The Grey NATO – 347 – Hunting (And Finding) Shipwrecks With Derek Haager & Matt Ludvigson

Published on Thu, 02 Oct 2025 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In this episode of The Graynado podcast (episode 347), hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacy welcome guests Derek Hager and Matt Ludvigson to discuss their recent involvement in finding a long-lost shipwreck in Lake Michigan. The episode begins with the hosts catching up on their recent activities, including Jason's upcoming camping trip and the launch of new TGN merchandise, some of which was designed by guest Matt Ludvigson in the "Ludwigson Explorer Collection."

The main segment features Derek and Matt sharing their experience participating in a shipwreck hunting expedition that successfully located the F.J. King, a ship that sank in 1886 and had been the subject of an intense search for over 50 years. They explain how they became involved with the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association, which allows citizen scientists to participate in shipwreck searches. The group found the wreck surprisingly quickly thanks to modern sonar technology and research that correctly identified the shipwreck's location based on a lighthouse keeper's account rather than the captain's report. The guests discuss how technology has made shipwreck hunting more accessible to amateur enthusiasts and the importance of preserving these underwater historical sites.

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 347 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy. James, we're back to being remote from each other here after our exciting weekend in Toronto.
James Stacy Yeah, I feel like I've spent the last week just kind of recovering from it, kind of laying low and sitting quietly at night and reading books. It was a pretty social weekend.
Jason Heaton A couple of introverts. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. I can't tell you how many people I talked to at the marathon evening event that were like, we'd go over as far away, you know, into a corner on that sofa and sit and we'd talk and be like... they're like, how are you doing? You know, I know you're an introvert. Is this hard for you? It's hard for me. You know, and I'm like, well, it's not hard, but it's, you know, I'll have to go into the cave for a few days when I get back home. But it's also worth it to meet everybody. And I'm still kind of flying high from some of the interactions.
James Stacy Yeah, no, it was a great time. And, you know, it plays out into watches and future content. And even I was just editing a Q&A, which ideally would go up before this episode, if you're not already confused enough about our Q&A schedule, where we were actually talking about some stuff that, you know, conversations we had during the Toronto Time Peace Show. So, yeah, that was great. And at the same point, you know, now I think like for me, that's now fall has started as far as the season of work. And, you know, there's a lot going on in the watch industry in the next couple of next couple of months as we push on towards kind of gift giving season.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacy And that sort of thing. So I think it'll be pretty busy, but it's nice to have had that show and have it be a success. And the response to the episode, you know, thanks largely to our many guests has been great. So a huge thank you to everybody who was on the previous episode, the potluck episode from us.
Jason Heaton live from the show yeah and on top of that we have some other new news stuff that people waited a long time and we've hinted at for a while why don't you bring people up to speed on uh on the new fall merch finally you know we've been talking about this for months and uh i think it was worth the wait i think i think we needed to kind of take our time with this one because it's a big drop we have a lot of products there's a lot of um really cool stuff things we haven't done before in terms of different styles of hats and lots of t-shirts and um I hesitate to even announce what the kind of the fun surprise, you know, what we're saying is fun for the whole family item because I think I want people to discover that on their own on the website. And the really kind of cool part of this is that a good number of these items that we've got in the shop now are from a collaboration that we embarked on with Matt Ludvigson, who coincidentally is one of the guests on today's episode. Matt's a talented graphic designer, as most people know from Slack and just from Instagram and his presence around the TGN crew community. Um, and we partnered with him to do some designs for some of this merchandise and we're calling it the Ludwigson Explorer Collection. And, uh, he really knocked it out of the park with this. You know, he came up with some really unique designs that reflect kind of our opening superlatives that we talked about at the beginning of the episode, you know, the travel adventure, diving, driving gear and watches. And Um, those appear on, on a good number of the merchandise, including some, some mugs and some t-shirts and some hoodies and that sort of stuff. And, uh, we're just really excited about it. We, we did drop this, uh, we did kind of a soft launch to the Slack crew, uh, a week ago. So if that's not a impetus to, to join Slack, um, for future drops, uh, you know, I'm not sure what is, but that's not to say that this is limited edition stuff. It'll be around for a few months, but. We wanted to kind of soft launch it to the crew there, and it's gotten a good response, and here we are. It's open. So you can go to thegraynado.com slash shop and check it out. All the new stuff is there, and we're really excited about it.
James Stacy We considered going back and dropping a little added addendum chunk of audio into last week's show, and then we're like, you know, Matt's on next week's episode. Let's just do the full launch of the show. We planned the timing, but we only planned it after all the pieces were essentially already on the calendar, so maybe planned is the wrong word. We accept the serendipity of having Matt on today's episode. And then alongside that, if you've been one of the folks really asking about hats, we now have several. There's a couple of trucker hats and there's a few different versions of these sort of corduroy collegiate hats that are more my style. So I think that's kind of the two ends of the spectrum in terms of hat, ball cap style hats. So there's a bright orange and a tan in the trucker. People seem to be digging those somewhere right in the middle of that spectrum. There's like a a stealth dad hat which is a dark black or gray uh with a black logo and then then on the on the wider end there's these collegiate hats that are very warm sort of fall new englandy sort of colors uh that say tgn and then one of them has sort of a loosely encrypted message from the from the show uh i i can't imagine a lot of people are going to buy that hat i made it for me so i have one that should arrive uh later this week and i'm pretty excited about it but uh yeah Look, we can hang on to wrist check because you've got a very cool watch to talk a bit about. I've got one that I can't really take off my wrist, but I want to hear what our guests have as well. So we'll get into that in just a moment. But what have you been up to since you made it home?
Jason Heaton Yeah, well, the big news here was I harvested my pumpkin. I shouldn't say I harvested it.
James Stacy I harvested it a few weeks ago.
Jason Heaton I was so excited about it. I posted a reel on Instagram, which is kind of out of character for me. But I planted pumpkins for the first time this summer and watched one particular one grow really big. And I harvested it a few weeks ago and I finally went ahead and cut it open and took the seeds and the pulp out and chopped it up and roasted it. And I made a soup and I'm going to toast the seeds today with the goal of taking all of that camping. So Christy and I are going camping. Way up near the border with your country. Tomorrow we're actually leaving. So we're recording this on a Tuesday, headed up on Wednesday morning. And we'll be up there for a few days, sleeping in the Defender, doing some canoeing, possibly touching Canadian soil if we cross a lake or two. Some hiking and just relaxing, building fires. It should be good weather and good fall colors up there. So I'm just excited to kind of get out and do some fall camping, which is something I haven't done in a few years. So that's what I have to look forward to.
James Stacy Oh, very nice. Yeah, that sounds great. It is hard to beat fall camping if you thread the needle of the weather. There's something about fall where you get to fall asleep and the tent's just a little chilly. Your face is cold. Your body's nice and warm. Yeah. Fire feels better. Whiskey tastes better. Like all of this is... I think it is a great season. So... We have a bit of a busy weekend coming up just with kids stuff and some fun activities for them. But we're hoping to be able to kind of get up to the cottage for Sunday and do a little afternoon fire and a hangout and that sort of thing. But yeah. And then other than that, I've got some travel on the horizon. But nothing really to report as far as like, you know... Haven't done much since since you left other than kind of rest and and, you know, get my head around some some work. This is like I mentioned a few minutes ago, just kind of the kickoff of a very busy season in the watch world. So we've got obviously for those of you who are going to be there, I don't believe Jason or I are going to make it this year. But obviously you have New York Watch Week, which includes wind up and watch time and all that. That's only a couple of weeks away. Before that, we have a few days in New York for the second outing of that UBS House of Craft event that we do. It's changed from last year, all included in the show notes, but if you want to come to any of the public events, which is some live podcasts, business of watches and podcasts about collecting and making the magazine and things like that, stuff I'm pretty excited about, I'll include that in the show notes. But that's kind of what I'm focusing on now is just Just figuring out all the moving parts for that because as soon as you start to kind of move around, it gets harder to keep the full watch on the website, which is kind of the job these days. So yeah, it's a balancing act.
Jason Heaton Yeah, after this camping trip, I've got a good month, over a month, probably six weeks until I travel next. And that's going to be the third and final Channel Islands expedition with Oceana and Blancpain. And I'm looking forward to that, but I'm also looking forward to, well, first of all, camping and kind of some relaxation there, but then just being home during my favorite time of the year.
James Stacy So that should be great. I know there's a quote and I'm, I'm, you know, ruining it by not just quoting it directly, but I can't remember it offhand, but it's that, you know, there's a certain you travel and you, you at the same time, it's two sides of the same coin. It's amazing to go away and to see somewhere and to see people and to be face to face with folks, but it's also great to come home. And it is a great time of year to be home for sure. The Northeast and the Midwest are just such a, such a delight this time of year. So. All right, you know, with the chitchat out of the way and with Risk Check just kind of looming, why don't we bring in our guests and get started with what I think is going to be a pretty fun episode, kind of digging into some real-life shipwreck hunting.
Jason Heaton All right, Derek Hager and Matt Ludvigson, welcome to The Graynado. It's been fun to watch your exploits kind of play out on Slack, and we've known you guys for a number of years, and it's just fun to have you on the show finally, so welcome.
Derek Hager Yeah, thank you so much. Hello, thanks. Thanks for having me.
James Stacy Yeah, this is a real treat, especially with the launch of the Ludwigsen Explorer collection into the shop. A weird bit of serendipity to have you have the timing work out to have you guys on the show. But just last week or maybe the week before, I've lost track of time around the timepiece show here in Toronto, but the slack kind of exploded with some news of your guys' exploits along with a few others in finding a long-lost ship. And there were immediate demands to have you guys on the show. And look, we work at the whim of the crew. So we'd be more than happy to have you fellas on. And it's really just kind of a treat to have you guys on in general, regardless of the recent kind of win in Lake Michigan. But yeah, how have you guys been? Well, I've been great.
Matt Ludvigson And we timed the shipwreck release to coincide with the merch launch. I just want to let you know that. You know, they were very understanding in helping us do that. Yeah. Other than that, it's been just a great summer of travel for us and all over the place. And of course, with this trip and the shipwreck hunt is a total bucket list item. So we're very excited about that. That's great. And Derek, how about you?
Derek Hager Yeah, everything's been good. Just moved out here to Milwaukee a couple months ago, so getting the lay of the land. But the shipwreck thing in Lake Michigan was definitely a high point of the summer for sure. And, you know, life.
Jason Heaton Yeah, that's great. Derek and Matt, can you just give, for some crazy reason, if listeners don't know who you guys are, maybe give a little bit of background on who you are and kind of what you do and where we find you today and that sort of thing. Derek, you want to go first?
Derek Hager Sure. So my day job is I'm a colorist. So I work on TV shows and film and things like that. And then I also do some writing about watches and photography for Monochrome. So you can find me over there as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and you're an avid diver. You do dive reviews of watches, and we've been diving together. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, in fact, we were in French Polynesia together. We were.
Derek Hager That was the first time we met in real life was in French Polynesia of all places. Yeah, that was crazy.
Jason Heaton And then, Matt, I've known you for a long time, and most people know who you are, but explain a little bit about your background.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, I'm a graphic designer. That's my day and night job many times. And I think the easiest way to put it is I have a watch problem. That's kind of what led me through all of this. But yeah, the TGN experience or just kind of the way TGN is, that community really speaks to that idea of... you know, having adventures big and small. And I think that really speaks to me too. We try and have fun, uh, anywhere we go, try and do things like the shipwreck if that opportunity is, is available to us. So, um, yeah, keep, keep life interesting as much as I can. We're here in beautiful Minnesota, hot Minnesota, almost October, but wouldn't be Minnesota if we didn't talk about the weather, uh, or TGN or TGN. Right. Yeah. I know of at least two people here who have weather stations at home.
Jason Heaton Well, hey, you know, before we actually get into this adventure, we need to do a little wrist check on all of us here. James and I held off. We did our kind of intro and chit chat a little earlier before you guys hopped on the call. But we wanted to withhold wrist check until we had you guys on the mic here. So let's start with you, Derek. What are you wearing today?
Derek Hager i'm wearing the doxa 50th anniversary sub 300 professional it's the watch that i chose to wear out on the uh the shipwreck hunt because it's you know seemed like a fitting shipwreck hunting risk yeah literally one of the first questions i have here in my my notes was how did you think about like if we find the ship today i want this watch on my wrist Yeah, I mean, fully didn't expect to really find a shipwreck, but just in case. You got to be prepared.
Jason Heaton Matt, are you wearing a doxa as well?
Matt Ludvigson I have it off screen. I actually panicked a little bit this morning thinking, what am I going to wear? And we have this kind of heat wave coming through, which is odd to say in almost October, right? So I'm squeezing out the last few weeks of summer with the Tudor Heritage chronograph.
Jason Heaton All right, well, that's a good choice. You've had that one a long time. I remember you've had that for years, and given your interest in motorsports, I remember that being a real fitting choice for you.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, it's got kind of the Martini NATO strap on the side, and the colors of that are just fantastic. I've always been a fan of the Monaco and things like that as well. I love this watch. It's a great watch. The Shipwreck watch was definitely the Doxa 300. Got to do that one. I love it.
Jason Heaton This is a bit of a tangent, but are we all just waiting for Tudor to kind of come up with a newer version of the Heritage Chrono? I feel like they're kind of due for that. I don't know if that ship has sailed for them, but it just sort of feels like it's such a cool watch.
Unknown 13 years?
Jason Heaton Yeah, right.
James Stacy Has it been that long? And they canceled it, what, five years ago? 2012, I want to say that. Or am I crazy? Maybe I've lost my mind. I think you're right. I thought it was roughly the same time or maybe the year before the Black Bay. I have to go back and double check, but yeah. I I've had such a fondness for the blue one specifically. I know, I know that it's a, it's a two camp scenario. You either love the black gray or the blue cream. Yeah. You know, they've done a lot of chronographs in the last little while, but they've all been dive watch derived and I'd love to see them kind of go back. You know, maybe, maybe they got a little gun shy after the fast rider maybe didn't find an enthusiast audience. I think it was just kind of an interesting timing for that watch. uh, with the ceramic case and that sort of thing, it was there. And then it gets just kind of quietly went away. Uh, but yeah, I think those heritage Kronos would, you know, would be really sweet in a 58 sort of guys, uh, you know, could, could bring a lot to the table for them.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. To your original question, Jason, I think I would love to see them reissue that. I'd love to see a little thinner. Yeah. The 15 format would be fantastic on that. Even if they could get it down. Uh, just a couple of millimeters. I don't really notice that there's a lot made of the thickness it wears. I think fantastically, I don't have a large wrist and I love it.
James Stacy Yeah.
Matt Ludvigson Especially on a strap. I think it does well. Yeah. Strap or the bracelet helps it come down a bit too. Uh, you know, in terms of height, unless, uh, of course we're doing the, the Stacy maneuver and removing a little extra material that helps. Yeah. Do what you can, right? Do what you can do. You have to do. Um, I would love to see them reissue that. It'd be fantastic.
Jason Heaton Yeah, well, we'll see. They're due. They've been pleasing us lately, you know, with some stuff. They've been on a roll.
James Stacy Yeah. All right, James, what are you wearing? Yeah, I'll try and give you the maximum amount of time because you've got something very cool that's actually new. Mine's just sort of new. I'm still wearing the Nomos. So the Club Neomatic World Timer Club Sport. And yeah, I've got it on a mesh that I picked up on Amazon. which I have found people either really like or really hate. And, you know, Jason, you and Tom are not fans. Now that I'm out of town, you put it back on the mesh. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I literally have the leather here that I took it off of. And now I'm eyeballing the, like, no more sport. strap that's sort of like modern looking sport bracelet that they make as my colleague Tantan wears his jungle version on that strap and I think it looks really really cool very modern in that sort of take but yeah I just absolutely love this watch I'm super happy with it And how about you?
Jason Heaton Well, I'm going German today, too. So we're both wearing German watches. I've got, yeah, my latest, which is a Zinn 144S. And, you know, I did talk about this briefly last week in Toronto on the show last week because it was in Toronto that, you know, we were having some late night libations with Tom Place and Ken Lamb and Tom... dumped a few of his watches on the table, mentioned that he might be putting this one up for sale on the Porsche Design black bracelet. And I was immediately smitten, and we worked out a deal, and it came home with me. So that's what I'm wearing. And, you know, it's funny. I posted a photo on Instagram a few days ago, and somebody said, oh, one of 300. And I didn't even realize this was an LE in 2014. It was the Jubilee. And as I did a little bit of research, lo and behold, I come across an article that you wrote about it, the introductory post that you wrote on a blog to watch back in 2014 about this very watch. So I learned more about it. And yeah, it's really cool. One of 300 pieces, tegament case, black PVD. I just, as we're talking, I got a, this is, this is great serendipity. I got a message pop up on my screen from Tom Place just now saying he's boxed up the box and the original Zinn bracelet and sent it off on UPS today. So hello, Tom. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for joining us virtually here on the episode. So yeah, super exciting. I, you know, I've been playing with this watch on different straps. I put it on a black bund and I've never even worn, I had a black bund that I never wore on anything because I'm not really a black strap, especially a black bund strap person. But it's kind of perfect, and it sort of played off that Porsche design military vibe that we see going on these days with some of their watches. And it just looks great. And then today I put it on. I don't know if you guys can see this. I've got it on a sand color, or I guess this is the greige from... crown and buckle with black hardware and and that plays off it really well too so it's it works well in different straps surprisingly because i didn't think it would but yeah i'm just really taken with this watch that's awesome can you hold it up again i'd love to see that a little closer yeah it looks fantastic was it screen warm yeah did tom work tom sneak that in anywhere Well, funny you ask because he also sent me a few days ago, he sent me a photo of him doing stunt work on the movie Joker 2 with Lady Gaga. And there's actually a scene where he, you know, as a double for a police officer, I believe, he's actually... manhandling lady gaga like carrying her across the screen and he did he sent me a screenshot of him doing that and he said the watch you can't see the watch but it's in this scene of him wearing it um like clutching lady gaga who acts in that movie um so that's fun um and then he also sent me a wrist shot he actually has taken this diving um a few times so while he was doing his search for his missing rolex in the lake in upstate new york um he's worn this for that as well so it's got some good good tom place provenance and i'm just thrilled about that very cool
Derek Hager Did you ever think that in a million years you'd say the words manhandling Lady Gaga live on air?
Matt Ludvigson That might be the first time I've ever heard that anywhere.
James Stacy Yeah, if we go over the transcripts, I think that might be a single phrase. But now twice. Well, look, I think we can get into the story of this great shipwreck hunt and your recent success therein. But I think to do so, I'm going to swap in a different watch. We're going Doxa. All right, I'll join you. We're going to put on the diving star. It feels like a uniform at this point, so... also on mesh i'm definitely on brand today um with uh with the with yet another like 15 amazon shark mesh that i had to cut with a dremel you're keeping like one one factory in business i think single-handedly i think so yeah exactly we'll find out in a couple years that i own that factory and it's my amazon store i've been doing this for like eight dollars of profit every strap tgn is just a cover Yeah, the bully pulpit. Big psy-op to get people into the mesh world for sure.
Jason Heaton Alright, are we sure we're not drinking morning whiskeys here today? There was a lot of laughter on this show so far. Way too much coffee, I can tell you that much.
James Stacy Whiskey might slow me down.
Jason Heaton Well, Matt, when you and I met years ago, I remember it was at kind of a meetup. I don't remember. It was at the Fulton Brewery downtown Minneapolis or something, I think. I can't remember where it was. But I remember we immediately started talking about Great Lakes shipwrecks. So I just remember, you know, you must have read some story I did somewhere on Gear Patrol or whatever. And you said, hey, you know, I'm talking about Door County and shipwrecks and the Great Lakes and whatever. And I think, you know, we've been... Fast friends ever since and been to the Gales of November event a few times up in Duluth and that sort of stuff. But so this to kind of segue into the, you know, your recent adventures. Matt, why don't you kick it off and just give us a little background on the whole. And how it came about and what we're talking about. Yeah.
Matt Ludvigson Well, actually, I have Derek to thank for getting me involved. Derek, why did you move on to Wisconsin like two years ago? Yeah, about two years from New York. OK, so Derek shows up in Wisconsin. You know, we live there our whole lives. Derek shoots us a text and says, I'm going to go shipwreck hunting in Lake Michigan. And I'm like, hold on a second. I got to figure out how to get on that. That's been a dream for me my whole life. You know, like I'm certain I've dreamed of that before. So Derek got involved and Derek, you're a diver, of course, and got involved with the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association. And they were putting on a shipwreck and they've made this available to their members to join, which is really novel. I think that's a very cool thing. And we can come back to that later about how important that is about growing the interest and keeping people involved in things like this, you know, for the history of the Great Lakes. But I just reached out to him after he texted all of us in our group of divers, that ship's group and, you know, all friends there and just asked, you know, how are we doing this? Is there any way I can get involved in this? And sure enough, there was an opportunity. I was able to sign up. So that's kind of what led to how this started to happen. This was put on by Brendan Balod, who is a known quantity in Great Lakes shipwrecks. I think he's found, what is it, something like five wrecks in the last three years. Yeah, something like that. He knows what he's doing, you know, and that stood out to me as well as this is really an opportunity to see. how this is done. Something I've always wanted to know. I think if I won the lottery, I would, I would buy an old fishing trawler and just go mow the lawn with sonar in the great lakes. That would be my life.
Jason Heaton And, um, Derek, uh, you know, what, what's kind of the background of this wreck and, and, um, and what's it called and where is it? And that sort of, those sort of details.
Derek Hager So the wreck is called the F.J. King, and according to Brendan, who was the leader of the project, it's one that people have been looking for since the 1970s about. It sunk in 1886 off of Bailey's Harbor up in Door County, Wisconsin. It was carrying a load of iron ore from Escanaba down to Chicago. Then it got caught in a storm and it sunk. And those ships, the way that Brendan explained it was those old schooners started off as like grain haulers. And as they got older, they transitioned them to hauling ore, which doesn't really make sense because like ore is much heavier than grain. So you're putting the ore in the old ships and it seems like something bad is bound to happen. But it sank and people have been looking for it since the 70s. There's a dive club in Green Bay that had offered like a $1,000 reward to anybody who can find it. And nobody had been able to find it until this past summer. Until we got on the case, Matt.
Jason Heaton That's right. Oh, we have you to thank for that. Are you guys splitting the $1,000 between the two of you?
Matt Ludvigson We're very much deckhands on this one. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Jason Heaton From what I was reading is you were out on a boat with a research vessel with Brendan and it looked like Kevin Cullen, another chap that I know from the Manitowoc Museum there, right?
Matt Ludvigson Yes. Yeah. And this was I mean, this is a tough secret to keep from you in particular, right? Because Great Lakes shipwreck folks are a small world and an island in the small world. So everybody kind of knows everyone. Yeah, he was out there as well. But he was out on the shoreline. Friends of Plum Island, I believe, is the group. The shoreline from the Friends of Plum and Pilot Island. So they chartered that vessel. It's a tour vessel, you know, kind of an open deck with a small cabin in the front. And then we brought along a lot of equipment and that has gotten so... You know, with just the way that technology has gotten, it's gotten much more affordable and easy to access. And Derek, for instance, I know you've really trained on this stuff with them, but it was fascinating to see how they use this.
Derek Hager Yeah, that's one of the things that I found so surprising about the Wisconsin Underwater Archaeology Association was not only like the ease of access and how eager and willing they were to just let me start, you know, hanging out and learning stuff. But they also offer training on ROVs and side-scan sonars for relatively inexpensive to anybody who wants to learn how to use them. And then after you pass these classes that they offer, you are able to use their equipment on any personal projects you may have. So it's, it's really, it's a really good, uh, organization and helps like open the door to, to something that to me, it seemed unattainable in the past. You know, it seems like only big science vessels and, and, and, you know, NOAA boats are out there looking for shipwrecks, but this makes seem a lot more attainable.
Jason Heaton I'm looking at this article and this is, this is just astounding and it's, it's gotta be really cool for you guys. But, um, there was this article in popular mechanics on their website that, um, That says, you know, for 50 years, it was the subject of an intense search, but it only took Brendan Balad and a 20 person team of citizen scientists a couple of hours to find it, which there's a couple of factors in that sentence that that amaze me. One is 20 person team of citizen scientists. That includes you, too, I'm assuming. um and then a couple of hours to find it now but that's with years of you know kind of desk research and behind the scenes stuff as well but can you explain a little bit about what the research was that led to that location for the search and then what what was your role and these other kind of quote-unquote citizen scientists
Matt Ludvigson Well, I think that's part of what makes Brendan so good is he gets in so deep on the history and he really looks for articles. He goes back in time. And I think what broke this case for him in particular was the report from the lighthouse keeper. Yeah. And they reasoned that the lighthouse keeper would have had better reckoning than the captain at two in the morning with his ship failing underneath him. So the lighthouse keeper did report seeing masks sticking out of the water at a specific location, which they did knock down for navigation purposes. And that's the last anyone ever saw of it. But that research, my understanding is what really broke that case for him.
Derek Hager Yeah, the captain had reported in the wreck report that it went down five miles offshore in like 150 feet of water or something like that. But the lighthouse keeper said that it was much closer. I think it ended up being about two miles offshore. And apparently everybody who'd been searching for it in the past had gone off what the captain was saying, that it was five miles out. So they were pretty much all looking in the wrong places. But like Brent, according to Brendan, he reasoned that that the lighthouse keeper would have a much better idea than the captain. Whereabouts he was, you know, at two o'clock in the morning panicking because the ship's going down.
James Stacy The ship is in something like one hundred and thirty hundred forty feet of water.
Derek Hager Yeah. Yeah. Just about. Yeah.
James Stacy And I think at least again, I read the same two stories that Jason's referenced and we'll have in the show notes. It was surprising one to see that it's relatively intact, despite its hugely heavy payload and sitting upright.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, yeah, aside from hitting bow first and the iron ore pushing out, usually when those hit, and especially as they're starting to get obviously kind of ripe and working apart, that heavy cargo will split them along with just the forces of water involved. For instance, as it was going down, the escaping air blew the cabin off, some pieces of it going as high as 50 feet, according to the captain. It's very violent. This was a day where they were experiencing about 10-foot waves in a southeast gale, I believe it was. It's survivable for a lot of ships, but it is a violent thing always when it wrecks. Remarkable to see it that well intact. Of course, it's deep enough that you don't get the ice action. and and much wave action that grinds down a lot of the the wrecks that came up on closer to shore you know if they were successful in grounding it um unfortunately for them they weren't able to get to harbor with this one but fortunately for us it went down in in the deeper water that we can now see that it's it's really quite intact um looks like it even has its wheel and helm
James Stacy I saw that in the images. So I assume those images are from ROV of some sort. Yeah, I believe there's ROV footage.
Matt Ludvigson And then it looked like they did get a survey dive after the fact.
Derek Hager Yeah, they did. That's how they did the whole the photogrammetry models that you can see on some of those pages. So they after the initial find, like I think a month or so later, they sent down a dive team that took all the photos that that they pieced together into those models.
James Stacy Yeah, I was kind of curious, and I figured you guys would know as good as anybody. The minute that this was discovered, are there a bunch of guys who are just itching with dive gear to get on top of it? Because that's deep and cold, but it's not outside the reach.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a concern, and they won't share the specific location until it's successfully added to the Register of National Historic Places. So it has some preservation to it. But that is a major concern, and we had to be very tight-lipped to make sure that the survey was done. so that things could be preserved. To your point, it's a difficult dive, but not impossible, right? So, yeah, it is a major concern any time a shipwreck is located to keep it tight-lipped and to make sure that history can be, you know, people can get down there and they can make the right survey so that it can be preserved in that way. And, you know, they degrade over time as well. So this ability to take this 3D model is really compelling as well. It makes it jump to life for you, right? And even just the quality of seeing it on the sonar, it's incredible. You know, we can talk about that, the moment of discovery, but when you see it.
Jason Heaton I was going to say, yeah. Tell us about that. Walk us through it. What was that like?
Matt Ludvigson Derek, how about you go with that? You were on day one.
Derek Hager Yeah, so the 20 people were split over a two-day period. So I was out on the first day team. And Brendan had set aside this search area, basically. And we just started doing a zigzag pattern. Not zigzag, but like a lawnmower pattern over it, basically. And it was on the second pass where we started to see something on the sonar. And it was like, wait, what is that? And, like, we were at an angle where we couldn't really tell. So they were like, it's probably just a rock. But then somebody had the second thought was like, should we do one more pass over that just to make sure? And everybody was like, yeah, why not? We've only been out for, like, 30 minutes at this point. So we were going to be here the whole day. So we may as well, you know, check out any possible, you know, target. So we did a second pass. And on the second pass, you could just see the full, like, breadth of the shipwreck. You could even make out, like, the hatches on it. The sonar resolution was so high.
Jason Heaton Wow.
Derek Hager When sonar is actively recording, you can't do a lot of it, but then you can play it back. And that's when you can use the software to measure the dimensions of the ship and whatnot. So we did a measurement of the length and the beam and compared it to the information that we had about the FJ King. It's spot on within five feet. So this has to be it. And there's nothing else reported in that area. So it was kind of like you see on TV when people, you know, there were some hoots and hollers and high fives and slaps on the back. And it was really exciting. Then we came back one more time and like dropped anchor and put a couple of ROVs in the water. And one of the two ROVs in the water actually, the water was like a little sporting that day. But one of the ROVs actually like had eyes on it for about probably like a minute or two before we drifted off course. So everybody's gathered around this little iPad screen being like, oh. And like, yeah, that was kind of the moment where they're like, it's definitely it because there's nothing else it can be, you know.
James Stacy I'm curious because you set out with the goal of finding something that has proven to be exceptionally difficult to find. You think you have some new information that will put you in the right place. I'm sure you're just running the sonar and 5% of your brain is kind of focusing on it because you think this could take... hundreds of outings and we could never find it. And then it pings immediately. Do you kind of go like, should I buy a lottery ticket? It just feels like, it feels like you looked at the, at the haystack and just went like, well, I'll start here and reached in and grabbed the needle. It's a, I just think it has to happen. You know, statistically there has to be some ships that are found faster than others, but that feels really, that must've been quite a, like a kind of wild energy when, when you were like, yep, that's the, that's the one we came out for.
Derek Hager Yeah, it was. It was borderline ridiculous. It was like, well, this is so easy. Let's just go find some more.
Jason Heaton And what were your specific roles on board? Well, that's one question. The other question is, so you find it on day one. Matt, you're out there on the next day. Was that because Derek texted you and said, dude, get to the dock. We'll pick you up tomorrow morning.
Matt Ludvigson No, I mean, everyone was pretty tight-lipped about it. And, you know, Derek was, we were asked to be secretive about it, of course. But I think there was some feeling of helping us also experience that moment, you know, and preserving that. So I think they were alluding to they had a good day yesterday. But our role on the second day, because it was set up that way, that we would keep searching a different grid if we hadn't phoned it day one. was to make more high-res scans of it. So to get in a little tighter with the sonar and to see a little tighter. And we had that same moment where you're kind of looking at this Martian landscape on the screen. And all of a sudden, at the edge of the screen, starts to draw this very distinct shipwreck. So we're all huddled around this monitor, you know, kind of pitching around on the, again, a somewhat rough day. It got a little rougher as the day went on, but nothing bad. And, you know, it made your hair stand up because you could just see that. And just knowing that you were one of the first people to look at this thing after some 140 years. And to your point, yeah, it had been very difficult and elusive to find for whatever reason. And there it was. It was surreal. It really was.
Jason Heaton Well, there's been, there've been a few articles lately about the, you know, just the prevalence of shipwreck finds in the past few years in the Great Lakes. I mean, it's been a real uptick and I credit that to, or I would imagine it's credited to just better, you know, more research, more interest, but also better technology in terms of finding this stuff. And, you know, these guys are... you know, guys we've, we've known, you know, Ken Merriman, Jerry Elias, and, you know, Brendan, this whole group of folks that are out there just ticking off these lost wrecks, um, year after year. And it's, uh, it's, it's pretty remarkable. So what were your specific roles? What, what were you guys up to? Were you kind of there as observers or were you actually, you know, feeding out the, the, the cable or, or, you know, what, what did you get to get to, uh, get up to?
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, it was mostly observers, but there were opportunities to help pull in the toe fish, help spool out some line. They had individuals who were well-versed in the technology they're using that ran most of the systems. But observing, and at that point I alluded to earlier about getting people involved in the find itself. I think proliferates that interest, right? It makes it a little bit more of something that we all own now and carry that story forward. And Derek, I know you've had a little bit more training in the ROVs and got a little bit more hand on with that as well.
Derek Hager Yeah, so on that first day, I was one of the ROV pilots when we initially sent the ROVs down to look for it.
James Stacy What a cool title. Yeah, I know, right? That's so sick. That'd be top on LinkedIn for sure. For sure.
Derek Hager I've got to update that and get some business cards.
James Stacy Yeah.
Derek Hager But, yeah, sadly not the one who actually found the ship. The other guy found the ship. But I did get to pilot the ROV around looking for it. And then I had also taken – that's because I had taken the sonar course with them prior – or the ROV course with them prior to this outing. So that's why I was able to pilot one of them. And then I took the sonar course later. So if we go out again, then I can just run everything.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Well, that's funny. Too bad you found the ship so quickly. I know, right? No more trips. You know, Matt, you're talking about citizen science and kind of the encouragement of that with the WUAA, I guess is their acronym. And it makes me think, you know, when I was in Toronto and I was, you know, with James and he was showing me his 3D printer and I was exclaiming how this trickle down of technology when it comes to things like drones, 3D printing. ROVs, like the uptick in discovery of a lot of shipwrecks and can be attributed largely to the fact that this kind of thing is more accessible to more people nowadays. Like the technology is accessible both in terms of price and kind of the use of it. But, you know, you don't have to, I mean, it helps if you have a PhD and a boat and fancy equipment, but like the fact that you guys can go out and do this sort of thing is really, it's really a neat opportunity.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, it really is incredible. And, you know, you and I have had discussions too at Gales in November about like, man, how is this going to, is this interest going to carry over to a different generation? You know, because it does skew older, that crowd, right? When we're at Gales in November. And I think things like this and the technology involved, for instance, the ability to 3D print the rack or to see it digitized is a big piece of that. But yeah, again, the accessibility. Um, besides hand sonars now are these, these toe fish that they're using, I think he said are about $10,000, which is a lot of money, but it's not, it's not prohibitive for an organization and it opens it up to so many more people. Of course, you still have to have the boat and the resources for those sorts of things.
Jason Heaton Yeah, just take a year off buying watches and you can buy your own. Yeah, right.
Matt Ludvigson I mean, there are many watches more expensive than that toe fish, many watch.
Derek Hager But I think to put that in perspective, though, those ones that are like $10,000 now are operating at the same, if not higher resolution than ones that cost $500,000 just eight, 10 years ago. So that trickle down certainly has a lot to do with people like amateurs being able to find things a lot better.
Matt Ludvigson I mean, you even think of, you know, like fish finders or what fishermen are able to use for their sonars these days. And it's incredible. You can get bottom imaging from just those, like a hummingbird. Yeah. You know, a $500 object. I've coveted those just for, you know, mowing the lawn here in White Bear Lake. I think that'd be fun. But it's incredible, right, what technology has opened up for folks, both on the information side and the actual doing it side.
Jason Heaton What's the next step for this project? It's been found. You mentioned it has to get registered. I'm sure there'll be plenty more survey dives, but it goes into the books and all the information gets uploaded and then move on to the next one next summer. Is that your plan at least?
Derek Hager Yeah, I think our role is largely over in this one, so we just have to wait for the next one. And, you know, it is, like I said before, the accessibility of it is just kind of eye-opening, so it definitely inspires me, you know, even outside of the WUA group or other groups, just to want to, like... research and come up with ideas of projects to do not necessarily by myself but you know with like a smaller group perhaps because it seems like a thing that you can actually feasibly just do you know it makes it that much more accessible so I plan to start doing some research on my own of some other shipwreck ideas
James Stacy Yeah. Is there anything on the hit list that somebody listening maybe has a file in there, you know, a clipping of a newspaper or something like that, that you'd love to, you know, you never know how these connections could be made with, especially when it comes to the crew. But do you have a boat you plan to move on to or not yet?
Matt Ludvigson We have a pair of French minesweepers that need finding. I think that's one that we've got to get on the list. I think we could probably figure out a way to make that a joint adventure. We could bring a certain Canadian in on that adventure as well. Yeah.
James Stacy Yeah, I'm down. I think this could be a lot of fun. I mean, the whole thing, it gives me that same kind of buzz that I got and get every time I read, you know, Shadow Divers and that sort of thing where there is this secrecy to it. And with this, I love that it's not so much about treasure hunting or trying to take something from the wreck, but just trying to complete the story. We knew about the wreck. We knew that it went down. We had a rough idea of where. You know that these lakes are such... harsh conditions i think people who grew up and don't know the great lakes you know i grew up near a couple of them as did uh many of you guys uh you don't realize just how gnarly they are oh yeah and and and just how dangerous and how treacherous it was to move iron ore and these sorts of things across the water and i think these these efforts and yeah hopefully it starts to skew younger maybe you guys were the youngest fellows on the boat i'm not sure But hopefully it starts to skew younger as people continue to have more of an academic focus on these sorts of things. I think it's quite exciting.
Matt Ludvigson Yeah, I'm happy to say for starters, I was not the youngest. I thought that was great, right? They had some, I think he was around 20 years old or something. Exactly what you want to see, right? The individual I think was college age.
James Stacy Nice.
Matt Ludvigson And yeah, to your point about the Great Lakes, I mean, yeah, you want to share that. It's incredible. I grew up in the Green Bay area and you're very right. People, you know, the lake is a misnomer. It's an ocean. It's freshwater ocean. That's just like Michigan. Lake Superior is bigger than all. When it gets rolling and even last year on calm water, we almost lost an ore boat just from a stress fracture. Almost went down. It was very close. it's still hazardous even to this day, you know, and it has so much rich history. There are so many wrecks, many that still need to be discovered. But if you get involved in this and you start to do more research, those stories come through and they're fascinating. There's so much literature. There's so much culture. There's the wreck of the M. M. Fitzgerald, the chorus, that famous song. That's the one that stands out, of course, but there's so much more to learn.
Jason Heaton Yeah, 50th anniversary of the Fitzgerald sinking coming up in a little over a month. So that's on theme. And, you know, do let us, you know, keep us informed as to your plans and if there's anything we can do with TGN, whether it's, you know, some sort of a... sponsorship opportunity for one of these wreck hunts and maybe a fundraiser cool t-shirt yeah do a do a live field recording from from the boat or have you guys do a little kind of field you know field recording that we could we could snip into a show somewhere that'd be kind of fun i mean uh keep let's keep our options open this is great we're so proud of you guys uh as as members of the tgn crew and appreciate your coming on the show to kind of give us the background yeah yeah yeah absolutely we'd love to get you on one of the hunts absolutely
James Stacy Yeah, yeah, it'd be great. That'd be the best. Well, guys, thanks so much for coming on and for telling the story and just for being part of this world. You know, you guys have extended a lot of kindness to me in various places that we've been able to hang out and, you know, look at submarines well underground and that sort of thing. And, you know, those are really good memories. I've got my sub right here. I think of it quite fondly. And, uh, and yeah, uh, you know, it's a, it's an absolute treat to have you guys on the show. And I would love to consider this sort of a developing series, uh, you know, the, the wreck hunting files or something like that. We can, we can come up with a name and a cool t-shirt sometime in the future. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Matt, get on that please. My schedule suddenly opened up. So yeah, there you go guys. Thanks so much for coming on. This has been a real treat. Thank you so much. Thanks very much for having us.
Derek Hager Appreciate it.
James Stacy All right, well, there you have it. There's the tape with Matt and Derek. What a treat to have those guys on. A couple of dudes that have really been like an active part of sort of the wind up Chicago friend circle, that sort of thing. And to see them be part of a real shipwreck hunt that found the boat after so long is it's kind of hard to believe in that sort of thing. But it was just really, really fun to have them on and chit chat and see some doxes and that kind of thing.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and I love this trend of just featuring members of the TGN crew and friends to kind of get people on the show because we have such talent among the crew. I mean, it's just such a diverse set of folks that are part of our audience and kind of our friends. And this was a really special episode, really fun to have those guys on.
James Stacy Yeah, absolutely. And if you want to give Matt a shout out for his lovely design skills, don't forget we've got a brand new stack of merch in the TGN shop that Matt helped design and some stuff that I think is very cool. And now I'm just thinking about shipwreck hunting shirts and that kind of thing. Oh, yeah. I've got merch on the brain. We've got plenty on the shop. We don't need to do that just right this minute. But what we can do is get into some final notes. You want to jump in?
Jason Heaton Sure. Yeah, I've got... loosely uh related since we're kind of all about underwater adventures uh this week um oceanographic magazine and and blanc pan have released the winners of the ocean photographer of the year awards that they do every year around this time and you know they never never fail to impress i mean these are just some spectacular images um we'll throw a link in the show notes they've got different categories they've got you know the ocean photographer of the year. Then they've got the fine art, wildlife, adventure, conservation in a couple of categories, human connection, the young photographer of the year, a female 50 fathoms award. So they have these categories and the images are just stunning and they feature them all on the oceanographic website. You know, the winners, the runners up and kind of the honorable mentions and, and This year's overall winner was a guy named Yuri Ivanov with a photo that he took in Bali in Indonesia. And it's a macro photograph and it looks like two birds sitting on a branch, but it's actually two tiny little critters, amphipods from an unpronounceable... latin name family um each measuring three millimeters in body length so it's uh it's an extreme macro photo um just a tremendous image um worthy of the winner uh title and uh all the images are just just so amazing and i i just i love seeing these every year um one of our past guests and heroes here on tgn laurent ballesta was on the on the panel of judges. Um, you know, he's won this award in the past. Um, so he was a fitting member of the, of the jury panel for this. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's just so inspiring to see this stuff and, um, yeah, happy to share that. So we'll throw that link in the show notes.
James Stacy Very cool. Yeah. Good pick for sure. And definitely one that we, we like to highlight whenever you see the next round of the awards come through, uh, you know, great work from, uh, from Oceanographic, Meg and Blancpain. I have something that I feel is similar but different at the same time. And I've been sitting on this for a little while. It was a recommendation from my brother. It's a documentary from YouTube. And then I saw it pop off on the Slack and I was like, I missed my chance. I had it in the list of final notes and some folks got to it before I could. But it's called Listers, a glimpse into extreme birdwatching. And it's about two brothers. I'll just read the log line. Two brothers learn about competitive birdwatching by becoming birdwatchers, spending a year living in a used minivan, traveling the country to compete in a big year, which is a closet term in this world. It's an incredible documentary. Lots of heart, lots of connections, I think, to the watch world in weird ways. I think, you know, collecting and some of the oddball personalities and the traits and the competitiveness and everything. and all of that. And then, uh, I would say that, uh, you know, it's important to get this out in the front in case you just click this on. There's a fair amount of like bad language and not adult topics, but adult humor will say, uh, these two brothers are quite funny. Um, but there is a, there's some stuff there that I don't know that my kids would be quite ready for, uh, in terms of language and that sort of thing. But it's otherwise a documentary about birdwatching and traveling around the U S uh, I would say it's a birding documentary with the spirit of an early 2000s skateboard tape. It has a bunch of different mixed media as far as how it's presented. And there are elements that are beautifully shot pieces of birding. And there's some that feel like they're shot on a Motorola Razr. And I like all of it. I really, really enjoyed it. It was funny. It's creative. It's entirely unencumbered by the rules of a Netflix documentary. It doesn't have the polish, and I don't think it needs it. I think it's better off without it. It feels super fresh and really just like something special on YouTube. So I highly recommend, providing you won't be offended by the bad language and that sort of thing, I highly recommend Lister's A Glimpse into Extreme Birdwatching. It's a great story.
Jason Heaton Yeah, you told me about this when I was visiting you last week. And yeah, I'm glad you brought this up again. I now keep it open on a browser and we'll watch it sometime soon. Again, it's just yet another example of how I think a lot of what we do and this episode is all about the celebration of being a nerd in some way. And I've talked about it so many times. The Detectorists, the show on, you know, the British TV show I've talked about, about metal detecting. And we've, you know, the ocean photography and watch collecting and shipwreck hunting.
James Stacy Antiques Roadshow. Like all this kind of stuff is just these fascinations. It really is what makes the world go around.
Jason Heaton So this is great. Cool pick.
James Stacy I didn't realize there was all of this context and rules and behavioral elements to the birdwatching world. I'm not surprised because that's what every kind of subculture slash cult is kind of like. But I think it's a very fascinating video. It's quite funny and I think people will love it. Yeah, that's my pick for this week. Awesome. So you've got some bird watching and some underwater photography to dig into. And be sure to read the two stories about the finding of that boat that Derek and Matt shared. All of that is in the show notes. And yeah, as always, thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO or some great new merch. please visit thegraynado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from Voltaire who said, Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.