The Baleen was towing a barge in 1975 when a fire broke out on board . She was built in 1923 in Wisconsin, and was a steel-hulled ship 102 ft. in length with a 23 ft. beam. There were no fatalities associated with the sinking.

Today the Baleen rests sitting upright, listing slightly starboard in 170 FSW, with the top of the deckhouse at approximately 150 FSW. We had great conditions on the wreck, and it is a quintessential New England shipwreck, covered in brightly colored anemones.

Report by Mer

Chris S, George B and myself visited the wreck of the Baleen from Northern Atlantic Dive Expeditions "Gauntlet" on Saturday, June 21, 2008.

The Wreck
The Baleen is a tug boat that sank in 1975 when a fire broke out on board. It is located off of Hull, MA (near Boston). While on site, the skyline of Boston is visible on the horizon. The tug is about 110' long and is rather intact, although many artifacts have been recovered from the wreck site. It is upright, with a ~30deg list to starboard with about 20' depth difference between the starboard rail and the top of the wheelhouse/stacks. The wreck is beautifully decorated with blankets of frilled anemone, northern red anemone, flounder and other fish. The barge that was under tow at the time of the sinking was cut loose and did not sink. More information on the wreck can be found here.

The Day
We arrived at Gauntlet's summer slip bright and early and were off into calm seas and bright sunshine.(yet again the absense of Chris Ware means we were blessed with a great day) The Gaunlet is well set up and had plenty of room for 6+ divers worth of technical gear. 45 minutes later we arrived on site and picked up the mooring. The boys harrassed me about the She-P and Capt Heather splashed in and did a dive while we geared up.

The Dive
When we could see the strobe Heather had placed on the mooring line from 110' we knew we were in for a good dive! Almost no current at depth, 20-30' of visiability and just enough ambient light. We were diving right after low tide so the vis was amazing. Having only done a few tech dives off Boston, I'm amazed at the amount of life on the wreck. Beautiful blankets of frilled anemone, sculpin, massive flounders, a beautiful northern red anemone and tons of red fish I can't identify. The color was amazing. The mooring was tied to the port stern, we swam around the port side to the bow, then down the starboard side, then back forward over the stacks while George got some video inside the wheelhouse area. There area are enough opennings in the wreck that you can get some great views with your teammates lights coming through the wreck from different angles. We checked out the tow winch on the stern and then boggied out. Max 157', 23 mins bottom, average bottom depth 144', 45deg on bottom.

The Deco
We had a blast on this deco. I think I actually saw George smile. We were buzzed by a dog fish at 60' but George's reaction had Chris and I thinking there was a great white behind us. This then degraded into a underwater conversation between the boys about whose was bigger. Quite humerous to watch and needless to say, deco flew by. I also now know why GUE-training has disallowed using the middle-finger to indicate something's broken... cause otherwise we had a lot of "failures" on deco. Yes, you can communicate to your buddies that the stop is 3 minutes by flipping them off three times.
35 minutes of deco total. Water started warming into the low fifties arond 60-70' and into the low sixties around 20'. Visability got worse the warmer the water got. Only a slight current on ascent. At our 20' stop, we were passed by Capt Dave and another diver heading down for their look. Calm seas means that we got to do some nice, relaxed surface deco, before climbing the BEST LADDER north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Beautiful day, thanks to Heather & Dave and Scott T for the assistance and tons of fun. Y'all need to come out and experience this!

Thanks to George for arranging this day of NEUE fun dives.