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Sand Merchant

41.57° N, 81.96° W (rounded) · Ohio waters · lost 1936

  • Storm
  • Lives lost: 19–20

41.57° N, 81.96° W · Rounded; not a dive position. Source: Ohio Sea Grant, Shipwrecks & Maritime Tales: Sand Merchant.[2]

The Canadian sand dredge Sand Merchant rolled over and sank in a northwest gale off Avon Point, west of Cleveland, on the night of October 17, 1936. Nineteen or twenty people died, among them the first mate's wife. Seven men survived a night clinging to the overturned lifeboats.

The story

The Sand Merchant was built in 1927 by the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company in Ontario, a steel vessel about 252 feet long on the Canadian register.[1] She was what sailors called a sand sucker: big suction pipes drew sand and gravel off the lake bottom into two open hopper holds, and her own conveyor and cranes unloaded it. In 1936 she was working for the National Sand and Material Company of Toronto, which sent her to Lake Erie that summer.[2]

On October 16 she unloaded at Windsor, Ontario, and went back to the sand grounds off Point Pelee to load for Cleveland. The first mate's wife, Lillian Drinkwater, came along for the trip, against company rules.[2] On the way east a steering cable broke and had to be replaced at anchor. By about nine that night, in a rising northwest wind with seas coming aboard, she had begun to list to port, and within half an hour her captain knew she would sink. The crew fired flares and burned mattresses on deck. People on shore saw the lights but did not take them for distress signals.[2]

She rolled over suddenly. Survivors spent the night holding on to the two lifeboats, which had come up upside down. The next morning the steamers Marquette & Bessemer No. 1 and Thunder Bay Quarries picked up seven men, Captain Graham McLelland among them.[2,1] The HCGL record puts the sinking 13.5 miles from the Cleveland main-entrance light in a 45 mph gale and counts twenty dead; Ohio Sea Grant gives eighteen crew and one passenger.[1,2]

Finding the wreck took weeks. The Corps of Engineers questioned people along the shore who had noticed lights that night, and the survey vessel Peary found the hull where their sight lines crossed, on December 3, 1936.[2,1] A Canadian inquiry in Toronto blamed a shift of the sand cargo after water got into the open hoppers, and it censured the captain for holding no lifeboat drills and for allowing an unauthorized passenger aboard.[2] Ohio Sea Grant says the wreck lies upside down on a mud bottom in about 60 feet of water.[2]

Lives lost: Ohio Sea Grant counts 18 crew and one passenger; the HCGL record gives twenty. Seven men survived.

Questions people ask

How many people died on the Sand Merchant?

Nineteen or twenty. Ohio Sea Grant counts eighteen crew and one passenger; the HCGL vessel record gives twenty. Seven men were rescued the next morning.

Why did the Sand Merchant sink?

A Canadian inquiry found that her sand cargo shifted after water got into her open hoppers during a northwest gale on October 17, 1936.

Learn more

Museums and groups are linked for further reading; they are not connected with this site.

Look, don't take

Look, don't take. Shipwrecks and everything on them are protected by law; removing or disturbing anything can be a crime.

  • United States: under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act (43 U.S.C. § 2105) the U.S. claims title to abandoned shipwrecks embedded in a state's submerged lands, or resting on them and eligible for the National Register, and transfers that title to the state.[3][4][5]
  • Ohio: R.C. 1506.32 requires a permit from the Director of Natural Resources, approved by the Ohio History Connection, to recover, alter, salvage or destroy abandoned property on, in or near a submerged watercraft or aircraft in Lake Erie.[6]

How Lake Erie wrecks are protected

Diving Lake Erie wrecks is dangerous: cold water, poor visibility, depth, entanglement and boat traffic. Nothing here is dive guidance or a dive position. Dive only with proper training, a qualified operator and current information from the groups that maintain moorings.

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Sources

  1. HCGL vessel record: SAND MERCHANT, Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University. Accessed .
  2. Ohio Sea Grant, Shipwrecks & Maritime Tales: Sand Merchant, Ohio Sea Grant College Program. Accessed .
  3. 43 U.S. Code 2105 - Rights of access (Abandoned Shipwreck Act: title to abandoned shipwrecks), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  4. 43 U.S. Code 2101 - Findings (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  5. 43 U.S. Code 2102 - Definitions (Abandoned Shipwreck Act), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code). Accessed .
  6. Ohio Revised Code 1506.32 - Application for salvage permit for submerged watercraft or aircraft, Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Accessed .
  7. List of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes (Lake Erie section), Wikipedia. Accessed .

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