldn't drag it off if it dropped slowly. It fouled, and never touched the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a fourth try.
For our forth attempt, 'Plan D', we found a package of green nylon line that was 300' long, and spooled 130' of it on the double ended bouy from the second attempt. We added extra weight, found the wreck, and I put it over the side. It spooled out for a minute, then exploded into a rat's nest. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a fifth try.
It was time to simplify. We pulled one of the bouys off of that contraption, fed one end of a 130' length of nylon line though it, tied it off, then spooled the remaining line around it and weighted the end. It worked, but we figured we better mark it with a second bouy while we could. We coiled the polypro' line in a milk crate, weighted one end with a couple of window weights, and put a ball on the other. This time, it spooled out nicely and seemed to stay put. Hooray!
Following the presentation, I asked Ben if there were any plans to dive on the many wrecks they'd found within the sanctuary, and he told me that they were planning to use an ROV for much of the work on the Portland, but that they were planning to go out and investigate some of them in person when they found the time. I offered to help out if there was anything I could do, and over the course of the next several months I stopped by the NOAA sanctuary headquarters several times to meet folks there, talk with Ben about the progress they were making, and eventually get the necessary paperwork, medical forms, and dive history processed so that I could do a check out dive and get my NOAA Observer Diver qualifications so that I could join recon missions and be legit.
I was very excited about doing some dives on "virgin" wrecks, but it was months before I got a call. Unfortunately, the day before we were scheduled to go out I found out the dives were being called off. Someone had offered the use of a side-scan sonar for that day, and they rightly felt they could learn more in a day of imaging multiple wrecks than they could in a day of diving one of them. It was almost a year before I got another email asking if I was still interested.
Naturally, I said I was, and I was assigned to a volunteer team consisting of myself, a couple members of the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources, and an underwater videographer. My team was given a packet containing non-disclosure agreements (no, I can't tell you where the wrecks are), sonar images of the wrecks, their locations, and such other information they had been able to piece together. Yesterday, we went out to have a look.
I arrived at the dock at 5:45am, and by quarter past six was loaded in and getting the tour of Marcie Billinski's boat, a beautiful Sea-Ray with all the comforts and electronics you could reasonably ask for. She showed me where the drinks were, where the sandwich fixins were, and then pulled out a bag of banannas. She started to say how she had gotten them for snacks, then paused and said "These are bad luck on boats, aren't they?" I nodded, Butch (who was to shoot video) shrugged and said he wasn't superstitious, and Marcie put the bag back on the dock.
We left promptly as scheduled, and were making good time out to the coordinates for our first site, which the sonar image indicated was two wrecks right beside one another in just over 100fsw. Unfortunately, halfway there the bottom sounder cut out on us.
Marcie switched it off and turned on the fishfinder, which likewise failed to give any reading. We all discussed the issue, did a little troubleshooting, and decided there must be something interfering with the transducer they both used. We continued on with no way to locate the wreck in the hope that we'd be able to sort it out once we got there. Shortly before we arrived, we bounced over a wave hard enough to shake the sun shroud off from one of the instruments, and the depth finder suddenly started reporting again.
Unfortunately, when we got out to the site, the water depth was over 180fsw. Clearly something wasn't right, and we assumed it was an error in the coordinates. The chart confirmed the depth the fishfinder reported.
About that time, Butch noticed we had less than a quarter tank of fuel in each engine... the result of Marcie breaking with her regular practice of fueling according to the log book, and instead relying on what turned out to be inaccurate fuel gauges. We headed for the nearest land, and an hour or so later were refueling at Race Point in Provincetown. Discouraged with our not having been in the right place, I was going over charts and the numbers we were given, and trying to figure out what had gone wrong. To my suprise, I discovered a second set of coordinates that were different from the ones we visited... or at least, they appeared to be.
This was news to everyone on board, so I'll fill you in on something we learned: There are (at least) two popular systems used for Lat/Long coordinates. The first, which the onboard navigation system used, breaks each degree into 60 minutes. The second breaks each degree into decimal units. In other words, what the first system calls 42.30 (42 degrees 30 minutes) the second calls 42.50 (42.5 degrees). We had entered the decimal coordinates into our minutes-based navigation system and had understandably gone to the wrong location.
Now fueled up and squared away, we headed off to what we hoped was the correct location... sure enough, the depth was as expected.
After making numerous passes over the spot however, we saw nothing but flat bottom on the fishfinder, and began to suspect that both wrecks might have a cover of sand over them. We decided to check out the second site instead, and motored over to what we suspected was a fishing trawler that was sunk as part of an insurance fraud scam. We located it quickly, and dropped a shotline with a ball on the end to mark the position.
There appeared to be a strong current at the surface however, and a combination of polypro' line and insufficient weight made for a line that went out too slowly, and wasn't at all secure on the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a second try.
We had a second marker with nylon line that was spooled between to lobster bouys on the same stick. The only problem was we didn't know how much line was on it. Naturally, our luck held and while the line spooled out quickly and smoothly, it never seemed to touch the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a third try.
This time, we added weight to the polypro line and put the whole thing overboard so the boat wouldn't drag it off if it dropped slowly. It fouled, and never touched the bottom. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a fourth try.
For our forth attempt, 'Plan D', we found a package of green nylon line that was 300' long, and spooled 130' of it on the double ended bouy from the second attempt. We added extra weight, found the wreck, and I put it over the side. It spooled out for a minute, then exploded into a rat's nest. We chased it down, and retrieved the drifting marker for a fifth try.
It was time to simplify. We pulled one of the bouys off of that contraption, fed one end of a 130' length of nylon line though it, tied it off, then spooled the remaining line around it and weighted the end. It worked, but we figured we better mark it with a second bouy while we could. We coiled the polypro' line in a milk crate, weighted one end with a couple of window weights, and put a ball on the other. This time, it spooled out nicely and seemed to stay put. Hooray!
