Can we solve the mystery?

[videoguy]

When I was growing up my father owned a 75 foot scallop dragger the MAJOR J CASEY . I think I was about 10 at the time ,so I am guessing this happened around 1960 .My dad and I went down to Tylors dock in Greenport L.I. to meet the boat when she returned from a 14 day trip. We were just getting out of the car when the boat hit the dock .And I do mean HIT THE DOCK the captain was the only member of the 10 man crew that could still stand . Well we got her tied up and dad went to check the load that’s when he found the reason for the crews condition. There was only about 100 bags of scallops ,but can you imagine this. 10 fishermen 150 cases of French champagne about 300 cases of German beer and 12 TONS OF ICE . Wow you got the makings for one hell of a party. No kidding that’s what they pulled up in the dredges. And now for the mystery how did it get there? It couldn’t have been there that long , there was no growth on the bottles of champagne . The labels were gone but you could read made in France on the bottom of the bottles and there was no rust on the wire holding the corks in . As for the beer I remember it was in dark green cans ,I can’t remember the brand but it had a picture of a tiger or a wolf on the label , and almost no rust on the cans. It couldn’t have been from the rumrunning it hadn’t been down that long and I don’t think they bothered to smuggle beer . We don’t think any thing sank because no body pulled up any wreckage there were 3 or 4 other boats that pulled up some of the same stuff. Now some one told me that sometimes if a liner didn’t have enough booze on board for the return trip they would dump it over board because they couldn’t stock up in the USA unless they were completely out of supplies. That didn’t make much sense to me and if that were the case I would think we would have found a Varity of things not just beer and Champagne. So if any of you guys can come up with any ideas, speculations , suggestions, or just plain fantasies as to how this stuff got there I would love to hear them……………………Phil

[paladin]

How deep was it found.......I have photos somewhere of something similar that was down for several years and showed little sign of deterioration, but it was below 300 feet...and it didn't need ice.

[videoguy]

I think it was about 600 feet or more...........Phil

[ishmael]

Hm, maybe part of a deck load that got washed overboard?

A bit off topic, but there was a fascinating show on PBS the other night about scientists using cargo out of container ship spills to confirm and enhance computer modeling of ocean currents. The first such use(back in the late eighties, I believe) was a container spill of thousands of rubber ducky tub toys that ended up all over the planet. Subsequent studies have relied on anything that floats. A major spill of sneakers yielded a wealth of data.

On a dark note, the show also highlighted just how much plastic is ending up in the oceans. Its effect on marine life is truly a hard aspect of our modern consumerist culture. Thousands of critters from turtles to sea birds get tangled in it, or think it looks like a tasty morsel, both scenarios usually leading to death.

"By the waters of Babylon I laid down and wept."

[Willin']

I haven't a clue about the reality of it but I want to say thanks for posting this anyway!

Whatever the truth is, it has the makings of a great sea story. If I were a writer of any sort I'd be building a screenplay around my mental image of this event and shopping it to Hollywood.

Scene- The deck of one of the last working draggers on the sound. No evidence of a fish catch is present. The muted squabble of angry sailors too drunk to fight it out drifts up from below, punctuated by the odd belch, fart and horrible rattle of vomiting into the bilge.

Filthy, sweaty fishers lay hither and yon atop the cabin trunk, legs and arms akimbo. The skipper, clothes torn and face badly bruised, raises his bloodied cheek off the deck, lifts an empty green bottle to his eye, and mutters...

"Why is the champagne always gone?"

I may be on to something here...

[Thorne]

Some similar material theme-wise, set just a few years earlier in time
(and written well over a decade ago, some nautical stuff will be dead wrong) -

http://www.anacreon.com/botr-ol/stories/chair.html

http://www.anacreon.com/botr-ol/stories/revenge.html

[nedL]

I wouldn't discount the passenger liner theory. Back in the early 80's I was working on a scalloper off the Jersey shore & we pulled up a large box of blocks of baking chocolate. We carved down to fresh stuff below the surface to try it, yup it was baking chocolate (not sweet enought to really eat). All we could guess was that it had been tossed by a liner.
On another trip (a hundred or so miles off Atlantic City) we pulled up a pair of "cement overshoes", but that's another story.

[Stari27]

Now if it were off Yarmouth, NS I could almost believe it was a friend's boat you found. Several years ago, he and several friends made a run for booze to Maine with a lobster boat. They bought their goods and then asked the liquor store owner is he knew of anyone with a pickup to take it back to the port. They finall found a guy with a station wagon. It took four trips to get it all aboard. All was going well until some relatively small distance from port they "sprung" a leak. They called the Canadian coast Guard who sent out a helicopter and took them off while they watched the boat sink. What a waste!

[S.V. Airlie]

Rum runners from those days when booze was illegal. Probably one of Joe Kennedy's boats lost the load on the way to MA.