should the Great Lakes sink ship like the Oriskany?

[scubapolly]

I think, at least for me, one of the draws of the ships in the great lakes is that they "are as they were". Nothing like penetrating a ship and finding hand tools and dishes still in place. When they sink a ship, they are completely stripped nothing but a skeleton.
Also I don't think we want the crowd that a publicized ship like the Oransky or the Spiegle Grove would bring. The Great Lakes is a dive destination for DIVERS, not simply people who might do a dive while on vaction. The last thing I want is to hop on a dive boat in Lake Huron and find out one of the other guests on the boat is doing his first dive in 6 years, has never dove in water colder than 80 degrees and is planning on doing a dive to 120 on a single AL 80 with a K-valve and decided to do the dives because he heard so much Hype about the wreck.

 

[captndale]

I will be diving the S.S. Wisconsin on Sunday. She is an intact, upright, steel freighter-passenger ship that sank off of Kenosha in 1929. A real wreck with history, ghosts and all. There's room for a couple more divers.

 

[do it easy]

The Wisconcin is a great dive, and I recommend Captain Dale too! If you want to get into the history of it, check out the sister ship- the Milwaukee.

They sank about a month apart (one on Black Tuesday), about 2 miles from each other, and at roughly the same depth and attitude.

 

[PerroneFord]

Also I don't think we want the crowd that a publicized ship like the Oransky or the Spiegle Grove would bring. The Great Lakes is a dive destination for DIVERS, not simply people who might do a dive while on vaction. The last thing I want is to hop on a dive boat in Lake Huron and find out one of the other guests on the boat is doing his first dive in 6 years, has never dove in water colder than 80 degrees and is planning on doing a dive to 120 on a single AL 80 with a K-valve and decided to do the dives because he heard so much Hype about the wreck.

Do try to remember the Oriskany is currently on its way to *212ft*. I don't think you'll find many "first dive in 6 years" divers on her. The deck is at 160 if I remember correctly.

 

[scubapolly]

Do try to remember the Oriskany is currently on its way to *212ft*. I don't think you'll find many "first dive in 6 years" divers on her. The deck is at 160 if I remember correctly.

212 sound right, but I believe the deck will be at 130, with top of the boat at 60 feet. The ops seem to be playing responsible requiring at least 2 dives in the past 2 years, etc. Doesn't mean some schmuck isnt going to decide to run his personal boat out there to "check it out", or falsify their log book 'cause they heard it was a great dive...etc.

Ive seen the same thing on the Spiegle. I have seen some real ugliness out there from divers diving off of personal boats or boats rented from Pennecamp. (I should mention that I have often rented a boat at Pennecamp and taken it out to the spiegle to dive with my buddies- mainly after the spiegle righted itself after the hurricane- in order to avoid all of the "I heard about it in the news" divers", and because we could dive on our own schedule, double or tripple dip on here with decent SIs.)

 

[Eeyore48104]

If they can (supposedly) get a DE (destroyer escort) into a lake in Arkansas, why can't we get a CV (or even a DE) into Lake Michigan. (I still haven't gotten there but it's on the list. ;-) )
The Navy trained more than just air crews and carrier crews at Great Lakes - my father did his boot camp there and they had other ships in port to "play" on.

 

[moneysavr]

One point missed by all is its been try ed in Wisconsin's side of Lakemichigan and our fine DNR screwed it all up! a fine scuba club from Green bay did all the prep work on several rigs and cleaned and made them dive safe and diver friendly and one ended up in Chicago sunk the other?
The point is Lake Michigan is in real deep do-do !! as now we have a new type of muscle invasive species that loves the cold deep waters as we all know with this great vis we all now enjoy it comes at a major cost, as the waters are filtered by these invasive species alga-es tend to run out further into the lake and die offs can stink up the beaches and do cover our shallow wrecks more than ever!

That said were did the fish go,whiting,perch,white fish,smelt,alewife? well overfishing years back did not help but invasive species and their shock to the Eco system has some effect and I don't need no stinking 5 year research grant to add 1+1=3!

Any diver that has dived let say some of the Great lakes I have only have 3 under my belt and swam off of the wreck they were diving will notice most of the Great lakes or the 3 I dove, have not much of a bottom structure in areas were small fish would breed/live as any wreck diver will attest to in mid summer wrecks are a hatchery,why did the fish tugs love to fish wrecks? why cause they were hatchery's!
In salt water seems like on the ocean floor were they dump these wrecks after time they come to life! so why not the Great Lakes,I feel wrecks based off major city's were dive operators already run would be a win-win for all with the proper planing with folks in the know with the direct supervision by the dive operators doing charters not idiots like the type that sank the Spiegel Grove that really lucked out this past year!
Wrecks for the Great lakes are all over,Up In Marionette is a car ferry,The coast guard is decommissioning Great lake Buoy tenders/Icebreakers yearly! a pal got one several years back for a buck and had to make it non profit for several years before going profit.Cost to clean them up are the basics like bunker oil,asbestos that should but cant be encapsulated,paint if Left alone is fine as it gets a coating and goes no were,and to make it div-able and safe major money but ways can be found hell Florida is doing it! Illinois has done it,why cant we! My 3 cents
Brad

 

[Tamas]

The Wolfe Islander II in Kingston, Ontario is a ferry sunk as a dive site. And I believe there is a boat or two specifically sunk for diving in Tobermory. But getting anything really big here would be problematic. And I probably wouldn't be as interested in diving it as I would a "real" wreck anyway.

We've got so many incredible wrecks in the Great Lakes already. And many are within recreational limits.

I wouldn't complain! I had the chance to dive most of the popular wrecks in lake Ontario or in the St. Lawrence, and some "new blood" would be nice.

The Niagara II was purposely sunk in Tobermory and according to the shop we dove with last year people often ask to spend both of their dives there instead of moving to another (historical) wreck.
Ber :lilbunny:

That mostly has to do with her size and the fact that it's a playground. Whenever I dive her, I always do a double dip or one long one while the others are doing their SI, then it becomes *my* ship, not a soul anywhere.

A lot of the local DS also use her for practice and OW/AOW dives, since the deck starts at 55' down to 95'. (and believe me I have been on that wreck when there was not a place to drop a penny on the deck from all the bodies -- and the silt they cause)

On the other hand, we could use a few more wreck around Toronto as well, currently there are 2 dive sites off the Toronto harbour but only one charter (with a zodiac) that runs to them. Drop a few more, and it would help with all the Toronto/GTA based divers migrating to Kingston/Brockville/Tobermory every weekend

 

[bladephotog]

I wouldn't complain! I had the chance to dive most of the popular wrecks in lake Ontario or in the St. Lawrence, and some "new blood" would be nice.
...

Uh, I wasn't complaining. I enjoyed diving the Wolfe Islander. Not as much as I enjoyed the Marsh or the Munson. But the Wolfe was a fun dive.

 

[CD_in_Chitown]

In salt water seems like on the ocean floor were they dump these wrecks after time they come to life! so why not the Great Lakes,I feel wrecks based off major city's were dive operators already run would be a win-win for all with the proper planing with folks in the know with the direct supervision by the dive operators doing charters

Pshaw! We've got the Mackinac and they're prepping the Buccaneer as we speak, these are perfect rec depth, training type wrecks that are diver sanitized. When we really want to dive we'll drive up your way and find the good wrecks that lay a bit deeper and are thus better preserved, as well as protected from scavengers for the most part by some Wisconsin bureau or another.

Artificial reefs in salt-water grow life over a short time, ie the HMS Saskatchewan in BC, but fresh-water wrecks don't have the same cycle, ie the Car Ferry or the St. Albans, after a number of dives on both of these wrecks wihch have been submerged for nearly a century I can count the number of fish seen on one hand.

But if I wanted to see fish I'd head to the NW, what I want is the real history and the stories behind the mariners that risked it all to run these lakes 100+ years ago.