The long-sought identity of a large mystery shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina has been revealed by the USA’s Association of Underwater Explorers (AUE).
Known locally as the “Snowy Grouper Wreck”, the site and its surrounding area was designated a Marine Protected Area by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council in 2009, named after the deepwater grouper species found there and enforced by NOAA Fisheries.
Researchers have long wanted to identify the wreck, which lies more than 240m deep some 60 nautical miles east-south-east of Cape Fear.
Now, based on the location, dimensions and “numerous diagnostic features” found at the wreck-site, the AUE believes the wreck to be that of the tanker Doris Kellogg, which sank on the last day of 1932 after catching fire.
The 119m vessel had been built as a cargo steamship and launched in 1920 as the Cedarhurst, but the following year she was converted into a tanker by Curtis Bay Copper & Iron Works in Baltimore.
In 1929, linseed-oil producer Spencer Kellogg & Sons bought the ship and gave her the name Doris Kellogg in honour of a family-member known for her WW1 volunteer work.
Explosion and fire
On the afternoon of 29 December, 1932, the ship was heading north off the South Carolina coast when an explosion occurred aft of amidships, after which fire engulfed the stern. Other vessels in the vicinity were able to rescue all the crew, leaving the burning tanker to drift away north in the Gulf Stream.
The Coast Guard kept the ship under observation for two days before she sank, in a position said by the AUE to be within four nautical miles of the Snowy Grouper Wreck.
However, previous shipwreck researchers had dismissed the idea that this could be the Doris Kellogg, because the design of its gunwale railing differed from that believed to be part of the ship’s original Emergency Fleet Corporation design.
Now diver and AUE founder Michael Barnette has discovered that these experts’ convictions seem to have been misplaced. He found that at some point the ship’s solid shell plating had been removed, probably to allow for better drainage of water from the deck. This would have happened either during the original tanker conversion in 1921 or when the ship was bought by Spencer Kellogg eight years later.
The clincher appears to be a contemporary image from news reports of the sinking, showing that the railing configuration seen on the Doris Kellogg in her final hours was the same as that seen on the wreck – enough to “strongly indicate” that it is indeed that tanker.
Barnette’s breakthrough came during production of season 2 of the History Channel TV series The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters, in which the story will feature. Divernet recently reported on how Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski had found a crash-landed Douglas AD-5 Skyraider attack bomber off the coast of Florida.
Also on Divernet: Divers find tragic Space Shuttle wreckage, TV dive-team trace ‘Bermuda Triangle’ shipwreck, The Million-Dollar Dive
