The Saratoga Shipwreck Project

Afterword

The Search for the SARATOGA

In September 2004 I set out to locate the remains of the S.S. SARATOGA beneath the waters of Prince William Sound. With fellow shipwreck divers Rob Weller and Brock Harrison, our boat sailed from the port community of Whittier and reached the abandoned mining town of Ellamar on September 6. In addition to our cold-water diving equipment, the expedition was equipped with a marine magnetometer, an electronic device that senses the presence of ferrous metal underwater and is used extensively to locate submerged shipwrecks.

I have looked for other shipwrecks whose location has not been documented, and it can be incredibly frustrating to search miles of barren seafloor hoping to stumble upon the wreck of a ship. Thanks to the historical record of the SARATOGA’s loss provided by Ejnar Mikkelsen and the transcript of the court of inquiry, we had an excellent account of the ship’s course from Ellamar to the treacherous reef off Busby Island. From that record we were able to locate two shallow reefs, either one of which could have been the rock encountered by Captain Schage on March 20, 1908.

The waters just offshore from Busby Island plummet quickly to depths of 50 and 100 fathoms—far too deep for divers to reach—but our hope was that the SARATOGA lay in shallower water close to the reef that claimed her. We marked off a grid on a detailed marine chart of the area and began searching with the magnetometer. Our primary targets were the waters NW and SE of the reef, for these are the directions most likely to be on the downwind side of the vicious winter storms that reportedly swept the SARATOGA from the reef many months after the accident. The historical record seemed clear that the ship was badly damaged and flooded, with the probable result that the hulk would not have had enough buoyancy to drift very far before sinking.

With Brock steering the boat in a careful sweep that carried us in an ever-expanding arc away from Busby Island, Rob and I took turns watching the digital display on the instrument. A magnetometer search for a lost shipwreck is a mix of excitement and mind-numbing boredom, as the towed “fish” sends electronic signals to the boat that can signify the presence of iron on the seafloor. The hulk of an intact shipwreck contains enough iron to send the instrument into spasms of intense beeping, but even the smallest of positive readings often indicate scattered wreckage that can lead searchers closer to the main wreck site. It is critical to watch the display at all times, and as the hours passed and each search pass became longer, we became less optimistic and more confused about where the SARATOGA could have gone.

In the end, our research and our site work failed to locate the lost steamship. Our search of the waters around the tip of Busby Island, and areas up to a half-mile away in each direction that the SARATOGA would likely have drifted before sinking, turned up nothing. Could it be that the 1908 salvage efforts had ultimately succeeded, and the ship had not gone to the bottom after all? Or had the old steamship exhibited such a fierce determination to live that the hulk drifted miles away in the March storm that swept her off the reef, finally sinking in water hundreds of feet beyond the reach of scuba divers? The answer may never be known, and the wreck of the SARATOGA—wherever it lies hidden—for now must remain undiscovered and unexplored.

Click here to read my article on the wreck of the Saratoga