Depth:
125 ft

This wreck was formerly thought to be the Yankee. However, the "G&D" was identified as the Yankee, leaving this wreck unidentified. It consists of engine, boilers, driveshaft, and propeller, and is reputed to be a good lobster wreck.


Shipwreck Yankee
Type:
shipwreck, Great Lakes freighter, USA
Built:
1890, USA, as German
Specs:
( 296 x 40 ft ) 2418 gross tons, 30 passengers & crew
Sunk:
Wednesday June 11, 1919
collision with liner Argentina - no casualties
Depth:
110 ft

lobster boat
A typical lobster boat off the coast of Maine. New Jersey boats are similar. Traps are hauled up by a hydraulic lift; steel plating protects the side of the boat.

Alpha-Numeric Signal Flags

In this modern age of radio, these signal flags are a quaint anachronism that is no longer used, although they were once very important in ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communications. Each flag stands for both a letter value and a shorthand message. The letters are expressed here in the modern international phonetic alphabet, in which A-B-C would be spoken Alpha-Bravo-Charlie (see below).


While not exactly shipwreck artifacts, lobster traps, scallop dredges, and other fishing equipment are not uncommon sights on and around New Jersey shipwrecks.

Lobster Traps

modern wire lobster trap
A modern wire lobster trap - a common sight around shipwrecks.

packet ship Orpheus

A packet ship of the early 1800s. Of note is the way the sails on the mainmast are set backward, against the sails on the fore- and mizzen- masts. Known as "backing", this was how a square-rigged ship "put on the brakes" to slow or stop without actually furling the sails.

Wind power has been used by mankind for millennia. Almost every human culture has constructed sailing vessels of some kind, from crude log or reed rafts to the highly developed wind-jammers of the early twentieth century. Many of these vessels were the most complex and technologically advanced machines of their time - equivalent to our jet airliners.



Shipwreck Stolt Dagali
Type:
shipwreck, tanker, Norway
Name:
Stolt is the name of the line that owned the ship; it translates "proud". Dagali is a mountain valley in Norway.
Built:
1955, Denmark, as Dagali
Specs:
( 582 x 70 ft ) 12723 gross tons, 43 crew
Sunk:
Thursday November 26, 1964 ( Thanksgiving day )
collision with liner Shalom ( 25,338 tons ) - 19 casualties
Depth:
130 ft, starts at 60 ft

Morania Abaco reef
Four explosive charges set by a U.S. Navy demolition team rip holes in the hull of the Morania Abaco on the Atlantic City Reef. ( Photo by Ray Fisk )

Old Ships Make New Homes For Fish

Old vessels make excellent artificial reefs. They provide high profile structure for pelagic fish, low profile structure for demersal fish, as well as surface area for the attachment of mussels, barnacles, tubeworms, and other food organisms. Shipwrecks have been the basis for the state's bottom fisheries which feature sea bass, tautog, ling, cod, and pollock. and for recreational scuba diving activities. The New Jersey coast has a large number of shipwrecks, estimates range from 500 to 3,000. These wrecks are the result of 200 years of maritime disasters and enemy submarine operations during World Wars I and II.

Printed from njscuba.net