Augustus W. Snow
We actually marked this wreck in the summer
of 2003, but at the time weren't ready to dive it, and then got sidetracked
on a few others in deep water. Besides the depth, this is a challenging dive due
to poor visibility as well. It seems to be in an area of particularly fine
mud, and a constant current causes the bottom 30-40 ft. of the water column
to be very cloudy. It's frustrating to cruise down through a very
clear water column only to have the visibility go to hell in the last few
feet. Visibility couldn't have been any better than 5 feet on two
dives a week apart.
While I'm not entirely positive yet, this is very likely to be the Augustus W.
Snow and I'll take the chance of assigning a name rather than a moniker
until I'm certain. The Snow was a 4-masted wooden schooner build in Brewer, Maine
in 1909. It was 183 ft. in length with a 36 ft. beam and displaced 671
tons. It was owned by the Crowell & Thurlow Steamship company at the
time of its sinking in 1940. It was likely scuttled based on its
location in the general area of the dumping grounds. A rough survey
with a reel seems to indicate a ship of approximately this size, and a quick
search of the records shows no other wooden ship of this size to have gone
down in the area. The photo on the right shows the ship after a
collision in 1905 - it was kept afloat and repaired.
The remains of the deck can be found at around 275 ft. Most of the
decking is gone now, but a few areas remain intact. We saw many very
large anemones on the beams and on the sides of the wreck, and almost all
were fully extended feeding on all the material in the water. This
would be a beautifully colorful wreck if you could see more. The
photos I managed to take are very poor quality for the same reason - the
light scatter was significant and my photographic skills are non-existent.
We'll come back to this wreck later in the season when the visibility may
be better to see if we can get some better pictures and to see if there are
any items left behind that we can bring up.
A cross beam with the remains of decking attached.
Large anemones cover much of the large beams and the sides of the
ship.
A cluster of anemones cling to a large beam fallen into the hold.
A section of the wreck with decking still intact. | 
