Brass Schooner

 We dove this large schooner at the end of the 2009 season in late September.  It's located within the boundaries of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, but also within the old dumping grounds.  It's very large, likely 200 ft. or more in length, and is likely scuttled as it's empty.  It does appear that there are spars lying across the wreck, but none of the cabling or rigging one would expect to see if sunk unintentionally.  I named it the Brass Schooner because Jeff Goodreau came up from the first dive convinced it was full of brass after seeing some pins used to connect the inner and outer sections of hull planking. He then used the "full of brass" story to get Ryan King's attention as Ryan was unable to join us for the dive.

The wreck sits completely upright in 300 FSW on a mud bottom that limits visibility to around 10-15ft.  Our drop line landed near one of the sides, and Jack and I swam across the wreck and briefly down a side before turning back.  We have no idea what section of the wreck we explored as visibility was limited and we did not reach either of the ends.  The decking is completely gone, but cross-members remain largely intact, and large spars lie across the beams here and there.  The wreck is definitely empty, and has a profile of approximately 15ft. The outer hull has largely disappeared, leaving the connecting pins exposed as mentioned above. 

This one will be difficult or impossible to identify, and is likely not worth a second dive.  But it's another example of the large sailing ships that once formed the basis of local commerce, and was worth this one dive.