Side-scan-sonar images of Echo Junior

[Diver1111]

Hi All,

Kicking around in Alton Bay recently. Decided to try and bag the Echo Junior on SSS (I practice alot on many different targets in New England that I have not dived-then dive them for various reasons, as I did today). Chop was bad from passing boats, as were swells because it sits near a marker warning boats of a shoal so they tend to come close in to the marker when passing by.

But I caught it then dove it, landing about 12 feet away-viz about 5 feet at about 40 feet and no thermocline either-something else I did not expect given my experience diving Winni. I had planned on dropping down in my wetsuit (vs. my drysuit) and hitting ice-cold water and taking the hit for a few minutes-didn't happen.

Wow-not much left-wood was mostly skeleton-like structure with a huge engine standing straight up in the water column about 4 feet off the bottom of the hull. Surprised I could even pick up the tattered wood frame. The engine I expected to see on SSS, but not the framing. This thing is long, too. Must have been a blast to drive.

According to a post I found on the Net about her a while ago:

# Loon Cove - The wreck of the Echo Junior lies in about 45 feet of water on the south side of the red buoy in Alton Bay. The 28-foot hull is still intact. It burnt to the waterline on its maiden voyage. The engine of the 1940s speedboat is a 12-cylinder Allison Aircraft engine.

Sorry the images are not clearer-this one was tough-as I said the hull was pretty much gone and what was left was Swiss-cheese. But the engine stands out nicely as a square with associated rectangular shadow from the sonar beam hitting it.

Image 1: Knowing I had a target to find in the area I decided this was it, and was right; You have to be creative in your interpretation of an image, coupled with experience-I knew there was something solid there; Image is nothing to write home about but was useful to me;

Image 2: Clearly a boat (at least to me), with what I correctly assumed was the engine standing up in the water column; I am still impressed I got a hull outline at all-this hull was toast; Note the shadow of the engine amid-ships;

Image 3: Quickie scan leaving the area-again you can see the engine standing in the water column but the rest of the image is pretty much useless, unless you were looking for something in this area; If that was the case and this was the first image I caught it would have been a major focus-point;

Image 4: Used the zoom-box to blow it up-suffers from pixelation though still useful to me; Image is warped (curved) because I was turning the boat a bit when I caught it-turning boats equal less-than-straight-line images of an otherwise straight object.

More to come as I get to them.

[SIKSUKR]

Thanks so much for this very interesting media.I love this stuff!Would love to photos of the dive itself.

[Fishy Cover]

So is it a boy or a girl?

[Senter Cove Guy]

I tried diving on this wreck a couple of years ago and couldn't find it. Would love to try it again. Grant and I are going to try diving on the wreck at 85 feet off of Ship island later today if it stays calm and sunny.

[Diver1111]

Line up your boat between the (red?) marker at the southern end of the two markers indicating a shoal or rocks. Echo lies about 70 feet straight back from the red marker towards the island. I understand "straight back" can mean a number of angles, but the distance is pretty accurate.

If you have GPS set it to find, then anchor directly on:

43 29.912 / 071 15.274

Descend the anchor line to the target and it will be there. Depending on satellite geometry overhead you will either land right on it or be within maybe 15 feet.

Those are the coordinates of the cursor in one of the images I posted-and the cursor is centered on the wreck as you can see.

Hope it helps. If you like history this is worth a quick look-and that is one huge engine.

[topwater]

Hauns, I just wanted to take a minute to publicly THANK YOU for spending you time and money and effort, locating my rod&reel that I lost over board. You are quite a interesting individual and if you ever need a favor in the Lakes Region, all you have to do is ask. I hope you received the dinner certificate for the Wolfeboro Inn, and hope the meal and cocktail(s) were delicious.

[Diver1111]

It was my pleasure to help-and yes-got the Wolfboro Inn gift certificate-Thanks!

It will be a nice evening out when I cash that in.

At Your Service.

[hazelnut]

I tried diving on this wreck a couple of years ago and couldn't find it. Would love to try it again. Grant and I are going to try diving on the wreck at 85 feet off of Ship island later today if it stays calm and sunny.

I have always wondered what it is like at depths of 70, 80 or even 100 feet down in Winni? It fascinates me because I don't think I am brave enough to do it. :laugh:

I have this vision of crazy huge fish, dark and scary ha ha ha. Anyway can you even see anything down that far? How long does it take to get down 85 feet anyway? It's like one of those things that I have so much awe and respect for as it is way way out of my comfort zone. I prefer to be on TOP of the water. :laugh:

[Senter Cove Guy]

Grant and I did find the wreck at 85 feet deep off of Ship Island yesterday. It's a stripped down fiberglass 18- 20 ft runabout. I was just reviewing my dive log for the dive and we didn't reach 85 feet for 14 minutes, but, that's because we were following a trail of clorox bottles suspended just off the bottom at various depths that mark the way to the wreck.

The visibility was pretty good...around 20 feet I'd say. It was a partly sunny day and we really didn't have to turn our lights on until about 50-55 feet. We were diving down a rock ledge until about 70 feet and then it turned to muck. The wreck was sitting right side up in the middle of the muck. Water temp at the bottom was 52 degrees F. We spent about 6 minutes swimming around the wreck just checking it out...then we followed the rock ledge back up to the boat. Total dive time was about 40 minutes including 3 minute safety stop. One of the 5 best dives I've done in Winni. No fish were seen. It was dark at 85 feet but you could see a little without lights...just not very far.

We had looked for it last year and had missed it to the west so we revised our dive plan for this year and it worked out perfectly.

When wreck diving in the ocean, say to 125 feet, we usually make a bee line down to the bottom in about 3 minutes so that we have as much air as possible at depth. Coming up is a different story...slow and steady. Visibility at 125 feet in the ocean off of North Carolina can be 50 - 100 feet depending upon lots of variables. No lights necessary unless it's a night dive or you are going to penetrate a wreck.

If this post piques your interest, Dive Winnipesaukee would love to have you as a dive student.

[Bubba]

Echo Jr

26’ speedboat of wood made by Mr. Fisher of Echo Point in 1946. It is a custom racing boat. Two Echo’s were made. This is the second. It has an Allison 12 cylinder aircraft engine. It sank on the trial run. It caught fire off the point of Loon Cove. In danger of catching the forest on fire, other boats created wave action to prevent the boat from being pushed on shore by the wind. It eventually sank in the channel after burning to the water line.

Brad, I'm glad to hear you and Grant got to the 85' Ship Island wreck on a nice day. :)

[Long Pine]

Just curious Senter Cove Guy - why is the visibility better in the ocean than in Winnipesaukee? I would have guessed the opposite. I have only been diving on a resort course in the Caribbean and of course the visibility was great there but I was assuming a reasonably clear lake like Winni would have offered better visibility than the ocean around NC. Is it something to do with more bottom sediment in Winni that gets churned up?

[Senter Cove Guy]

Just curious Senter Cove Guy - why is the visibility better in the ocean than in Winnipesaukee? I would have guessed the opposite. I have only been diving on a resort course in the Caribbean and of course the visibility was great there but I was assuming a reasonably clear lake like Winni would have offered better visibility than the ocean around NC. Is it something to do with more bottom sediment in Winni that gets churned up?

The particulates in the lake water limit the visibility. This is due to sediment runoff and the general muckiness of much of the bottom. And, of course, the warmer water brings algae formation. The ocean bottoms where I've dived are mostly sand and, the deeper, the cleaner, generally speaking. There's probably even more variables than that but I think that's the major ones.

[Bubba]

Long Pine - Senter Cove Guy has alot of it. To understand more, think of the ocean here (Northeast) versus the Caribbean that you have experienced. Closer to the equator the surface water has less nutrients in it because of the sun. North Atlantic is full of nutreints. For example: Humpback Whales migrate south to mate and give birth. During that time, they are starving due to lack of food. They come north to feed on the nutrient rich waters (temperate zone).

In the Winni, a similiar thing occurs only in reverse. You will find that visiblity on the surface is clearer during winter and spring. As the water warms, the nutrients in the water "cloud" it. In addition you have more turbidity due to rain, boats, and human water activities kicking up material in the water column. If the water temp gets too warm, the algae blooms.

This is probably more than you asked.

[Grant]

Not much algae bloom in the Lake this August -- thanks in large part to the lower temps and heavy precip.

Senter Cove Guy and I did another dive a few days after the 85' Ship Island wreck, and revisited the Weirs pile driver barge. In contrast to the good viz at Ship, the viz at Weirs that day was downright awful. But, as a diver in the Northeast, you must endure some pretty crappy viz fairly often. That being said, it was another good dive.

Finding the wreck @ Ship was fun -- and that ranked up there with one of my favorite Winni dives ever. There's just something about good conditions, nice temps, a solid plan, and finding a previously elusive item that makes for a great dive. Oh yeah -- and surfacing right at the boat afterward doesn't stink, either!

Looking forward to some more good dives later this month and in September.

[Grant]

I have always wondered what it is like at depths of 70, 80 or even 100 feet down in Winni? It fascinates me because I don't think I am brave enough to do it. :laugh:

I have this vision of crazy huge fish, dark and scary ha ha ha. Anyway can you even see anything down that far? How long does it take to get down 85 feet anyway? It's like one of those things that I have so much awe and respect for as it is way way out of my comfort zone. I prefer to be on TOP of the water. :laugh:

You can get down to 80-90-100-110 or more as fast as you sink depending on your weighting. In one of our local spots here at home, we routinely drop to 90 feet within a minute or two. It's coming up that you want to do sloooooooooooooooowly.

In Winnipesaukee, it's typically "lights out" (or, rather, "lights on") when you get to 70-80 feet, and then pretty much a black out below that level. But it depends where you are. We had a fairly dark dive dive to 50-55 feet on Thursday.