{"id":60873,"date":"2023-09-07T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-07T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/?p=60873"},"modified":"2023-09-07T14:00:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T18:00:21","slug":"finding-shipwrecked-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/electronics\/finding-shipwrecked-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Innovative Electronics to Find ‘Pacific’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Seablazer\" <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n The team leveraged ReefMaster software, plus SeaBlazer\u2019<\/i>s Garmin echo sounder, to create their own bathymetric charts.<\/span>\n Courtesy Jeff Hummel<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n\n

The SS Pacific<\/em>, a 223-foot side-wheel steamer, departed Victoria, British Columbia, on November 4, 1875, bound for San Francisco. Its cargo included gold and coal, the latter from a mine operated by the ship\u2019s owners, as well as 275-plus passengers and 50-plus crewmembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pacific<\/em> encountered heavy weather as it steamed west out of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then south past Washington\u2019s Cape Flattery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crew aboard the northbound Orpheus<\/em>, a 200-foot square-rigger, mistook Pacific\u2019<\/em>s masthead light for the Cape Flattery Lighthouse. The ships collided, damaging Orpheus\u2019<\/em> rigging and\u2014it\u2019s believed\u2014opening planks on Pacific\u2019<\/em>s hull. Frigid seawater likely swamped the hot boilers, triggering an explosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some 325 souls were lost on that storm-tossed night. Only two people survived, making it one of the West Coast\u2019s worst maritime disasters. Also, because Orpheus<\/em> was navigationally blind, Pacific\u2019<\/em>s final resting spot was unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1980, Jeff Hummel, then a student at the University of Washington, and Matt McCauley, Hummel\u2019s high school buddy, recovered a World War II-era warplane from Seattle\u2019s Lake Washington. They were sued, but they won the case and all salvage rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is when Hummel heard about another group that was searching for Pacific<\/em>, which he had known about, piquing his interest. \u201cThey eventually quit,\u201d he says, adding that he thought it was a good project. \u201cI just kept doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A marine-industry career\u2014Nobeltec (now TimeZero), then Rose Point Navigation Systems\u2014followed, but Hummel\u2019s interest in the long-lost Pacific<\/em> endured. In 2004, he purchased SeaBlazer<\/em>, an 80-foot Desco trawler that he refitted to search for Pacific<\/em>, and he again partnered with McCauley. The two founded the nonprofit Northwest Shipwreck Alliance and Rockfish Inc., their for-profit commercial salvage operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While numerous expeditions had searched for Pacific<\/em> since 1985, Hummel says that Rockfish\u2019s approach hinged on careful use of technology\u2014including expertise in modifying off-the-shelf sonar equipment and building remotely operated vehicles\u2014and key pieces of physical evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generations of commercial fishermen have scoured the waters off Cape Flattery, and they occasionally net artifacts, including chamber pots and coal. \u201cThe coal was really the key,\u201d Hummel says, adding that because Pacific\u2019<\/em>s owners also operated a coal mine, he was able to send a sample to a laboratory to test against coal from the mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They matched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rockfish team leveraged this information, coupled with fishermen\u2019s GPS data, to reduce the search area from 338 square miles to just 2 square miles. While this was a huge reduction, technical sonar-imaging work remained. \u201cIt was an area that was difficult to search,\u201d Hummel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where technology, including their custom-built sonar, came into the picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"sea <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n While Pacific<\/i> contained everything from horses and hides to opium and gold, experts say the wreckage might also contain some of the oldest remaining pairs of Levi Strauss & Co. jeans. This theory fits: Many passengers were gold miners returning to San Francisco, where Levi\u2019s was founded in 1853.<\/span>\n Courtesy Jeff Hummel<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

\u201cWe made our own transducers,\u201d Hummel says, explaining that the team purchased off-the-shelf Simrad StructureScan transducers, chemically dissolved their potted encapsulating material, removed the piezoceramic elements and microprocessors, and then rebuilt them using \u201cmagic concrete\u201d as the replacement encapsulating material. The result, he says, is transducers that can withstand far greater water-depth pressures than the originals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next step involved fitting these bespoke transducers into a towfish, which the team flew about 35 feet above the seafloor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also developed our own robotics equipment,\u201d Hummel says. This included two remotely operated vehicles\u2014dubbed Falkor and Draco\u2014that are equipped with Blueprint Subsea-built Oculus multibeam imaging sonars and that are capable of operating at depths down to 3,240 feet. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like having a radar on the robot,\u201d Hummel says, adding that the ROVs were designed around these instruments. \u201cWe can find a beer bottle 100 feet away and drive the robot straight to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team also built a camera sled, which provides seafloor optics and collects artifacts via its rake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team leveraged ReefMaster software, plus SeaBlazer\u2019<\/em>s Garmin echo sounder, to create their own bathymetric charts. Critically, this software also allowed the team to create a points-of-interest database in real time as they scanned the bottom, so they could later revisit and evaluate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how, after 12 search expeditions between 2017 and 2022, the Rockfish team identified their sunken needle in July 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first job was to comb the search area for points of interest using the towed sonar array. \u201cIt took a lot of convincing,\u201d Hummel says of their first look at the wreck. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t obvious at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image that convinced them that they had located their needle was of two circular seafloor depressions. These indents matched the 24-foot diameters of Pacific\u2019<\/em>s paddle wheels. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to find two identical things on the bottom of the ocean,\u201d Hummel says. \u201cIt has to be man-made.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"SS <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n A CAD drawing of one of the SS Pacific\u2019<\/i>s two paddle wheels. The seafloor impressions left by these wheels proved invaluable.<\/span>\n Courtesy Jeff Hummel<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n

The team returned to the site aboard SeaBlazer<\/em>, this time with two camera sleds and the ROVs. Once they ensured that the area was free of ROV-threatening snags, they dispatched Falkor to reimage the wreck with its Oculus sonar and to measure the hull\u2019s timber spacing. \u201cThat matched up exactly to the timber spacing on Pacific<\/em>,\u201d Hummel says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the team employed Falkor\u2019s grabber arm to retrieve a piece of worm-eaten hull wood, and the camera sled\u2019s rake to collect a chunk of a firebrick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team presented their findings and were granted salvage rights in November. Weather permitting, they\u2019re planning numerous salvage expeditions this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding a long-lost ship isn\u2019t a cheap venture, even if the incentives for finding it\u2014including the gold that\u2019s believed to have been aboard\u2014are handsome. \u201cSo far, we have spent $2.1 million,\u201d Hummel says. \u201cWe believe it will be a profitable venture. … The value of the wreck is substantial.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Precious cargo will be sold, with funding being shared among Rockfish\u2019s owners and Pacific\u2019<\/em>s underwriters. All salvaged cultural artifacts and personal belongings will be donated to a museum that the Northwest Shipwreck Alliance hopes to build in the Puget Sound area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Hummel may point to Rockfish\u2019s use of digital and analog evidence as keys to finding Pacific<\/em>, ultimately, the discovery also required a 40-plus-year friendship between two high school buddies who refused to give up.\u2009\u2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marine electronics help find one of the West Coast\u2019s last great shipwrecks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":60876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"David Schmidt","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"","arc_website_url":"","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":false,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":true,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":"","sponsored_url":"","social_share":true,"ad_targeting":"","ad_settings_ads_on_this_page":true,"ad_settings_automatic_ad_injection_into_the_content":true},"categories":[157],"tags":[167,2134,562,426,468],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yachtingmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}