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Students dive, document Sheboygan shipwreck

Phillip Bock
USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

SHEBOYGAN - A team of budding nautical archaeologists from East Carolina University dove below the waves of Lake Michigan last week to discover what treasures lay hidden on the sandy bottom.

Students from East Carolina University survey the Lake Michigan shipwreck of the Goodrich Steamer Atlanta, which caught fire and sunk just offshore in 1906.

Graduate students from the Maritime Studies Program at the school spent three weeks in Sheboygan learning underwater survey techniques to create a scale drawing of the Goodrich Steamer Atlanta, a shipwreck located offshore approximately 14 miles south of Sheboygan.

Built in 1891, The Atlanta, a 200 foot passenger and freight vessel, traveled the Great Lakes until March of 1906, when it caught fire and sank 14 miles south of Sheboygan. The ship's passengers were rescued and the Atlanta's charred remains were towed within 900 feet of the beach near Cedar Grove, where it remains submerged under 10 to 15 feet of water today.

“This thing really was demolished. It burned down to the water line, then it was towed in toward shore where it sunk to the bottom," East Carolina University Professor Bradley Rodgers said. "In the 1920's, salvage crews salvaged the boilers, propeller and other metal, but the hull is still in tact."

The students' first week in Sheboygan was plagued by poor weather, fog and a broken down boat, but by the second and third week the biggest obstacle they faced was the cold water. Students practiced diving in pools and lakes in North Carolina before coming to Sheboygan, but nothing could prepare them for the 43 degree water.

"I want to work up here in the Great Lakes, so I was one of two who volunteered to come to the cold water,” first-year graduate student Sophie Stuart said. “The reason we don’t have more divers coming up here is because of the elements.”

Students from East Carolina University survey the Lake Michigan shipwreck of the Goodrich Steamer Atlanta, which caught fire and sunk just offshore in 1906.

Students spent about an hour at a time in the water documenting the Atlanta, spending more than 100 hours total surveying the wreck. Armed with dry suits, diving equipment and drawing utensils, students draw the entire wreckage site in 10 foot by 10 foot segments while underwater and then combine the segments into one large scale drawing.

The students also take photographs and video of the wreckage. There were 13 involved in the project, including eight students, a dive safety instructor, three archaeologists from the Wisconsin Historical Society, and Professor Rodgers.

Surveying of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes is still a relatively new process. The first ship was documented in the 1980's, and Rodgers said they learn something new about the ships with each dive. The Atlanta, for example, was specifically built for the Great Lakes, and few diagrams or information remain on the ship.

"Every one of these we look at is different and raises are level of knowledge, which tells you about the society that constructed it,” Rodgers said. “You just don’t find these anywhere else. They are unique to the lakes.”

There are 176 known shipwrecks in Wisconsin and an estimated 600 more yet undiscovered, according to Caitlin Zant, a maritime archaeologist with the Wisconsin Historical Society. The society partners with the school on the dives and uses the data to petition to have the wrecks added to the National Historic Registry.

There are about 15 shipwrecks within the proposed boundary of the Lake Michigan National Marine Sanctuary.

“It’s another asset of the sanctuary,” Chad Pelishek, the City of Sheboygan's director of planning an development said of the shipwreck. “The sanctuary can play a key part in bringing in research groups like this to explore the sites and help the historical society document and preserve them."

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The school brings students to the Great Lakes every two years to document the different shipwrecks. They create survey maps of the wrecks, but do not disturb the ships or remove artifacts.

Students from East Carolina University survey the Lake Michigan shipwreck of the Goodrich Steamer Atlanta, which caught fire and sunk just offshore in 1906.

Pelishek said one potential goal of the marine sanctuary would be to develop an on-land shipwreck exhibit or museum.

The information gathered during the three-week dive expedition will be turned into a report by a student, who will use it as the basis for a thesis project.

“It’s a great opportunity for field work, because there are hundreds of wrecks out there," Rodgers said. "They are unique in the field, since they were crafts built just for the Great Lakes.”

 Phillip Bock: 920-453-5121 or pbock@sheboyganpress.com; on Twitter @bockling