Large odd wooden structure off Shep's

[Diver1111]

Found this last year and went back for another scan and dive recently with much better conditions. First time I dove it visibility was about 3 feet.

Very heavy construction and probably weighs nearly a ton on dry land. I am mystified as to what it was. It appears to be almost upside down but I could be wrong. Sitting in about 47 feet and stands at least ten feet high into the water column even at an angle. How far down into the lake bed it is is impossible to say of course.

What it was and how it got about 500 feet offshore I do not know.

Pictures are screen shots off the GoPro video-not particularly good but that's the best I can do.

Ideas welcomed as to what this thing is.

https://youtu.be/1eZs8KJN3GI

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1eZs8KJN3GI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Position:
Lat: 43 39.191N / 71 25.410W

[Pineedles]

Looks like an section of an old dock. Nice hand hewn pieces. The box like structure is probably a crib for rocks. They may have removed the rocks then let the retreating ice in the spring take it out away from shore where it sank.

[Grant]

Looks like an section of an old dock. Nice hand hewn pieces. The box like structure is probably a crib for rocks. They may have removed the rocks then let the retreating ice in the spring take it out away from shore where it sank.

Yeah -- after watching the YouTube video, my first thought was that it could be a section of crib dock....perhaps a pre-fab section that was being transported and fell off a barge. Then again, maybe the ice did carry it out. Interesting.

[upthesaukee]

Yeah -- after watching the YouTube video, my first thought was that it could be a section of crib dock....perhaps a pre-fab section that was being transported and fell off a barge. Then again, maybe the ice did carry it out. Interesting.

Or... perhaps it was being dragged across the ice, and was too heavy and went through the ice. It looks like it was quite substantial, but perhaps a possibility.

[Grant]

Or... perhaps it was being dragged across the ice, and was too heavy and went through the ice. It looks like it was quite substantial, but perhaps a possibility.

Now that is probably the most logical explanation. Far more likely than it falling off a barge.

[Descant]

How big is this? Any idea how old?
I'd think the ice ramp or a prefab dock being transported would float, not sink. An old dock crib would be waterlogged and sink, right? But old cribs were made of logs, not nice hand hewn beams. ??

[Meredith_Resident]

https://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18634

Could it be this?

[tis]

I'll take a guess that it was a ramp for lifting ice from the lake so that the blocks of ice could be loaded onto horse drawn sleds or truck and hauled to shore.

Something like a little up-hill rail-road track?? Just to get it onto a sled or the bed of a truck.

It might have been a portable device that was moved around to different locations on the surface of the ice. Then some how one year it was not pulled off the ice in time during the spring thaw and ended up where it is now.

That's my guess.

Good idea. If it's that old, it's more likely to be something like that, than a dock. After all, back in those days, they didn't have docks like we do today.

[Diver1111]

Until you dive this thing and see it up close it's hard to appreciate just how rugged and robust it is. It's a beast-odd tenons cut in it, large timbers and complex design oddities-a real mystery. And that just what I see above the mudline.

The ice harvesting device is as close to correct an idea as I've seen since I found it.

Even without being water logged this must weigh a ton or more-not something I would think would be routinely hauled over ice.

People ask me regularly why I don't bring up the old Model As (T's?) I find or steamers or other wrecks. Many reasons not the least of which is that so many are just too frail-they cannot be moved without collapsing under their own weight.

This thing however would appear to be an exception. I wish I had a barge and crane to strap it up and bring it to the surface then place it on deck and bring it to shore-now that would be very cool. Once topside it could be studied with ease.

Once my ear drum heals I will go back and film it again as well as measure it.

Thank you all for your ideas and speculation. Great fun.

[Diver1111]

Yes I/we see fish all the time at all depths although the species change as you get deeper. They like "structure" as fishermen call it and this thing-whatever it is-fits the bill of course although man-made.

Senter Cove Guy and I routinely see cusk at depths generally between 60 and 100 feet. They are usually solo but once in a while I'll see 2 or 3 near each other.

They are not particularly afraid of divers as I have touched them before and only then did they move.

The biggest cusk I ever saw I filmed with an ROV at approx. 104 feet down off the west side of Bear not too far from the Post Office.

Check out this cusk at approx. 5 seconds in. I estimate it at at least 3 feet long if not a bit more. The ROV got right in his face and only then did he swim off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvnjkEI3qk8&feature=youtu.be

[Pineedles]

Watching that cusk slide off that wreck reminds me of me getting off the couch. LOL.


Sent from my iPad using Winnipesaukee Forum mobile app (http://r.tapatalk.com/byo?rid=92687)

[rozbeezer]

We rented the ice house from Herb Oliver the first year it was rented.(1968) It has since been remodeled. It still had some sawdust around and lots of bats, a gas fired toilet (Destroilet). A little rugged, but we came back the following two summers and finally bought a cottage on Kona shore in Moultonborough for $51,500. The good old days gone forever.

A gas fired toilet burns everything in the bowl when the lid is closed. Don't get near the chimney--smoke smells awful.

[garysanfran]

View their early experiences here, when they get older, as "The good old days"?

I hope so.

[JEEPONLY]

View their early experiences here, when they get older, as "The good old days"?

I hope so.

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Old-Days-They-Terrible/dp/0394709411

[JEEPONLY]

How about when we see 6-9 years olds on TV talk shows mention "When I was a kid"!

[Diver1111]

Hi All,

I've been digging some more into what this could be and sent information to a man in Maine who knows alot about ice harvesting operations (he heads a Museum for it).

He believes it was part of an ice harvesting operation.

So-does anyone know if in the approximate area of Shep's there ever was such an operation?

[Slickcraft]

Hi All,

I've been digging some more into what this could be and sent information to a man in Maine who knows alot about ice harvesting operations (he heads a Museum for it).

He believes it was part of an ice harvesting operation.

So-does anyone know if in the approximate area of Shep's there ever was such an operation?

Merrill Fay may have had some ice harvesting experience. In any case he would be a good person to ask.

Alan

[Tallyho]

This may have been posted before, however it does resemble underwater structure.

[Diver1111]

Tallyho's picture represents the closest representation of what I found. I think it what I found may be part of a larger contraption for harvesting ice.

From the Meredith Historical Society:

Ice cutting would have been done on a regular basis by Shep Brown himself (from 1925) and by Solomon Lovejoy (from the 1880s). They cut ice for summer customers on the islands and the Neck. Solomon would have supplied the Bear Island hotel as would Shep until it burned in the 1930s. Any idea of how old the equipment is? I doubt either of them had much in the way of big equipment, however. They would be the logical people given the location which both owned for many years (Shep bought it from Solomon in 1925).