The vessel
Show on the chart- Type
- Steel St Lawrence canal size bulk freighter, triple expansion steam
- Also known as
- Tyneville, the launch name, renamed before she entered service in 1928
- Built
- 1928 at Wallsend on Tyne, England, by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson, hull number 1282
- Size
- 252.9 registered length (259 ft overall), 43.4 beam, 17.8 depth of hold
- Gross tonnage
- 1939
- Net tonnage
- 1149
- Owner
- Sarnia Steamships Ltd., Sarnia, Ontario, under Captain R. Scott Misener. Home port Newcastle on Tyne to 1929, then Sarnia.
- Cargo
- Coal, including a deck load
- Date lost
- 5 October 1932
- Cause of loss
- Capsized and foundered in a southwest gale. She cleared Erie for Hamilton, Ontario, overloaded with coal and carrying a deck cargo, with a hatch reported left open. Struck by a heavy sea, the deck load shifted, she took water and went over with only a few minutes warning, reported as sinking within about four minutes.
- Lives lost
- 4 of the 19 aboard. The survivors reached an overturned lifeboat and got ashore.
- Depth
- 120 to 130
- Registry
- Official number 149467, British then Canadian.
Position 42.37990, -79.73333 (published to arc-second precision, from the ShipwreckWorld (Jim Kennard), corroborated within about 100 m by the Niagara Divers Association (42 deg 22' 47.64" N, 79 deg 43' 59.9988" W))
Recorded location: 42.36666, -79.71666 "
What it was
Launched on the Tyne in 1928 as Tyneville and renamed before she entered service, this canal size steel bulk carrier crossed the North Atlantic for Captain R. Scott Misener's Sarnia Steamships and worked the Great Lakes for only four seasons.
How it was lost
On 5 October 1932 she cleared Erie for Hamilton with coal, overloaded, with coal piled on deck and a hatch reported left open. Caught by a rising southwest gale off the New York shore, she was struck by a heavy sea. The deck cargo shifted, water poured below, and she rolled over and went down within minutes. Eleven of her people reached an overturned lifeboat and rowed ashore. Four were lost.
Diving it
A boat dive at or beyond the recreational limit, roughly 120 to 130 feet, rated advanced and commonly done as a technical decompression dive. Visibility is reported at 20 to 60 feet and bottom temperature about 42 to 44 F, with surface and depth currents possible. Regularly dived off Barcelona, New York by charter.
Worth knowing
She lies off Barcelona, New York, roughly 40 nautical miles northeast of Erie, well away from the other wrecks in this list, and is one of eastern Lake Erie's best known and most visited deep wrecks.
The wreck today
Lies on her starboard side, rising about 40 feet off the bottom. The four bladed propeller and rudder are in place, with railings, ladders, deck gear, a winch, portholes and cargo holds present, and the aft cabin and pilot house partially intact. Limited penetration is possible for divers with the appropriate training.