Uncharted shipwreck found in Sydney Bight area off Cape Breton

A previously uncharted shipwreck has been discovered off the coast of Cape Breton in the deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The sunken vessel was found by the Canadian Hydrographic Service, a division of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that maps out Canada's oceans and waterways. 

Not much is known about the ship, but it appears to be largely intact.

Shauna Neary, a division manager with the service, said a surveillance team found the wreck in May while charting waters in an area northeast of Cape Breton known as the Sydney Bight, which has been seeing an increasing volume of marine traffic such as cruise ships.

The vessel is one of three wrecks found this year during mapping of Canadian waters, she said.

"In this instance, it was quite, quite easy to pick up," Neary told Mainstreet Cape Breton. "You could see the hull shape structure and a superstructure on board. And then we're able to rotate and see in 3D too. At that point it verifies, hey, we've got something here."

Neary said the sunken ship, sitting in about 60 metres of water, is roughly 46 metres long and eight metres wide.

More sleuthing is required to find out the origin of the vessel, what it was likely carrying and why it sank. 

"We put out a navigational warning for the fishermen, so they don't get their gear snagged up in it," Neary said. "But from this point we need to, I guess, drop cameras or [do some] further investigation."

Roger Litwiller, a freelance Canadian naval historian based in Trenton, Ont., said hundreds of vessels have been wrecked in waters off the Maritime provinces over the past 80 years, some of which are well documented. 

"Ultimately, it takes some form of getting down to the wreck to look for some sort of an identifier — whether it's the name on the hull, the bell from the ship — all come into part of that identification process."

Neary said the vessel was found using sonar technologies that help the hydrographic service understand water depths, while charting what might be hidden in an area's seabed.  

"Our job is to survey the ocean, but much of Canadian waters haven't been surveyed up to high-resolution standards. So, you know, sometimes we see [shipwrecks] more often than not now."

Litwiller agrees that evolution of sonar mapping, including advanced Canadian technologies, likely means more shipwrecks will be discovered in years to come. 

"To put things into perspective, we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the floor of our own oceans," he said.

"So this technology is extremely important in better understanding the Earth as a whole and our environment as a whole and, you know, what really is under the water."