[cripplecreek]

Very long but very cool story with plenty of pics. The ship is in pretty good shape for being down there since 1899.

[cripplecreek]

Michigan shipwreck story.



Michigan legislative action thread

[SamAdams76]

The cold waters down there definitely helped preserve it.

Back in 1899, the U.S. economy was thriving. Many ships plied the waters of the Great Lakes, shipping merchandise all over the world.

[Larry Lucido]

Cool!

[Molon Labbie]

Very cool indeed. Even keel and everything.

[CrazyIvan]

Very cold, dark water. Preserves stuff pretty well. I’m a diver and have been down 100’+ in a Midwest reservoir. It’s way deeper and colder in Lake Michigan. Not my idea of pleasure diving.

[Impala64ssa]

But still no sign of Jimmy Hoffa?

[JoeProBono]

[SkyDancer]

Be neat if they could bring something like that back up.

[MRadtke]

Interesting article. I actually dove the bow of the Eber Ward last week in the Straits of Mackinac. Also the Sandusky, the William H. Barnum, and the St. Andrew. The guy I dove the Ward and Sandusky with took some video with a go pro. When I can get a copy I'll try to put it on You-tube and post the link here.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Wow!

[MeshugeMikey]

she’s in remarkable condition!!

[tanknetter]

The ship is in pretty good shape for being down there since 1899.

You should go look at some of the WWII crashed aircraft that have been recovered from Lake Michigan (there were two paddle-wheel training aircraft carriers that operated there during the war) over the years. A good number of which have been restored and returned to flight.

The big issue now is that the Lake is being invaded by Zebra Mussels. The most recent (I think) warbird recovery - a rare early Birdcage F4U Corsair - was covered in them.

[EternalVigilance]

It’s a cool story, but it’s also notable that this is a very well-written article. How refreshing that is.

[umgud]

Kewl post. It’s like getting a free education here at FR.

[867V309]

John V. Moran

Moran, huh? FR should adopt it.

Now if they could just find the S.S. Maroon...

[Rebelbase]

” The last confirmed sighting of the ship happened a couple of days later, on Sunday afternoon, when a passing railcar ferry radioed shore to report the ship still afloat.”

I’m skeptical about this sentence in the article. commercial wireless radio was still in the womb in early 1899.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

My great, great grandfather was lost when the schooner, ‘Oceans’ went down in a storm on lake Michigan in 1845. The schooner was carrying lumber from Sault St Marie to Chicago. This in 1845.

Not knowing this when I was younger, I wanted to have a summer or two crewing on a Great Lakes freighter. And at the time I was in Iowa, a native of Des Moines.

Later I did live some of that dream, by sailing on Lake Erie. I sailed the breadth of Lake Erie, and across it to Canada. Experience to last several lifetimes!

[Nailbiter]

interesting ping

[justiceseeker93]

Fascinating story. But one obvious historical error by the author:

The last confirmed sighting of the ship happened a couple of days later, on Sunday afternoon, when a passing railcar ferry radioed shore to report the ship still afloat.

No way. Radio did not exist in 1899. It was invented by Marconi in the first decade of the 1900s. (It was used, BTW, by the Titanic to alert a rescue ship, but that was 1912.)

Would anyone know anything about John V. Moran, the man for whom the ship was named?

[bert]

A few years back, I visited the Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola. We were guided by a 90 year old WW II Hell Cat pilot. He related a great tale. For his 80th birth birthday he received a great present, flying a Hell Cat retrieved from Lake Michigan and painstakingly rebuilt by the guys at the museum.

It turns out they actually have several. The Navy built a practice carrier in Lake Michigan for landings. There were many failed landing attempts and many planes in the water. The pure clear water preserved rather than damaged the air craft. When retrieved the volunteers could clean them up and put in flying condition.

The practice carrier was in Lake Michigan rather than at Pensacola because of danger from submarine attack

BTW.... that museum is in my view superior to that at Wright Patterson