Nine years in the making — the story behind discovering a Lake Superior shipwreck
A view of the name of the freighter Henry Steinbrenner, visible on the stern of the wreck deep in Lake Superior in September.
Courtesy of Tom Crossmon and Dave Phillips
Earlier this month, Jerry Eliason and Ken Merryman found the Henry Steinbrenner about 750 feet deep in Lake Superior, south of Isle Royale. It's the latest in what has been a remarkable series of Great Lakes discoveries by the two men, going back decades.
Ken Merryman joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the find.
Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.
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Audio transcript
CATHY WURZER: Earlier this month, Jerry Eliason and Ken Merryman found the Henry Steinbrenner at about 750 feet of water in Lake Superior, just south of Isle Royale. It's the latest in what has been a remarkable series of Great Lakes discoveries by the two men going back decades. Ken Merryman's on the line to talk about this latest find. Welcome back to the program. This is pretty exciting.
KEN MERRYMAN: Yes, it is. Top of our list to find for quite a while.
CATHY WURZER: Oh my goodness. Well, I don't know a lot about the Henry Steinbrenner. How did she sink?
KEN MERRYMAN: Well, it was on a storm in 1953. They were having trouble from the get go. They had a hatch that kept coming loose. Their radar was out. Reports around the lakes were that wind was up to 70 knots. Water was coming over the deck and unfortunately into the number 11 hatch. And they were just pointing into the wind, trying to keep the ship going.
Eventually they lost 17 in the process of abandoning the ship. The Steinbrenner couldn't tell exactly what the wind was where they were at. It was the best guess. So that makes it really difficult to find it. No GPS back in those days.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, no kidding. Reminds me of the Fitzgerald, in a sense. She was loaded down with, what, some 7,000 tons of iron ore. So not a similar situation to the Fitzgerald, but at least the weather conditions were also pretty brutal.
KEN MERRYMAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, she was one of the smaller freighters. 427 feet, I think it was. She was 52 years old. So not a new ship. It was another victim of these accordion type hatches. They had plates, and we found the Henry Smith back in 2013. And they had the same type of hatches and caused the same problem.
CATHY WURZER: Take me to the day earlier this month when you and Jerry finally found the Steinbrenner. Now I know you found a target using sonar and then you dropped a camera down. Describe for us what you saw in the footage.
KEN MERRYMAN: We had been hunting for this for, well, over the last nine years. I think the first time we went out for it was 2015. And we weren't very successful. Then, the lake was deeper than the charts showed. And frankly, our equipment doesn't work the best at those depths. But we went out in 2015 and 2016 and again in 2017. And then I've been circumnavigating the Great Lakes and my old boat for the last eight years.
And this is the first year I made it back. And being out in the middle of the lake this time of the year in September is always risky. The weather changes quickly, and we weren't sure we wanted to go out and look this year. But we got an amazing two windows of calm water. And so we got up at 2:30 AM and headed out in the dark and put our heads together.
And we came up with a new guess where to look. We started mowing the lawn, we call it. We just go back and forth in a pattern, trying to see what you can see. And we were expecting a big ship to show up. And we didn't think we'd have any trouble seeing that. By the end of the first day, we hadn't gotten to really where I wanted to search. And so the last two passes, I said, let's just do half passes. I want to get further north.
And the last pass, we got a target. Not what we expected to see. But when you hunt for shipwrecks, you never know what you're going to find until you find it. We marked it, and then we had to head back, because weather was coming in. And spent a week doing a project where we make 3D models of the shipwrecks of the Great Lakes. And we got another window, surprisingly. And I said, well, what do you want to do? And he says, I think we should go out now.
I was like, so we're going to pull an all nighter? And said, OK, let's go. We covered, oh, I think, probably eight square miles. A few hours before we needed to head back, we reevaluated. And the best target we had was the one that we hit just before we went back the first day. And it was not an obvious big ship or anything. But there was a big bright spot. And Jerry said, well, we haven't seen anything that looks like this before. And I said, well, you think she spilled the iron ore? Yeah.
So we put the camera down, and sure enough, the first pass, we saw wreckage. We only got a few hours on it. We got enough to positively identify it. We got for sure the NER from Steinbrenner and the home port. And then the camera went across the rest of the name. It's pretty faint. It's pretty obviously the Steinbrenner. But it's totally demolished when it hit the bottom.
CATHY WURZER: I was going to say. So she broke up, and so there's not a whole lot in terms of intact hulk of the ship, right? So she went down in pieces and is buried?
KEN MERRYMAN: So we can't say for sure yet how badly she broke up. We never saw the bow yet. But it takes us days with our equipment. But you can imagine dangling a camera from 750 feet down. You're dragging a camera. And it takes quite a few hours just to understand the layout of the ship, you know, and what's there. I suspect she broke if not at the surface, on the way down.
CATHY WURZER: When you saw those images on the camera, I can only imagine what you and Jerry said.
KEN MERRYMAN: Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
I don't remember what we said, but we were excited. We found quite a few ships. I think between us separate and together, we found 30 shipwrecks. So it was certainly exciting, because the Steinbrenner was high on our list to find. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going back out next year and exploring the site to understand just what happened to the ship as it sank.
CATHY WURZER: You guys have been searching for this now, as you say, for so many years. And there's probably someone listening wanting to know, well, what the heck keeps these guys going? Which is a good question, because you're telling me you get out in the lake. And 2 o'clock in the morning, you're going back and forth trying to find these shipwrecks. And it's, as you say, absolutely dangerous work given how that lake can change at any moment, you know. So what does keep you going?
[LAUGHS]
KEN MERRYMAN: An addiction, I guess. I don't know. I guess you'd call it a passion. Yeah, maybe addiction's a better word for it. I don't know. There's multiple aspects to shipwreck hunting. High on the list is you're solving a mystery. And some of these mysteries are a hundred years old. And it's seeing something that no one's seen before.
And it's knowing that someone appreciates this. And we just love being out on the water. I love the Great Lakes. And I've been out in the middle of all five Great Lakes now. And yeah, it's just a good feeling being out on the water for me.
CATHY WURZER: Ken Merryman, I always appreciate talking to you. I always have a good time talking to you as well, because you and I share a fascination with shipwrecks. So thank you for talking to us about discovering the wreck of the Henry Steinbrenner.
KEN MERRYMAN: Well, thank you for your interest, and I enjoyed talking.
KEN MERRYMAN: Yes, it is. Top of our list to find for quite a while.
CATHY WURZER: Oh my goodness. Well, I don't know a lot about the Henry Steinbrenner. How did she sink?
KEN MERRYMAN: Well, it was on a storm in 1953. They were having trouble from the get go. They had a hatch that kept coming loose. Their radar was out. Reports around the lakes were that wind was up to 70 knots. Water was coming over the deck and unfortunately into the number 11 hatch. And they were just pointing into the wind, trying to keep the ship going.
Eventually they lost 17 in the process of abandoning the ship. The Steinbrenner couldn't tell exactly what the wind was where they were at. It was the best guess. So that makes it really difficult to find it. No GPS back in those days.
CATHY WURZER: Yeah, no kidding. Reminds me of the Fitzgerald, in a sense. She was loaded down with, what, some 7,000 tons of iron ore. So not a similar situation to the Fitzgerald, but at least the weather conditions were also pretty brutal.
KEN MERRYMAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, she was one of the smaller freighters. 427 feet, I think it was. She was 52 years old. So not a new ship. It was another victim of these accordion type hatches. They had plates, and we found the Henry Smith back in 2013. And they had the same type of hatches and caused the same problem.
CATHY WURZER: Take me to the day earlier this month when you and Jerry finally found the Steinbrenner. Now I know you found a target using sonar and then you dropped a camera down. Describe for us what you saw in the footage.
KEN MERRYMAN: We had been hunting for this for, well, over the last nine years. I think the first time we went out for it was 2015. And we weren't very successful. Then, the lake was deeper than the charts showed. And frankly, our equipment doesn't work the best at those depths. But we went out in 2015 and 2016 and again in 2017. And then I've been circumnavigating the Great Lakes and my old boat for the last eight years.
And this is the first year I made it back. And being out in the middle of the lake this time of the year in September is always risky. The weather changes quickly, and we weren't sure we wanted to go out and look this year. But we got an amazing two windows of calm water. And so we got up at 2:30 AM and headed out in the dark and put our heads together.
And we came up with a new guess where to look. We started mowing the lawn, we call it. We just go back and forth in a pattern, trying to see what you can see. And we were expecting a big ship to show up. And we didn't think we'd have any trouble seeing that. By the end of the first day, we hadn't gotten to really where I wanted to search. And so the last two passes, I said, let's just do half passes. I want to get further north.
And the last pass, we got a target. Not what we expected to see. But when you hunt for shipwrecks, you never know what you're going to find until you find it. We marked it, and then we had to head back, because weather was coming in. And spent a week doing a project where we make 3D models of the shipwrecks of the Great Lakes. And we got another window, surprisingly. And I said, well, what do you want to do? And he says, I think we should go out now.
I was like, so we're going to pull an all nighter? And said, OK, let's go. We covered, oh, I think, probably eight square miles. A few hours before we needed to head back, we reevaluated. And the best target we had was the one that we hit just before we went back the first day. And it was not an obvious big ship or anything. But there was a big bright spot. And Jerry said, well, we haven't seen anything that looks like this before. And I said, well, you think she spilled the iron ore? Yeah.
So we put the camera down, and sure enough, the first pass, we saw wreckage. We only got a few hours on it. We got enough to positively identify it. We got for sure the NER from Steinbrenner and the home port. And then the camera went across the rest of the name. It's pretty faint. It's pretty obviously the Steinbrenner. But it's totally demolished when it hit the bottom.
CATHY WURZER: I was going to say. So she broke up, and so there's not a whole lot in terms of intact hulk of the ship, right? So she went down in pieces and is buried?
KEN MERRYMAN: So we can't say for sure yet how badly she broke up. We never saw the bow yet. But it takes us days with our equipment. But you can imagine dangling a camera from 750 feet down. You're dragging a camera. And it takes quite a few hours just to understand the layout of the ship, you know, and what's there. I suspect she broke if not at the surface, on the way down.
CATHY WURZER: When you saw those images on the camera, I can only imagine what you and Jerry said.
KEN MERRYMAN: Yeah.
[LAUGHS]
I don't remember what we said, but we were excited. We found quite a few ships. I think between us separate and together, we found 30 shipwrecks. So it was certainly exciting, because the Steinbrenner was high on our list to find. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going back out next year and exploring the site to understand just what happened to the ship as it sank.
CATHY WURZER: You guys have been searching for this now, as you say, for so many years. And there's probably someone listening wanting to know, well, what the heck keeps these guys going? Which is a good question, because you're telling me you get out in the lake. And 2 o'clock in the morning, you're going back and forth trying to find these shipwrecks. And it's, as you say, absolutely dangerous work given how that lake can change at any moment, you know. So what does keep you going?
[LAUGHS]
KEN MERRYMAN: An addiction, I guess. I don't know. I guess you'd call it a passion. Yeah, maybe addiction's a better word for it. I don't know. There's multiple aspects to shipwreck hunting. High on the list is you're solving a mystery. And some of these mysteries are a hundred years old. And it's seeing something that no one's seen before.
And it's knowing that someone appreciates this. And we just love being out on the water. I love the Great Lakes. And I've been out in the middle of all five Great Lakes now. And yeah, it's just a good feeling being out on the water for me.
CATHY WURZER: Ken Merryman, I always appreciate talking to you. I always have a good time talking to you as well, because you and I share a fascination with shipwrecks. So thank you for talking to us about discovering the wreck of the Henry Steinbrenner.
KEN MERRYMAN: Well, thank you for your interest, and I enjoyed talking.
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