Dive into shipwrecks off Central Florida’s coast

The water around Florida’s peninsula is a graveyard to thousands of ships, according to Gainesville’s Florida Museum of Natural History.

The History of Diving Museum, which is located in Islamorada, Florida, notes that there are possibly more than 5,000 shipwrecks off Florida’s 1,200 miles of coastline — with some making great sites for experienced divers.

The National Park Service even has a travel itinerary that highlights 13 historic shipwrecks that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. They are accessible to divers and reveal the wonders and tragedies of Florida’s maritime past.

The Florida Historical Resources Act states that “divers are encouraged to participate in the identification, recording, and reporting of underwater sites in order to preserve them. However, disturbing or digging of publicly-owned sites is illegal unless permission is obtained in advance from the Division of Historical Resources.”

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While many of the treasure-filled ships of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries seemed to have gone down near The Keys and other parts of the state, Central Florida still has its share of historical wrecks.

Some were victims of hurricanes while many were sunk by German submarines during WWII. According to the National Park Service, from January to June 1942, 397 ships were sunk in American-protected waters.

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There are also hundreds of obsolete vessels off the coast of Florida that have been sunk to be used as artificial reefs, but for the purposes of this article, we concentrate on the naturally occurring shipwrecks or those that were targets of U-boats during WWII off of the coast of Central Florida.

According to the book “Florida’s Shipwrecks” by Michael Barnette, German U-boats sank over 40 Allied ships off Florida’s coast.

We take a look at the shipwrecks we could find information on from Flagler, Brevard and Volusia counties. This information was sourced from several places, including local historians, the internet and books found at the library.

BREVARD COUNTY

SS City of Veracruz

The 296-foot-long, wooden-hulled steamship, which carried both cargo and passengers, set sail on Aug. 25, 1880 from New York Harbor headed for the Florida Straits.

Captain Edward Van Sice set sail with 29 passengers and a crew of 48 with bags of mail headed for Havana and Vera Cruz as well as firearms, toys, cutlery, corsets, glassware and other items of the era.

After making good time until the wind died down, the ship encountered a new southeastern breeze which quickly strengthened until the captain noticed a drop in the barometer — a hurricane was approaching.

Only three passengers and eight crewmembers survived.

According to the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, The New York Times published the account of one of the survivors, A.K. Owen, with its final dispatch saying, “Stove in fore and aft, the ship is struck by one last tremendous wave before breaking suddenly in two. Thrown overboard, I see the bow and stern slip beneath the waves.”

The wreckage is said to be about 13 miles off of the coast of Cape Canaveral.

Laertes

This 434-foot Dutch steam merchant departed New York for Bombay, India and was attacked by a German U-boat on May 3, 1942 southeast of Cape Canaveral. The ship was said to be transporting 5,230 tons of war material including three aircraft, 17 medium tanks and 20 trucks. Casualties included 18 killed, with 48 surviving the ship’s sinking.

Pan Massachusetts

The tanker Pann Massachusetts was struck by two torpedoes from a German U-128 about 20 miles off of the coast of Cape Canaveral on Feb. 19, 1942, according to the U.S. Navy Memorial

Fire and explosions from the attack broke the ship in two and the stern portion sank quickly. The bow, half-capsized, floated for several miles before sinking in about 290 feet of water,

Flames from the explosion burned the lifeboats and the crew attempted escape by swimming under the flames covering the surface of the water. Survivors were rescued by SS Elizabeth Massey and the USCG ship Forward.

Three officers and 17 crewmen perished in the attack.

Cities Service Empire

American steam tanker Cities Service Empire was also hit by two torpedoes from a German U-128, this time on Feb. 22, 1942, somewhere near Cape Canaveral. The ship was headed from Port Arthur to Philadelphia when it was attacked.

Fifteen people were killed in the attack, with 36 survivors.

Survivors who abandoned ship were rescued by USS Biddle.

SS Ocean Venus

The SS Ocean Venus, a British Liberty ship on her inaugural voyage, was torpedoed by a German U-564 on May 3, 1942.

Of the 47 on board, five were killed and 42 survived.

VOLUSIA COUNTY

An article in “The Florida Historical Quarterly” published in 1965 noted that Ponce Inlet had once been referred to as Killer Inlet “because of its treacherous bar that has ripped out the insides of ships and hurled men to the sandy, shifty bottom to strew their white bones like beads from a broken necklace.”

The Narragansett

This steamship wrecked north of Ponce Inlet, once known as Mosquito Inlet, 1847 as it came across a storm. The captain decided to pull the ship into the inlet to wait out the storm and to repair the ship’s large wheels that propelled the vessel.

Large waves crashed into the ship and drove it forward into the sand. The captain chose to drive the ship further into land, hoping it would save the ship from the rough seas. He hoped that high tide would later bail them out.

The damage turned to be too severe and the ship was left north of the inlet. A few years later, part of the ship broke off and drifted into the inlet itself, according to an article provided by the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association. More then 30 years later, dynamite was reportedly used to clear what was left of the wreck.

The Arrastre

This Spanish shipwreck from the 1700s is said to be located about 15 miles offshore from Ponce Inlet and is said to be popular among advanced divers.

SS Commodore

Built in 1882, the SS Commodore was on a covert mission transporting “guns, munitions and supplies” from Jacksonville to Cuba, according to “Florida’s Shipwrecks.”

The boat began to take on water in rough seas and capsized off of the coast of Daytona Beach on Jan. 2, 1897, killing four people.

One of the survivors, author Stephen Crane, captured the sinking in his short short story “The Open Boat” which can be read here, courtesy of American English, a government website developed by the Office of English Language Programs.

“The third wave moved forward — huge, angry, merciless. It seemed to drink the tiny boat and, at the same time, threw the men into the sea,” reads a portion of the story.

Photograph courtesy of Ponce Inlet Lighthouse Preservation Association

Nathan F. Cobb

According to the Ormond Beach Historical Society, the three-masted schooner set sail from Brunswick, Georgia in 1896 with a load of railroad cross ties, bound for New York.

The ship ran into a heavy northeast storm and soon began to leak. On Dec. 1, the “Nathan F. Cobb capsized near Frying Pan Shoals, but after losing her main and mizzenmasts, the ship was righted and began to drift helplessly southward.”

On the morning of Dec. 5, the schooner grounded offshore at Ormond Beach.

The Cobb Cottage, a structure built using materials salvaged from the ship, is part of Ormond Beach’s Historic Trail. It is located at 137 Orchard Lane.

FLAGLER COUNTY

Northwestern

The 1,700-ton steamship wrecked off of Matanzas Inlet on March 22, 1920, The ship was bound from Charleston to Havana with a load of coal, according to Bill Ryan, the senior historian at the Flagler County Historical Society.

An excerpt from the front page of The Tampa Tribune read:

The Northwestern sprung a leak when she encountered heavy weather Sunday afternoon. The leaks increased and Capt. Jensen headed the vessel nearer the coast in case it should become necessary to beach it. By Monday noon, the water had risen in the engine room so as to flood the condenser and clog the pump suction pipes, leaving the vessel helpless and in this condition it drifted upon the beach. After all but Capt. Jensen and five of his crew had made their way to shore, an attempt was made to pull the ship through the breakers, but the line parted. [Arthur] Venes was one of those to remain, and as he jumped from the vessel his foot was caught between some wreckage and crushed nearly to a pulp. Supporting himself on the roof of a deck house, he swam the mile and a half to shore, where his shipmates made a litter for him. He and Capt. Jensen were picked up by the Seagull and brought to Daytona. The rest of the crew started for Jacksonville on their way back to Charleston. The body of [Melville] Ludwigson [or Ludwigsen] was not recovered....The twenty-seven survivors of the wrecked steamer Northwestern... reached [Bunnell on 23 March] on a lighter from Ocean City. They later boarded a train bound for Charleston.

The Tampa Tribune

Three-masted schooner

Ryan also provided information regarding a “mysterious rumrunner shipwreck event” from Dec. 3, 1925, of a three-masted schooner said to be bound from London to Cuba which sunk about five miles north of Flagler Beach.

According to an article at the time in the Flagler Tribune, “local intelligence suggested that the ill-fated vessel carried some 2,500 cases of liquor and other cargo.”

Schooner Tamarco

Weeks before the historic Wall Street Crash of Oct. 1929, the Tamarco wrecked off the coast of Flagler Beach. The ship was carrying 435,000 feet of lumber from Jacksonville to St. Vincent, West Indies.

Although one newspaper said that the wounded ship could complete its trip, The Tampa Daily Times reported that “Tampa Schooner Pounds to Pieces On Flagler Beach.”

If you know of any other shipwrecks off of the coast of Central Florida, we’d love to hear.

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