Brass Schooner
We dove this large schooner at the end of
the 2009 season in late September. It's located within the boundaries
of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, but also within the old
dumping grounds. It's very large, likely 200 ft. or more in length,
and is likely scuttled as it's empty. It does appear that there are
spars lying across the wreck, but none of the cabling or rigging one would
expect to see if sunk unintentionally. I named it the Brass Schooner
because Jeff Goodreau came up from the first dive convinced it was full of
brass after seeing some pins used to connect the inner and outer sections of
hull planking. He then used the "full of brass" story to get Ryan King's attention as
Ryan was unable to join us for the dive.
The wreck sits completely upright in 300 FSW on a mud bottom that limits
visibility to around 10-15ft. Our drop line landed near one of the
sides, and Jack and I swam across the wreck and briefly down a side before
turning back. We have no idea what section of the wreck we explored as
visibility was limited and we did not reach either of the ends. The decking is completely gone, but cross-members remain
largely intact, and large spars lie across the beams here and there.
The wreck is definitely empty, and has a profile of approximately 15ft. The
outer hull has largely disappeared, leaving the connecting pins exposed as
mentioned above.
This one will be difficult or impossible to identify, and is likely not
worth a second dive. But it's another example of the large sailing
ships that once formed the basis of local commerce, and was worth this one
dive. |
