Group wants to raise sunken schooner

[Coastie04]

It would be great if this boat is intact. Plus, if it's displayed in a water tank, it would be really great to see an old shipwreck without all the hassle of diving in deep, cold water.

Grand plan for a sunken schooner in Lake Erie

Coastie

[Capn Bob]

Lake Erie has many shipwrecks...being the shallowest of the lakes, when a bad storm blows thru (the "Gales of November"), there's a very real chance of hitting a shoal and splitting your keel. To add to the fun, there's the Bass Islands, Kelly's Island (visit the Glacial Grooves), and Point Pelee on the Canada shore. The point has many shipwrecks around it.

It would be great if this boat is intact. Plus, if it's displayed in a water tank, it would be really great to see an old shipwreck without all the hassle of diving in deep, cold water.

Grand plan for a sunken schooner in Lake Erie

Coastie

[William Brand]

I was surprised to see the masts still standing and the tiller intact. I look forward to more news on this.

[Coastie04]

The detail is just amazing. It's not just that the masts are still standing; look at the graceful curve of the tiller and the fine scrollwork on the billethead. Plus, it would be amazing to see inside, how the supplies were packed (if they're at all as well preserved as the rest of the ship). I can't wait to hear about further developments on this!

Coastie

[JohnnyTarr]

This is soooo cool.

[Coastie04]

Well, as with most things, the lawyers are going crazy over it. Here's an update:

Sunken Ship at Center of Legal Tug of War

The shipwreck hunters who want to raise an old schooner from the bottom of Lake Erie and put it on display in the Buffalo harbor have been entangled in a five-year federal court battle with the state over rights to the vessel.

State historic preservation and museum officials believe federal law gives the state control of the ship, and they feel it is best preserved where it is, off the Dunkirk shoreline. They also allege the company behind the schooner-raising plan has damaged the ship and accuses its divers of improperly handling human remains found onboard.

Northeast Research LLC denies the accusations and says it has followed all the rules to obtain the legal rights to the sunken ship.

The company, headed by Richard Kullberg, whose previous business ventures include starting Cape Cod's first whale-watching boat tour, laid claim to the shipwrecked vessel at the bottom of the lake in federal court in August 2004.

Last month, after years of research on the ship, Northeast Research met with Erie County Executive Chris Collins, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. and other government and tourism officials to lay out its plans for the schooner.

Northeast Research wants to raise the two-masted ship from the lake and place it on display in a giant water tank. They see it as a potential centerpiece of the Buffalo waterfront and say thousands of tourists would flock to Western New York to see it.

They also want to make a series of documentaries about the shipwreck and its raising, which they say will bring international attention to Buffalo.

The group says it will put up as much as $5 million from investors to raise and store the ship while a museum is prepared. They said they'll lease the shipwreck to waterfront officials for $1 over a 99-year period. And they say they will spend "over $1 million" on the first of four documentaries.

In exchange for all this, they want a third of ticket sales from the museum. To pay for the museum, Northeast has suggested using money that has been set aside for other projects in the Buffalo harbor redevelopment plan.

Northeast Research says its research shows the ship was a trading schooner, based on grains and hickory nuts found in its hull.

A disputed identity While no nameplate has been found on the ship, Northeast Research and its experts believe there's a strong possibility the schooner at one time had been the warship Caledonia, which was commandeered by the British during the War of 1812, then taken over by the Americans and used against the British in the Battle of Lake Erie.

It then was refitted in 1816 to become a trade ship called the General Wayne, which may have been used to smuggle slaves to Canada.

The identity of the ship is key to Northeast Research's claim to the sunken vessel. Federal law protects only abandoned shipwrecks, but not those whose owners have living descendants who want to lay claim to the ships or insurance companies with policies on them. In this case, Northeast Research has tracked down a direct descendant of one of the owners of the General Wayne who has given consent to the group to raise the ship.

But as Northeast Research has been developing and promoting its plan, it has been simultaneously fighting off efforts by the state to gain control of the shipwreck.

The state attorney general's office, representing state historic preservation and museum officials, has been arguing for the rights to the shipwreck since almost immediately after Northeast Research went to federal court in 2004.

In court papers, an expert for the state argued there's no evidence the ship is the Caledonia/General Wayne, which would mean the ship is abandoned. Under the federal Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, such a vessel would fall under the jurisdiction of the state where it was found.

Arthur B. Cohn, an underwater archaeologist with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, said none of the artifacts found on the ship points to its being the historic vessel. Cohn said the ship's "flat-bottomed hull and parallel sides" are more consistent with ships built to fit in the Welland Canal, which was completed in 1829. The Caledonia is believed to have been built near the end of the 18th century.

In addition, the state has "serious concerns regarding the archaeological methods used by the plaintiff in their efforts on the shipwreck," including what officials called the "desecration of human remains," court papers read.

In June 2008, during the course of the lawsuit, the state had been forced by the courts to give Northeast Research an archaeological permit to work on the ship. The permit lays out specific guidelines on how to handle an archaeological site and includes specific guidelines on what to do with human remains that are encountered.

The state says bones believed to be human that were found on the ship were never reported to authorities. The state said that the bones were gathered up into a "bone bag" and that other pieces of bone were sucked up through a dredge hose and are being kept in cold storage in Dunkirk.

After the state received information about the discovery of bones, it rescinded the permit.

Northeast Research strongly denies the state's assertions that it has been anything other than careful with the shipwreck.

"The last thing we're going to do in a shipwreck of this historical magnitude is to destroy the integrity of the ship," Pat Clyne, a part-owner and spokesman of Northeast Research, told The Buffalo News.

He said his firm has been working on the ship using expert technical divers and archaeology experts from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa.

Northeast Research contends any damage to the ship had been caused by trespassers.

Regarding the human remains, Clyne said the state's accusations "are blatantly false and hearsay."

Clyne said that divers sent down to explore and desilt the ship came across objects that they thought could be human bones and that they were set aside in a canvas bag inside the hull. A dredge hose also sucked up tiny, blackened fragments of bone, some of which were human and some from fish. A few pieces were sent to an Army

DNA lab, and the rest were frozen for conservation purposes, as was recommended to Northeast Research by archaeological consultants.

Experts have doubts

Northeast Research also contends that its experts have found strong evidence that the ship is the Caledonia/General Wayne. It disputes Cohn's description of the ship, saying its design is consistent with the types of vessels built when the Caledonia was and also cites a line drawing by a Great Lakes historian that looks very close to the historic ship.

The drawing was based on historic accounts in 1997, (CQ) which the state says should not count as proof.

Northeast also says the lack of identification on the ship is consistent with the theory that it had become involved in helping escaped slaves.

Northeast alerted Collins about the "unresolved legal issues surrounding the wreck," said Collins' spokesman, Grant Loomis. "Erie County has done its own due diligence on this matter" he said.

Collins says he doesn't believe the project can be funded by the county alone.

"Going forward, Northeast Research must now resolve its legal matters and convince the state and federal governments that this project is worth pursuing in Buffalo," he said.

The legal fight and publicity over the schooner proposal have raised questions among some in the Great Lakes shipwreck community.

They wonder about the ethics and wisdom of disturbing archaeological sites to such an extent.

"In terms of picking it up and putting it in a tank, I don't see how that's a good idea in any way, shape or form," said Carrie Sowden, archaeological director of the Great Lakes Historical Society in Vermilion, Ohio.

Sowden supports leaving ship wrecks in their final resting places. "The general rule of thumb within the Great Lakes is almost everything stays where it is," she said.

"I really think they're best preserved left where they are," said Pat Labadie, historian for the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Michigan. "Diving activity alone takes an awful toll on historic wrecks."

Still, he said, it's feasible that the shipwreck could be raised and that keeping it in a tank "could be a way of preserving the vessel. ... It would certainly be impressive," he said.

Many shipwreck researchers cited the cautionary tale of the Alvin Clark, a schooner not unlike the Dunkirk wreck, that was raised in 1969 off of Wisconsin.

Valerie Van Heest, who made a documentary about the ill-fated ship, explained how the Alvin Clark was raised "with good intentions." The vessel was put on display outdoors on the waterfront in Green Bay. "But there was absolutely no financial backing beyond taking it out of the water," she said. "It rotted. Storms took it apart ... To make a long story short, they had to bulldoze it, and it went into a landfill."

Northeast's Clyne says he understands such concerns.

"It just wasn't done correctly," Clyne said of the Alvin Clark. "We have the technology now. We know what destroys shipwrecks. We know how to conserve them indefinitely. There is no reason in the world that shipwrecks can't be put on display."

Clyne said he believes that his company and the state are really on the same page and hopes they can figure out a way to work together.

"We as private, historical shipwreck salvors would like to bring this up and display it for the people of Buffalo," Clyne said. "The state wants to keep it at the bottom of the lake. We both feel it belongs to the people of Buffalo."

Additionally, I found some great photos of the shipwreck that they mention as a botched salvage of the Alvin Clark. Also, in the 'ship kits' column, check out the 'wreck 1' through 'wreck 6' links in the Alvin Clark section. It has some great photos of a ship being neglected.

Coastie

[silas thatcher]

it would certainly be neat to be able to see the shipwreck on land... but certain financing difficulties could doom it all... the santa maria in columbus, ohio is very neat, and is a shame that it has had its financing cut down...

st. louis lost its santa maria quite a few years ago