WATCH – Ship Found in Lake Superior 120 Years After Sinking: ‘Incredible Moment’

A nearly 300-foot ship has been found at the bottom of Lake Superior over 100 years after it sank.

Barge 129 sits approximately 35 miles off Vermilion Point 650 feet underwater, Click on Detroit reported Thursday.

“I’ve looked for this ship for so long because it was a whaleback,” explained Darryl Ertel Jr., Director of Marine Operations for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, adding he could not wait to record it on camera.

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum announced the news Wednesday and detailed the accident:

Barge 129 sank on October 13th, 1902 – 120 years-ago!  Barge 129 was in tow of the steamer Maunaloa, downbound with a load of iron ore, when they ran into a powerful October storm. The heavy seas strained, and eventually snapped the towline connecting the two ships. Barge 129 was then at the mercy of the storm.

Maunaloa turned around in an attempt to reconnect the towline, but the wind and waves slammed the two ships together, with Maunaloa’s port side anchor ripping into Barge 129’s starboard side. As the barge began to sink, Captain Josiah Bailey and his crew moved quickly and struggled to launch their lifeboat. The crew of Maunaloa stood by, and eventually helped the Barge 129 crew onto their ship…just as the whaleback dove to the bottom of Lake Superior.

Video footage taken underwater showed Barge 129 up close. The vessel appeared to still be intact for the most part, despite resting underwater for more than a century.

“That rope is still looped through,” one person behind the camera said while viewing the barge:

Nevertheless, officials were shocked by the amount of damage when they saw that Barge 129 was completely destroyed on its underside, per the Click On Detroit report.

Whalebacks are considered unusual ships, according to Shipwreck Society Executive Director Bruce Lynn, who said, “When we had the ROV on it, you could clearly see the distinctive bow with a part of the towline still in place…that was an incredible moment!”

The ship, which officials pinpointed last year using sonar, is one of the last of its kind to be found, a spokesman from the historical society told the Detroit Free Press.

“When the crew returned home after the sinking the vessel’s owner, Pittsburgh Steamship Co. of Duluth, Minnesota, gave Captain Josiah Bailey $50 and each crewmember $35 for the loss of clothing,” the newspaper reported.