On this day November 26, 1922, the two masted Canadian schooner KATIE ECCLES sought safety off Timber Island during a terrible storm but ended up driven ashore, settling in about four feet of water. Her anchors couldn’t hold her. Her Captain and crew were able to safely make it to shore before the chains broke and she drifted away, ultimately sinking between Timber Island and Nine Mile Point.
The ECCLES was sailing from Oswego to Napanee with a cargo of coal. She was one of the last schooners to sail on Lake Ontario.
Built in 1877 at Mill Point, Ontario, by William Jamieson at Rathbun’s Shipyard for Capt. Dexter Eccles of Kingston, she measured 95 feet in length, 24 feet in beam and 8 feet in depth.
The following photos and story are from our Shipwreck Ambassador Cal Kothrade’s dive on the ECCLES in 2017.
The wreck of the KATIE ECCLES was my third Lake Ontario schooner when I first dove her in June of 2017. I remember the water being under the influence of a significant algae bloom at the time, giving everything a greener tint than usual. I also recall experimenting on that trip with some different approaches to my underwater photography as far as the camera settings were concerned. The resulting images appeared much different than the scene appeared to my eyes, the pictures came out looking like it was a night dive, with no ambient light from the surface at all. We actually had plenty of natural light on the dive. Nor do the pics reveal any hint of the green water I was diving in. I consider these images a base hit in baseball parlance, far from the triple or grand slam I was swinging for. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, when shooting shipwrecks, not every dive will be a home run, and so this set of pics proves it.
Photo at top of page: The Helm of KATIE ECCLES
Underwater shooters are always looking for a way to squeeze more vis out of the dive by tweaking the myriad camera settings afforded them by a modern DSLR. Becoming an accomplished photog is a learning curve and the fastest way to learn what works is to first figure out what doesn’t. One of the hardest lessons to learn and remember is to never experiment with camera settings when on expedition, rather it is wiser to leave the learning curve to one’s home wrecks that are accessible on a regular basis. My KATIE ECCLES is a ‘poster wreck’ for this mantra. I’m lucky I got any photos worthy of sharing on social media at all.
Deck Hatch
The wreck itself is a wonderful representative of the final days of the age of sail on the Great Lakes, sinking in a storm in 1922. The hull is mostly intact save for the stern which has fallen to the bottom leaving the ship’s wheel somehow still attached at the top of the stern post, seemingly hanging in mid water.
Bow
Bow Sprit
Her masts are on the lake bottom off her port side, and the bow sprit and jib boom are still in place at the bow.
Windlass chain locker
The anchor chain locker appears empty, sitting just aft of her windlass which is in perfect condition, no doubt from setting the anchors in hopes of saving the vessel.
Artifacts
A great many artifacts like jars of canned food, and various containers once used by her crew have been assembled on the aft deck by previous divers, making the items easier to view and photograph. At 100 feet down, there is time to see all the sights, but not much more than that if you want to keep the dive out of deco obligation.
There are wrecks I have hit grand slams on with my camera, letting me rest easy in the truth that I most likely will never visit them again due to their distance from me. Then there are some sites that I really would like to see again, just for the opportunity to take another swing at the fences. Knowing what I know now about how to best utilize my equipment in the ever-changing conditions of the Great Lakes, a do over on a picturesque wreck like the KATIE ECCLES would be most welcomed.
Still images were taken with a Canon T1-I Rebel DSLR mated to a Canon 10-22mm super-wide rectilinear lens, in an Ikelite housing using natural light and Ikelite DS-161 Movie strobes X2. Post production was performed in Adobe Lightroom.
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All photos are by Cal Kothrade. Cal Kothrade is the Shipwreck Ambassador of the Wisconsin Marine Historical Society, a diver, a photographer and an artist. His work can be viewed at www.calsworld.net
This story originally was posted on November 26, 2023.
