CHATHAM, Massachusetts (8 Nov 2003) -- After a 25-year hunt, a Cape Cod marine search-and-survey company earlier this week located the wreck of the Wyoming, the largest wooden sailing vessel built to carry cargo. The Wyoming was discovered near Monomoy Island, nearly a century after it went down in a gale off the coast of Chatham. Likened to the supertankers of today, the six-masted Wyoming, launched in 1909, could carry 6,004 tons of cargo. The sailing ship was so big - 329.5 feet long, 50.1 feet wide and with a draft of 30.4 feet - its builders used iron straps around the outside of the vesselto provide more reinforcement for the hull. But according to John Fish, vice president of American Underwater Search and Survey Ltd. of Cataumet, the extra strapping was not enough to weather the storm. Fish surmised that the ship, carrying a full load of coal, may have struck the bottom in a trough between huge storm waves and broke its back. Searchers discovered the ship was shattered amidships, which supports the theory that it struck bottom and sank. The wreck was found Monday, the first and only day this year the company had been able to use its sophisticated underwater side-scan sonar and magnetometer, Fish said. The company was able to locate the vessel and confirm its discovery both by the vessel's length and the presence of the iron strapping. Fish said the firm would study the wreck in more detail and map it. But because it went down with all 13 hands on board, the wreck is really a gravesite, too, and Fish and his colleagues will treat it accordingly. Fish declined to identify the precise location of the wreck, but said it was a few miles northeast of Pollock Rip, a section of rough water to the southeast of Monomoy Island. It is an area filled with the wrecks of many ships, some of which American Underwater Search and Survey have identified. Perhaps the biggest find in recent years, however, has been the firm's confirmed location of the steamship Portland, which went down during a fierce storm in November 1898 with a loss of between 150 and 200 passengers and crew on board. | | 'Wyoming' - 329.5 ft super cargo carrier In 1989, the company announced it had found the Portland's resting place, confirmed in part by the discovery of the large metal "walking beams," which connected the steam engine pistons to the paddlewheels on either side of the steamer. But the company did not publicize the location of the Portland for many years. Last summer, it gave the coordinates of the wreck to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, since the Portland was within the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, about 400 feet deep. The sanctuary is managed by NOAA, which used high-tech equipment to photograph and record the location of the wreck. |
