The Regina Shipwreck
From James Donahue’s Journal
After Huron County got its underwater preserve approved by the State of Michigan, I learned that a team of Sanilac County divers was also busy finding and cataloging a cluster of wrecks off our coast.
Two of the key members of that team, divers Sgt. Gary Binicki, a member of the Sanilac County Sheriff’s Department, and Jim Stayer, a Lexington area schoolteacher, called me one day with some very big news. They had just found the lost Canadian freighter Regina, lying in about 100 feet of water right off Port Sanilac. This vessel was one of many ships lost with all hands during the Great Storm of 1913.
The Regina became a very big story that remained in the news for months to come. Not only was the ship found, but the vessel, which was lying upside down, was filled with cargo and all of the fittings, dishes, and other things carried aboard a ship at sea.
Once the ship’s location was known, the scavengers were on the scene. Thus the divers formed a team of area divers and filed application to make the area off Sanilac County another underwater preserve. They had located other wrecks with sonar equipment but had not yet had time to explore them and find out anything about them. Unfortunately, getting the preserve approved didn’t happen fast enough to stop the stripping of the Regina. The dive team managed, however, to save things like the ship’s bell and some other major articles for display at the Sanilac County Museum, located at Port Sanilac.
One company ravaged the Regina’s cargo of silverware, bottles of wine, dishes and other cargo items and then put everything up for public sale in a vacant building in Port Sanilac. Not much of the stuff was bought but the display gave people a chance to look at objects from the wreck up close.
I did a lot of research on that wreck, eventually coming up with the names of the lost crew members, the cargo it was carrying, where it was headed when caught in the storm, and the strange mystery surrounding the story that some of the bodies of the crew members washed ashore on the Canadian coast wearing life jackets from one of the other lost ships in that storm. Nobody could explain that at first. Then it was determined that the story was false. It was a case of mistaken identity amid the many bodies that washed up in the same area from different boats.
There was something like 13 steamships that sank in that storm. Another mystery was why all of them were found lying upside down on the bottom. It was believed that the storm was so severe and the waves so high that the vessels all capsized before sinking.
The area was soon designated a preserve. After that, Binicki, Stayers, and the other divers in the group whose names I have now forgotten, began giving me exclusive stories about all of the other wrecks they found, explored and identified. All of them made great stories as they were revealed.
They included:
The Steamer Charles A. Street which burned on July 20, 1908, the Freighter Charles S. Price that sank in the 1913 storm, the schooner Checota which went down in a storm in 1906, the steamer City of Genoa lost in 1911, the schooner Colonel A. B. Williams lost in 1864, the steamer Eliza H. Strong lost in 1904, the schooner F. B. Gardner that went aground the sank in 1904, the schooner John Breeden, lost in 1899; the schooner City of Milwaukee lost in 1875, the tugboat Mary Alice B that sank under mysterious circumstances in 1975, the steamer Canisteo, lost in 1920, the steamer New York that went down in 1856, the freighter North Star that sank in 1908, the steamer Queen City lost in 1863, and the tug Sport that sank in 1920.
That preserve is a sport diver’s paradise. The list gives you some idea of just how many wrecks lay like a massive junkyard all over the bottom of the Great Lakes. Some historians have estimated that as many as 6000 wrecks would be exposed if someone were to suddenly drain all of the lakes dry.
From James Donahue’s Journal
After Huron County got its underwater preserve approved by the State of Michigan, I learned that a team of Sanilac County divers was also busy finding and cataloging a cluster of wrecks off our coast.
Two of the key members of that team, divers Sgt. Gary Binicki, a member of the Sanilac County Sheriff’s Department, and Jim Stayer, a Lexington area schoolteacher, called me one day with some very big news. They had just found the lost Canadian freighter Regina, lying in about 100 feet of water right off Port Sanilac. This vessel was one of many ships lost with all hands during the Great Storm of 1913.
The Regina became a very big story that remained in the news for months to come. Not only was the ship found, but the vessel, which was lying upside down, was filled with cargo and all of the fittings, dishes, and other things carried aboard a ship at sea.
Once the ship’s location was known, the scavengers were on the scene. Thus the divers formed a team of area divers and filed application to make the area off Sanilac County another underwater preserve. They had located other wrecks with sonar equipment but had not yet had time to explore them and find out anything about them. Unfortunately, getting the preserve approved didn’t happen fast enough to stop the stripping of the Regina. The dive team managed, however, to save things like the ship’s bell and some other major articles for display at the Sanilac County Museum, located at Port Sanilac.
One company ravaged the Regina’s cargo of silverware, bottles of wine, dishes and other cargo items and then put everything up for public sale in a vacant building in Port Sanilac. Not much of the stuff was bought but the display gave people a chance to look at objects from the wreck up close.
I did a lot of research on that wreck, eventually coming up with the names of the lost crew members, the cargo it was carrying, where it was headed when caught in the storm, and the strange mystery surrounding the story that some of the bodies of the crew members washed ashore on the Canadian coast wearing life jackets from one of the other lost ships in that storm. Nobody could explain that at first. Then it was determined that the story was false. It was a case of mistaken identity amid the many bodies that washed up in the same area from different boats.
There was something like 13 steamships that sank in that storm. Another mystery was why all of them were found lying upside down on the bottom. It was believed that the storm was so severe and the waves so high that the vessels all capsized before sinking.
The area was soon designated a preserve. After that, Binicki, Stayers, and the other divers in the group whose names I have now forgotten, began giving me exclusive stories about all of the other wrecks they found, explored and identified. All of them made great stories as they were revealed.
They included:
The Steamer Charles A. Street which burned on July 20, 1908, the Freighter Charles S. Price that sank in the 1913 storm, the schooner Checota which went down in a storm in 1906, the steamer City of Genoa lost in 1911, the schooner Colonel A. B. Williams lost in 1864, the steamer Eliza H. Strong lost in 1904, the schooner F. B. Gardner that went aground the sank in 1904, the schooner John Breeden, lost in 1899; the schooner City of Milwaukee lost in 1875, the tugboat Mary Alice B that sank under mysterious circumstances in 1975, the steamer Canisteo, lost in 1920, the steamer New York that went down in 1856, the freighter North Star that sank in 1908, the steamer Queen City lost in 1863, and the tug Sport that sank in 1920.
That preserve is a sport diver’s paradise. The list gives you some idea of just how many wrecks lay like a massive junkyard all over the bottom of the Great Lakes. Some historians have estimated that as many as 6000 wrecks would be exposed if someone were to suddenly drain all of the lakes dry.