Wreck of US frigate found after 118 years

118 years after it sank, the wreck of the US frigate SS “Hudson” has been found in the waters of Lake Superior. The day after leaving the Twin Ports, the ship found itself in the heart of a powerful storm that sent the vessel to the bottom. All those on board died. Until today, the final resting place of the frigate and her crew remained unknown.

The sinking of the frigate SS Hudson was widely reported and for a long time the tragedy left its mark on the local community. It even came to the point where there were stories that the vessel traversed the waters of Lake Superior as a… ghost ship! Over the years, however, the mundane nature of life allowed these stories to fade and the accident itself was no longer remembered. The world has moved on.

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Until this summer. A group of researchers scouring the bottom of the largest of the North American lakes managed to track down the wreck of a lost frigate unit, lying near the Michigan-Keweenaw Peninsula.

Professional wreck finders Jerry Eliason and Kraig Smith used sonar to discover the wreck of the SS Hudson at a depth of more than 250 metres and identified it using a remotely operated robot equipped with a camera. This is not the first success the searchers have recorded. Over the past years, Eliason and Smith have been involved in a number of other discoveries made in the Upper Lake area.

“The wreck is virtually intact. It has penetrated the bottom with the bow and is somewhat buried in that part, and the stern is about six metres above the bottom with the propeller clearly visible.” – Jerry Eliason said in an interview with the media

Measuring almost 90 metres, the “Hudson” was a solid steel ship, built in 1888 and one of the fastest vessels in the North American Great Lakes. References from the press of the time have survived, describing the frigate as “the greyhound of the lakes” and one of the safest vessels operating in the region.

Source: mprnews.org

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