Emily Chan
So, they set out to look for the John Everson. They embarked on a three-day search expedition on the morning of September 13. That day, Lake Michigan’s waves were rough. The water was also 15 feet deeper than they expected.
Nevertheless, they carried on with their task and made use of their side-scan sonar equipment. Just a few minutes later, the shape of a huge boiler showed up on the display screen. It came as a great surprise to the two men.
“We just couldn’t believe it,” said Jaeck. “We actually hadn’t even started our search. We were just getting the equipment up and going.”
They sent down a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) into the water to confirm that the wreck was the John Everson. The ROV showed the ship’s boiler, steam engine, hull bed, and giant propeller.
Baillod and Jaeck reached out to Tamara Thomsen, the state underwater archaeologist for Wisconsin.
Thomsen and a diver visited the site and captured over 2,000 high-resolution underwater photographs, which they used to create a three-dimensional model of the wreck.
It is hoped that the wreck will be included on the National Register of Historic Places in the future.
