What is a Heritage Wreck?

[Diver0001]

What should define wrecks to be protected?

Does a blanket approach (ie. all shipwrecks and aircraft wrecks underwater for X number of years) good or bad?

Well...... clearly the risk you run with picking a random date is both of including wrecks that are just old junk and excluding what are probably bona fide heritage sites (consider the Edmund Fitzgerald) but that aren't old enough to fit the criteria yet. It also seems ridiculous to me that a wreck could be free for plundering (I mean diving) for let's say 50 years and THEN get protected...... that's the world on it's head. If it's worth protecting after 50 years then you have to protect it from the moment it sinks.

I think a better blanket inclusion is "ALL unowned wrecks" period. That's clear for everybody.

R..

 

[Kennedydive]

I'm not trying to be a smart as# but what makes the Edmund Fitzgerald special?
Thanks Jason

 

[Ontario Diver]

I'm not trying to be a smart as# but what makes the Edmund Fitzgerald special?
Thanks Jason

She was very well known on the lakes. She was also the biggest ship lost in years and years.

If I remember correctly she held a number of load records, largest vessel ever sunk on the Great Lakes, deepest dive on the great lakes. I think she had the largest crew ever lost at one time but I could be wrong.

Oh yeah and a Gordon Lightfoot song.

Was she a cultural icon? Probably. Salvagable? Probably not at 530 ft deep.

Should a ship like this be protected?

 

[Kennedydive]

I believe the SS Atlantic in Lake Erie lost many more then the 29 men on the Fitzgerald. If it hadn't sunk would anyone have cared about the records she had broke if she had have outlived her time and was scrapped in the yards? Publicity is the only thing that makes this wreck a name that most across both borders recognize. A tragedy indeed but as are most wrecks many with no survivors to tell the story. I feel the same about the Titanic. The only historical significant event that happened was the first broadcasting of the SOS. Another tragedy, but not necessarily a Heritage Site.
Jason

She was very well known on the lakes. She was also the biggest ship lost in years and years.

If I remember correctly she held a number of load records, largest vessel ever sunk on the Great Lakes, deepest dive on the great lakes. I think she had the largest crew ever lost at one time but I could be wrong.

Oh yeah and a Gordon Lightfoot song.

Was she a cultural icon? Probably. Salvagable? Probably not at 530 ft deep.

Should a ship like this be protected?