US Coast Guard Boat 56022
Wreck Location
The shipwreck is located 1 1/8 mile north of Ontario-on-the-Lake and 2 3/4 miles northwest from the launch at Bear Creek. The depth of water in the wreck site area is 70 feet.
~ GPS Shipwreck Location ~
Latitude: 43° 17' 48.0012" N Longitude: -77° 19' 32.8188" W
Description
The US Coast Guard Boat 56022 sank in a storm on December 1, 1977. The boat was located by shipwreck explorers, Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville.While on route from Oswego to Niagara, the 56-foot Coast Guard cable boat experienced 6-foot waves and winds of 50 mph as it approached Nine Mile Point on Lake Ontario. The boat, a converted landing craft (LCM) with an open deck, was taking water over the gunwale faster than the 3-man crew could pump it out. The Charlotte Coast Guard Station dispatched its motor lifeboat to the scene where it found the 50-ton cable boat listing to its port side. They removed the crew and took the boat in tow, but a wave parted the line and the cable boat sank several miles east of Nine Mile Point and offshore from the community of Ontario-on-the-Lake.
The Coast Guard cable boat landed stern first and has remained that way, never coming fully to rest on the bottom. Being a converted landing craft, it had more weight concentrated in the rear causing it to remain upright on its stern. Over the years, 12 feet of the cable boat have sunk into the bottom. The lake currents have created an 8-foot crater completely surrounding the vessel, and it is now leaning over at an angle of 45 degrees. The cable boat is completely covered with zebra mussels, two inches thick in some places. On one occasion, a large quantity of Lake Bass was seen congregating around the shipwreck.
The sunken Coast Guard cable boat can potentially provide an interesting local shipwreck for Rochester area recreational SCUBA divers and an excellent location for area fishermen.
Footnotes
Divers locate Coast Guard boat sunk in 1977