Finding Wrecks, the Christmas Ship Rouse Simmons

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JDostal

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Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
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Location
Wisconsin
# of dives
500 - 999
Skip to the bottom of this post to read the actual question.

Okay...this morning my girlfriend and I got up very early in anticipation of a fun day of diving. We were travelling to Two Rivers, WI to go dive the Rouse Simmons, better known as the Christmas Ship with several friends.

For info on the Rouse Simmons and it's tale, visit this link:http://www.uscg.mil/d9/xmaship.htm

My friend has a big enough boat for four divers...so four eager divers we had. We put the boat in at about 9am and headed out towards the shipwreck with two GPS units leading us to our destination, using coordinates obtained from a Great Lakes diving book written by Chris Kohl. We also had another book on diving Wisconsin wrecks by another author. Unfortunately, the other book only had LORAN-C information, but the LORAN-C info was the same in both books.

We went out to the wreck, and slowed when we were within .3 miles of the wreck. We readied a buoy, and when the GPS units were telling us we were within several feet of the wreck, we dropped the buoy overboard and began a search pattern using depth finder/sonar.

After an hour and a half of running waffle and circle search patterns looking on the bottom....we never found the wreck.

It was a very disappointing day - we have heard so many stories about this wreck, especially how it is intact with christmas trees still tied to it's deck....we were really dying to dive it.

Anyway...after all this. My question is - how in the heck are you supposed to go about finding un-buoyed shipwrecks?!?! This is the first time we've tried this. Other friends have told us that you navigate to the wreck using GPS coordinates and then use depth finder/sonar to locate the actual wreck. When you find it, drop anchor and go! However, we never once saw anything on the bottom during all of our efforts. Any tips? Yes, were complete newbies to finding our own wrecks, I know this...but do you have any advice?

I would be more than happy to post the coords of the wreck if anyone could confirm the ones I had were actually correct!
 
The key point you made was about the two different books having the SAME LORAN numbers. I would bet if you run those LORAN numbers through a conversion program you would get the GPS coordinates that were in the first book. Which by the way are only accurate to about 1000 yards!! The inaccuracy is in the conversion of LORAN to Lat/Lon. Because LORAN is a land based signal, when it is working, it is very accurate, in that it will put you on the same spot again and again. However, the software conversion programs cannot take into account the differences in speed over land of a LORAN transmission, and therefore, convert the Lat/Lon incorrectly. Which, I would think is how the numbers in your book got converted to Lat/Lon.

The only real way to convert LORAN to Lat/Lon for a GPS is to have both on your boat. Which is what I have now.

Good luck,

d
 
I'm not one hundred percent sure how the GPS coordinates were created for the dive site. They *may* not have been converted. I looked up the ship at www.ghost-ships.org and there are other coordinates offered as well...I was just wondering if anyoned had any tips or information for finding the wrecks once you got out to the given coordinates.
 
Tom,

Thank you very much for the information. We did use the buoy method...kinda. Instead of a jug and a line, we used an anchor, rope, and a life jacket. Call it the ghetto method.

We went out to what the GPS was telling us the wreck location was, and dropped the anchor over w/ the life jacket as our buoy. We then ran circular patterns around the buoy, as well as a waffle pattern...nothing we noticed came up on the depth finder.

Can you describe, a little bit, what a wreck looks like on a depth finder? I figured we would see a fairly decent "bump" or something like it on the depth finder....we had nothing but flat bottom.

By the end of it, I was ready to just dive the anchor for the hell of it...I wanted to dive so bad!!
 
Yea, you should see a big jump on your sounder, kinda like a spike or a large blob, really tough to describe but should be clearly obvious.

Check the sounder range. Be sure its set to the closest range (set to 100' if in 80 feet of water).

I bet the numbers were just off, don't get discouraged. Some days are like that, you drive around all day and find nothing. That's just the game. You guys only looked for an hour and a half.

Tom
 
Okay...at least I have an idea what to look for on the sounder next time. We had our scale set to 180, and we were in 155-170 feet of water so we're pretty sure we had the scale set OK.

I will have to see if I can call a dive shop in the area and confirm the coordinates I had with anything they know.

So, searching for an hour and a half isn't that uncommon, huh? We would've searched more, but fuel was getting to the point where we had to turn back. We didn't want to get into our 6gal reserve if we didn't have to!

Thanks for tips...I appreciate it!

I'm thinking we should practice this on some buoyed wrecks next time :)
 
In 150 fsw, or at any depth, it helps if your finder has a zoom feature that will give you a range instead of the whole water column. I usually set if for 160-120 for a 150' wreck. If you know the relief of the wreck, you can even fine tune it more. Some of the wrecks we dive up here only have 10' of relief in 130 fsw. So I zoom in to a 30' window.

And if the wreck has a lot of relief, you will know it on the finder.
 
Those aren't the ones we followed...I don't have my GPS w/ me again, but I can look tonight. I called a dive shop in green bay, and they gave me the coordinates

N44 16.270
W087 24.390

These coordinates are about .53miles ESE of the coordinates that I/we went to....

So...it appears I have a whole bunch of coordinates to try out...*sigh*
 
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