On this day November 19, 1966, the German motorship NORDMEER turned inside the flashing buoy marking the Thunder Bay Island shoal about 12 miles east of Alpena and went aground on the rocks.  Within minutes her engine room and cargo holds flooded and she settled in 22 feet of water.   Thirty seven of her crew took to the lifeboats and was picked up by the SAMUEL MATHER.  The captain and seven others stayed with the ship.

            The MACKINAW arrived the next morning and took the German crew from the MATHER to Alpena.  The eight remaining crew members had to be taken off by a US Coast Guard helicopter a week later as the ship was breaking up due to the pounding on the shoal from 50 mph winds and 22 foot waves.  Salvagers were later able to recover part of her cargo of heavy coiled steel.

            The NORDMEER was a potential pollution hazard as she still had 20,000 gallons of fuel.   This was not removed until 1969-70, after the hull caught fire a few times. 

            Much of the NORDMEER was above water for many years, but the ice and waves finally broke her.  She is a popular dive site as her big diesel engine is still in the wreckage and a steel salvage barge rests alongside her.

            The NORDMEER was built in 1954 at Flensburg, Germany and measured 470.8 feet in length, 60.9 feet in beam and 28.2 feet in depth.

Suzette Lopez

Photo credit:  Great Lakes Marine Collection of the Milwaukee Public Library and Wisconsin Marine Historical Society.

This story was originally posted on November 19, 2023