The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Page 87 THE LITTLE TUG SPORT by PAUL SCHMITT On the afternoon of June 10, 1987, commercial divers Wayne Brusate and Colette Witherspoon along with two members of the Fish & Wildlife Service, having just concluded a side-scan sonar search in southern Lake Huron, were returning to Lexington Harbor. As was their custom, they continued to monitor the lake bottom on their way back to port. About 2lA miles from the harbor entrance, a small sonar target appeared on their depth sounder; rising about twelve feet off the bottom. The appropriate coordinates and the fifty foot depth were quickly noted as they continued heading for Lexington. After dropping off their passengers, the divers returned to the location of the sonar hit. They methodically searched the area until the target was relocated. After mooring above the target, they called upon the help of "R2-D2", a Seascan R.O.V. (remotely operated vehicle). With the divers attention riveted to a T.V. monitor in the boat, "R2" worked its way down the mooring line. All at once the unmistakable outlines of wood deck planks took shape, then hatch ways, a wooden railing and a bell. This target unlike so many other false alarms, was indeed a shipwreck. The sun was beginning to set as Witherspoon and Brusate donned their diving gear and descended to the lake bottm for a closer inspection. What greeted them was an intact sixty foot tugboat, lying upright on a starboard list. A search of the wreck revealed the anchor neatly lying at the bow, the helm and steam whistle dismounted and laying on the lake bottom on the starboard side of the hull. A search of the hulll itself showed no sign of fire or collision in evidence, but the rudder was dismounted from its skeg and the vessel's four blade wheel had been snapped off at the shaft. It lay with a broken busket near the stem of the tug. It was apparent from the evidence that the vessel had foundered, going down stem first. But what vessel had they found? The tug's deckhouse was gone having probably floated off during the sinking. The exposed steam engine revealed no identifying information. The ship's bell bore no inscription and investigation of the hull revealed no name painted or carved into it. But it was ultimately the wreck's hull, its steel hull, along with its location that led to the inescapable conclusion: Capt. Thompson's little tug Sport had at last been found. The tug Sport was built in 1873 for Capt. Eber B. Ward, by the Kirby Brothers (Frank E. and Fred E.) at his Wyandotte shipyard. The 45-ton vessel was 56.7 feet in length with a beam of 14.7 feet and a depth of 9 feet. By casual observation she was a most unremarkable little harbor tug, but first impression can be very wrong. For below the deck, her entire hull was made of steel. She was in fact reported to be the first commercial vessel built of this material on the Great Lakes. The steel used in her construction was itself a testament to her owner. Capt. Ward was a