lhunt Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 Leon and I happened upon a very low tide at Little Misery yesterday, and the familiar wreck there was more visible than I can ever remember seeing. A little research on the web turned up some basic facts I never bothered with before: The "City of Rockland" was a 274 foot steamship built in 1901 in East Boston. It took passengers around Maine and apparently to Boston. It had a number of accidents early in its career (two are described here and here), but was refloated each time. It was decomissioned in 1923 and was accidentally grounded at Little Misery on its way to be sunk. It was set on fire (probably by vandals) in 1924, and burned to the waterline. Well, anyway, that's what I'm finding in cyberspace but of course no guarantees... More pictures of the wreck are here, along with some vintage pix of the vessel I found on the web (and some of the rest of our paddle!)... Anyway, I thought other NSPN'ers who are frequent visitors to the island might like to see what they have been scratching their hulls on. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gcosloy Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 Fascinating Lisa, thanks for the research. I've never seen the tide that low either. I was paddling around Gerrish yesterday also around low tide and was surprised at all the rocks that are usually hidden under water. Was this an astronomically low low tide? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leong Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Leon and I happened upon a very low tide at Little Misery yesterday, and the familiar wreck there was more visible than I can ever remember seeing. Lisa It's interesting to note that the low tide height that occurred when we were at Misery that day was 0.10 ft. This is at the low end of low tides, but many other days go that low and even lower (I found one that was -2.00 ft.). The lowest lows seem to occur outside of the time periods when we'd be at Misery (too early in the morning or too late in the afternoon). It would be interesting to see the sunken wreck and surroundings when the tide height was –2.00 feet. When we were there I don’t think the water in the middle of the channel between the islands was much more than 2 feet deep. It might be my system, but the second “here” link didn’t work for me. And no, Lisa didn’t steal my kayak because she has Epic 18X Ultra envy (I dunno, maybe she does). I lent it to her because I just wanted to see how fast the 18X could go when powered by a really fast paddler. Leon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lhunt Posted June 12, 2011 Author Share Posted June 12, 2011 Here is a slightly different take on the story, with the current satellite view of the ship (apparently this time, at least, the satellite took its picture at a very low tide, too). The idea that they intentionally took it to shallow water to salvage it makes more sense to me. Otherwise why go between the islands? I was having fun imagining a crew that was looking to stop for lunch and maybe some grog. I speculate, looking at the view of the whole island, that the beach on Little Misery that we like to land on may owe its existence to the wreck. The rest of the island has a rocky shore, and the beach is suspiciously tucked in behind the wreck. Also there's no way a 274 foot ship would have sunk right where it is (half of it would be up on land), so we have been guessing it broke up and turned or drifted. I don't know about the "here" links - they work for me in Firefox but Explorer insists on downloading rather than displaying the PDFs. (I've got a new computer and am still searching for the right controls). I'm attaching the PDFs to this reply. -Lisa100544251.pdf117944398.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
subaruguru Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Very cool, Lisa!Hope to paddle with you 'n King Leon soon.Ern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazzert Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Otherwise why go between the islands? I was having fun imagining a crew that was looking to stop for lunch and maybe some grog. Maybe they had forgotten their TTOR membership card and were going to land on little misery to avoid the warden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rylevine Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Lisa,Never saw the wreck exposed like that. Thanks for the picture and history. Hope to get out soon with you, Leon, and the rest of the Tucks gang....Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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