The Willie

[scubert]

My buddy matt t. and I had a great dive on the Willie last night. Kind of choppy out on the lake but the vis was pretty good (40').
I have been working on a dive slate sized map of the willie, so far I've gotten the blueprints and digitized them, and have been able to X off a lot of the interior wood walls that have fallen or been taken out.
We were doing some work in the engine room and I've run across something that I cannot answer on my own yet.
The plans indicate that there is an access bay for the driveshaft at the lowest level of the engine bay. This shaft can be followed all the way back to where the shaft meets the prop. I could not see any such door or passage. Is this a smear or blip on the (much copied) plans, or is the door buried in silt? or did I just miss it?
any info on this would be appreciated.
I'm attaching a small copy of the plan, it gets distorted when I convert it to a jpeg.
We're hoping to get these onto slates in the next couple of months.

[FreediveWI]

Tim Reed has done something similat to this a few years ago. He made 3D maps of how she used to look. There is a way to access that propeller shaft compartment, a friend of mine has made it most of the way back, BUT it is very small and I wouldn't want anyone to try it out of fear of getting hurt.

IF your in the engine room you'll notice that the handrail that used to be in the bottom of the main level has been cut out. I did that a few years ago after at least one diver died in the lower level and others had gotten hung up on it. Nowdays, with the great vis that we have on these wrecks, it is very easy for people to get in to spots that would have taken them a few seasons of diving on her to access in the past.

You'll also nocitce that the rear stairway has been taken out of the aft cabins. Once that lower room was opened up we had a few divers, including at least one instructor, get stuck in there and had to jettison all of their gear to escape. After I had to take the last one down to recompress, he later went to the chamber to be on the safe side anyway, I had enough of it and took it out. Now that aft area is much easier to find your way out of.

As nice a dive as the Willy is, one of the top 20 in North America, she has still clamied at least 4 lives that I know of. Penetration should be done with great caution and most recreatioanl dive instructors that Ihave seen on her really don't have what it takes to do it safely. Check into a tec level penetration wreck class, Greg Such teaches a really good one, or even better yet is cave training. So much for my soapbox.

IF your really serious about wreck mapping and surveys you should check into joing DEEP Midewest.org. They are working on mapping the Norland, Wisconisn, Grace Channon and, if time, start on the Lakeland this summer. Lot's of exact measurments are taken, inside and out, of these wrecks and plotted by computer. I belive that they have also obtained some grants to help with some of this. They might be hard to get ahold of in the next week because they are starting another survey ofthe Judge Hart and the Gunilda in the next two weeks.

Jon

[scubert]

thanks for the good (as always) info. I must have missed the hatchway. I have no current plans to explore the drive shaft, and I figured it would be TIGHT :o
I've read about most of the deaths, and heard about some of them too. Very sad. I can see how if someone is unprepared for penetration the Willie could be a bit much (especially if they are 'silters').

As far as surveys with DeepMidwest go, I like the idea, but don't particularly groove with everything 'DIR' (most, just not everything).
So I will probably just keep on this as a hobby in addition to mapping Wisconsins shipwrecks. I'm currently working on 'last known areas' on my wreck map. There are a LOT of them. I'm suprised there's any water in the lake and not just a big pile of wood and steel
scubert

I would have loved to have seen her before the zebra mussels coated everything.

[FreediveWI]

Are you mapping the areas off of the wreck as well?

THere is a lot of interesting stuff out there, debris fields, mooring blocks, one area of tiles, torpedo floats, man made trenches, lift bags and a wide assortment of lost dive gear.

I was never huge into DIR until I had one too many experiences rescuing strokes and it almost sent me running to them, DIR, to look for something safer.

In the past 20+ years I have never even so much as run low on air, but yould would be surprised at how many instructors and tec-divers have run out and had to have others bail them out from their own messes. DIR is the safest system that I have found so far, but if something else came along I would try it out in a heart beat.

I have had the rare advantage of working for many different shops, and charter boats, over the years and have seen just about everyway you can do something right, or wrong, and the DIR crowd seem to have most of the parts put together much better than anyother group that I have had the chance to dive with.

The best expereince that Ihave ever had is from working on a charter boat. Instead of hear how one or two shops do things allof the time, you get to see one or two different shops on every charter. Mulitply that by two charters a day and over the course of just one season, let alone many, you'll be exposed to most everything out there in very short order. The only thing better would to be working on a charter down in the islands, although those are mostly beginners and not the more advanced type of divers that we normally see out on Lake Michigan.

Jon

[scubert]

I may eventually map the surrounding area,
right now I'm just working on the schematic for the 'diveable' Willie itself. I'd like to start doing photo surveys of some of the wrecks in clearer water, from about 20' overhead. Then I could piece them together in the style of satellite photos.

[dfreeman]

Jon,

Some great observations on diving and the use of common sense and observation. I have seen a fare share of different diving and I am a believer in doing the right thing for the environment that you are in.

Doug

[scubert]

Well, with the optimism that is only found in the clueless, a year ago at this time I predicted that I would have this ready 'in a few months'

I'm still wrestling with removing wooden walls that have collapsed, deciphering odd marks on the old, blotchy blueprints, and diving to verify my info.

I am hoping NOW be ready with everything early next dive season

What I'd like hear from the board on is, would there outside interest in this as a thermoprinted dive slate (prob 9x7")? If I am going to be doing this as a small batch for just my buddies and I, I won't worry too much about the cost. If other people/dive shops/charters are interested I will do some looking at large production run prices.

How about a T-shirt?

If this is to be produced for others I will need the MASSIVE disclaimer that accompanies all dive related info. I'll also dress it up a bit more with some of the technical info and history of the Willie. If it's just for my guys, I won't sweat it.

Any feed back or other info would be most appreciated.

[scubert]

SORRY! image will hopefully appear here!

>

[scubert]

updated on Sunday after diving from the Wreck Xpress w/ Capt Dean