r/Shipwrecks

Built in 1902, the 330 foot long steel railroad car ferry Milwaukee spent decades bypassing Chicago's busy rail yards by transporting entire train cars across Lake Michigan. October 22, 1929, The Milwaukee's captain, 'Heavy weather' Mckay made the decision to leave the safety of Milwaukee's port and sail straight into the teeth of a fierce storm. Not long after leaving, the decision to return to Milwaukee was made but they would never make port, succumbing to the waves with all hands lost, about 52 souls. The vessel was found in 1972, sitting upright in 120' feet of water 7 miles north of it's namesake city. Today the wreck is a favorite destination for advanced divers. The day these images were captured the visability was very good for the site, about 60 feet.

#Shipwreck #GreatLakes #LakeMichigan #HistoryAlive #ScubaDiving #CalKothrade #CarferryMilwaukee #TecDiving

Complete dive footage available here

I was out on the Milwaukee with a team of 10 people in September to conduct a site survey. We spent two days on the wreck, and we livestreamed the entire second day. The stream replay has been up since, it's about 3 and a half hours long and covers the vast majority of the main wreck. We started on the starboard side of the bow, worked our way aft to the stern, worked our way up to the bow on the port side, and then came back aft to take a closer look at a couple of things we'd spotted earlier. At the end of the stream, we did a flyover of the whole wreck to see it from above, and then we finished the day by reading off the names of the victims and giving a brief eulogy. Seems like the Milwaukee has been quite popular in here recently, figured I'd put up a link!

The rail road car wheel set that is pinned under the starboard prop shaft is a favorite spot of mine to visit on this wreck. 125' deep. The 12' diameter props are also photogenic.

Ive been looking into the unresolved mysteries of both for the better half of a decade since my childhood and recently I've come to two very stark conclusions.

Conclusion one is that Amelia's plane likely has a 98% that it no longer exists as a fundamentally intact wreckage whether it landed in open ocean or landed on a reef the 38ft Lockheed Electra wouldve been ripped to shreds and or buried by a near century of sediment. At depths of 17,00ft. TIGHAR even said this when they did an expedition.

Conclusion two, USS Cyclops likely capsized off the coaat of NC in a 40mph gale on march 10th 1918, I came to this conclusion from "bottom up reasoning" not top down reasoning that Triangle sleuths like to use, If it left Barbados on march 4th 1918 and did a speed of roughly 10 knots due to a disabled engine a small incremental boost of 2 to 3 knots an hour couldve pushed it to 240nm to 260nm a day, after 6 days at sea thats roughly at the tip of NC in a severe gale in a top heavy collier full of unstable ore and a single working engine that could fail and or throw a rod at any second, once the engine or steering gear failed it wouldve fell into a wave trough and rolled and or snapped with little time to send an S.O.S.

I used to believe the Dean Hawes wreck was creditable but was able to rule it out due to possible nitrogen narcosis, 1960s diving helmet tunnel vision, confirmation bias and the sheer lack of sonar scans by the Navy, Numa and Clive Cussler, I came to the conclusion after some arguments on here before I apologize in advance, but a 542ft wreck in two sections with massive collier gear simply can't hide from sonar in shallow waters, so therefore its likely off the contential shelf. I even went as far as to talk to Marvin Barrish about its potential and it was unfortunately ruled out as a possibility. When talking over a call we also came to the conclusion that TV shows and Historians only bother searching the Bahamas or Florida instead of further north, it was said that every time he suggested searching NC or Virginia it got shot down immediately because it would shatter the money generating Bermuda Triangle mystery.

Though I am willing to bet Cyclops is off NC in pretty deep waters thats a ground Ill defend, likely 3000 to 14,000ft because in order to get to Baltimore you have to cross NC inevitably you dont simply avoid the Graveyard of the Atlantic, it wouldve been blown east out into the deep end and Due to either radio silence or catastrophic failure an S.O.S likely never had time to be sent and all debris was sucked down or washed away by the gulf stream because the navy never bothered to search untill a week after it was due because nobody knew it had sunk yet . And a ship doesn't just sit idled at sea so it wouldve been at sea moving along for 6 days by the time the storm hit, People like to down play the speed just to fuel the Bermuda Triangle mythos. "Oh well its just too slow therefore its gotta be in the triangle area" what people dont take into consideration is that worley wouldve taken the fastest Rhumb line to Baltimore, hes not going to hug the Puerto Rico trench area in a crippled and overloaded collier and possibly spend 4 more days at sea following the curvature of the eastern seaboard, because if I was an overly cautious captain I damn sure wouldn't. I would want to get my ship repaired and my men home after being at sea for a month or more bathing in coal dust, red lead grease and fighting Scurvy .

And another thing people dispute is the march 13th deadline, that was simply an estimate made by worley and the Navy not definite, the trip from NC to Baltimore alone takes 3 days, because you have to line up with the bay and be tugged in or assisted by another guide boat because theyd run the risk of dragginga 542ft colluer into a sandbar or shoal and then after you enter the bad its a whole 180 miles up the winding bay to Baltimore.

So that leads me to my next point, why not search for a "Holy grail" 542ft Collier and solve on of the biggest mysteries in naval history for 306 families which is as equally a discovery of a lifetime, which keep in mind would be the next Titanic level discovery for naval archeology. Over spending millions on something that without a doubt likely has a high chance it no longer exists? Because it doesn't make sense NC is literally a part of the US, you dont have to travel for weeks out into the Pacific, its merely a day or two off shore and can be scanned by sonar you find pontential twin screw industral targets and rule them out, I think by far the only issue with Cyclops is its likely logged as an "unidentified craft" or "merchant vessel ww2" off of NC as one of a few hundred never positively identified targets. But even then could be narrowed down due to unique design characteristics and that it likely broke in half and left a debris field. As a young Naval Historian learning about ships its very frustrating.

these images are from a 2021 scan and then a 2025 scan

1. she seems to be falling apart pretty fast for a great lakes wreck, is there a reason for that?
2. a lot of my knowledge on this ship comes from an episode of deep sea detectives, first of all, they claim that a rail car busted through her sea gate during the sinking and that is why it is bent that way, but it looks more like it was just sagging from age (to the point where it fell off later)
3. they also claim that she is sitting on a rail car, but I cannot see clearly enough to confirm of deny that.
4. is there a reason her rudder is jammed to port? was she trying to turn or is that just because she was sinking.
5. is it still possible to enter the engine room now that she is collapsing or is access blocked by debris.
6. did she go down stern first? her bow seems to be resting above the silt, but so does her stern, so i cannot tell properly

Built in 1975 as the Azerbaydzan, she was sold to Commadore Cruise Lines in 1998 and renamed Enchanted Capri.

When Commadore Cruise Line went bankrupt in 2001, she was sold to a Mexican firm and was used as Offshore Accommodations for Mexican oil rig workers.

She was planned to be scrapped in 2020 but drug her anchor and was blown ashore Alvarado. She still remains aground and abandoned at that location

I was prowling around on Google Maps after learning about the location of the Soviet Nuclear tests involving target ships. Having looking along the northern coastline of Russia I’ve seen dozens of wrecked boats and other stuff like that so I figured if there was a shallow bay where ships were sunk in a test they would probably be pretty visible. Sure enough. I found what looks like two destroyers pretty much wrecked in a bay on the southern tip of the island. Not fully sunk either so I’m guessing they didn’t sink in the initial test and they were towed in here to sink from the damage they had sustained/were scuttled to avoid being a hazard.

There does not seem to be a lot of accessible data about these nuclear tests, at least as far as the damage to the target ships. It looks like the larger of the two is probably a Gnevny class destroyer, probably the Gromky or the Gremyashchy, both were targets in the 1957 test. Both were apparently left there until October when they both sunk according to the book Raising the Red Banner.

However the second one is a little more complicated, I think there’s a good chance it is the Uritsky the size would line up and I believe I can spot 3 funnels on it, but it is hard to tell I’m sure there are a myriad of other options it would be. The issue with Uritsky is that it is from the 1955 test, while being on the outside deeper into the bay, meaning when the other ship from the 1957 test was towed in, it would have had to go around Uritsky and placed there which doesn’t seem practical. So these two could be plainly wrong no doubt about that. The other problem that makes identifying these almost impossible is that the area is closed off to anyone but the military. The area is littered with what looks like infrastructure and base camps for the nuclear tests so lots of interesting finds all over the archipelago.

If anyone can dig up any more information or even better, pictures from ground level of these two wrecks that would be awesome.

If anyone speaks Russian, I believe this paper may hold some information we could use to identify the ships. I don’t have a link to it I just found it as a citation in an English paper as it referred to ships sunk in the tests.

V. A. Logachev, et al., Novaya Zemlya Test Site. Ensuring the General and Radio- logical Safety of the Nuclear tests. Facts, Testimonies, Memories (in Russian), (Moscow: IzdAT, 2000)