great white shark adventure - Midwest Scuba Diving Magazine

Rediscovering
Dredge No. 6
By Captain Dale Bennett
incredible story of the sinking of No. 6 Dredge
would be told.
One October day in 2001, Bud Selvick
with his daughter, Lorraine, made a trip to
Milwaukee to revisit the memory of the night
Dredge No. 6 sank. They met Jerry Guyer
and Dave Manchester and reclaimed the
watch Bud’s father lost forty-five years earlier
when a proud vessel and nine men went to the
bottom of the lake. Captain Ed Selvick has
since passed away, but his watch will help
keep his memory alive for future generations
of the Selvick family. Bud and his father had
lived through that night and Bud’s memory of
the incident was as clear as if it had happened
yesterday.
On a Wednesday morning in June of 2000 the
dive charter boat, Len-Der, made its way southsouthwest
from Milwaukee harbor toward a
popular dive site. Captain Jerry Guyer, the
owner, was at the helm as the boat made the
hour-long trip to the wreck then known as
“Dredge 906.” Among the divers on board
were Dave Manchester and Roy Garland.
Dave and Roy were planning to assist Jerry by
replacing the lost mooring line on the wreck,
but what they were about to discover would
open the door to a whole new understanding
of this shipwreck.
This dredge has always been popular with
divers because of its unique configuration. It
is a steel barge with a large house containing
a boiler and machinery for the steam shovel.
It rests upside-down on its spuds in seventyfive
feet of water. “Spuds” are massive steel
columns that can be lowered to the lake floor
to anchor the barge in position while it is
engaged in dredging operations. When in
the retracted position, they normally stick up
into the air. The wreck is suspended above
the bottom on its retracted spuds almost like a
table on legs. The steam shovel with its arm,
boom, wheels, cable and winches is splayed
out over the bottom.
On this day, Dave and Roy tied the new
mooring line to one of the retracted spuds and
then swam down over the edge of the upturned
barge to investigate the crane arm and shovel
which rests on the bottom, off of the bow, to
the north. In the wreckage of the dredging
equipment Roy spied something shiny. He
couldn’t reach it but he pointed it out to Dave.
At first he could not reach it, but after a couple
of tries, Dave was able to maneuver himself
down through the wreckage and reach into
where the treasure rested in a tangled nest of
twisted metal. He retrieved the object and
brushed it off. It turned out to be a gold watch.
Thinking that it may have been dropped by
another diver, he put it in his pocket. It was
not until everyone was back on the deck of
Len-Der that he discovered the inscription on
the back of the watch, “To Ed Selvick, from
Dredge No. 6.”
The watch was proof that the shipwreck
everyone had been calling “Dredge 906” was
actually named “Dredge No. 6.” So how is
it that “Dredge No. 6” came to be known as
“Dredge 906”? Every shipwreck list and article
we have found has published the wrong name.
The story we have heard is that when the Coast
Guard received the initial radio call about the
sinking, they thought they heard, “nine oh six”
when what was spoken over the radio was,
“number six.” “906” was substituted for “No.
6”. We now know, without a doubt, that “No.
6” is the correct name for this wreck. The
watch also puts a very real and personal face
on the disaster witnessed by this wreck.
The Selvick family name is a familiar one
to those involved in Great Lakes shipping.
Jerry remembered that there were Selvicks,
and perhaps an Ed Selvick, living in the
Sturgeon Bay area. All agreed that it would be
appropriate to look up the owner of the watch
and return it to him if possible. It would not be
until October of the next year, however, that
the watch would be returned and the rest of the
On Thursday, May 22nd, 1956 No. 6 Dredge,
owned by Fitzsimmons & Connell Dredge &
Dock Co. of Chicago, was operating off of Oak
Creek, Wisconsin. A new Wisconsin Electric
coal-fired power plant had recently come
on-line, and they had been hired to dredge
out the harbor so that coal deliveries could
be made by water. It was the usual practice
for the crew to live on the vessel, around the
clock, until the job was completed. There was
space aboard for more than twenty-five men
and a cook, but on this day, there were only
19 people on board. The barge was under the
command of Captain Ed Selvick. His son,
Ed junior, also known as Bud, and seventeen
others completed the crew.
The weather, Thursday, was becoming
progressively worse. The harbor at Oak Creek
is unprotected by breakwaters so the barge
was taking the full force of the storm. Late
in the day, it became obvious that she was
in trouble, and the decision was made to tow
the barge to the safety of Milwaukee Harbor.
The Tug, E. James Fusik, began towing the
110-foot barge northward. The weather was
quickly deteriorating. Soon there were fifty
knot winds and the waves rose to fifteen feet.
By 2:00 AM on May 23rd, they had made it to
within seven miles of the breakwater entrance,
about halfway. Waves were washing over the
decks and the equipment rooms were filling
with water. The pumps were not keeping up
with Lake Michigan’s onslaught and the boiler
was in danger of exploding. The barge began
to list badly to one side. The crewmen, many
of whom had been asleep in their bunks, were
ordered to don their lifejackets and report
on deck. Suddenly, a cable which secured
the shovel boom parted with a bang. Eighty
thousand pounds of dredging equipment
was violently thrown over to one side. The
equipment kept moving and the rest of the
barge followed. As the vessel rolled over
and sank, the crew leapt into the frigid spring
water. It all happened in just a few seconds.
The tug’s crew quickly threw off the tow lines
and turned their boat around to try to save the
men in the water. They were able to pick up
ten survivors and three bodies. Four more
bodies were found the next day; two were
never recovered.
Almost from the day she sank, Dredge No.
6 has been a popular destination for Lake
Michigan divers, and even more so in recent
years, since the visibility of the lake has
increased dramatically with the introduction of
exotic species of filter feeders, such as zebra
mussels. The sheer size of the shovel and
crane is awe-inspiring. The shovel itself looks
as if it is big enough to pick up a Volkswagen.
The deck areas around the perimeter of the
barge are easily explored by experienced
divers. For divers with advanced training in
penetration, the equipment and boiler rooms
are very interesting, though a little disorienting.
Because everything is upside-down, ladders
that once descended into the lower levels of
the engine room and boiler room areas now
extend upward into these spaces. Smaller
tool rooms and coal bunkers, complete with
coal, can be found along the sides. These
areas can also be explored, but can be rather
16 MIDWEST SCUBA DIVING FALL 2007