VIDEO - Spiegel Grove Scooter Free Diving

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The wreck on its side. Photo by Stephen Frink/Florida Keys TDC 2002, http://www.fla-keys.com/diving/spiegel-grove/

Hurricanes have long done significant damage and change beneath the water as well as above. The USS Spiegel Grove, at 510 feet the largest wreck sunken in the Keys to the point in as an artificial reef dropped accidentally in May 2002. It initially settled upside down. Resolve Marine pumped air into the wreck, attached lift bags and rotated it on to its side.


Resolve Marine describes righting the wreck.
https://resolvemarine.com/job-histor...-grove-lsd-32/

I recall diving the wreck after it had been rotated on to its side with all the cranes and other deck apparatus pointed out horizontally into the water column.

It was aligned roughly north to south and with the impact of the Florida Current, a trench was excavated in the sand at 130 ft. by the starboard side the wreck. The wreck was like this for three years until Hurricane Dennis spun up from below Cuba, with the eye passing west of Cuba and landing just west of Pensacola, FL..


Hurricane Dennis on July 9, 2005.

On July 9, 2005 when the eye was west of Key West, the waves and currents from the Cat. I hurricane, shoved the wreck over into the sand trough, righting the vessel. The eye never came closer than about 220 miles from the wreck which lay in the leading right hand quadrant but well beyond hurricane force winds.



http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/maps/pag...338/f12338.htm



The "righted" Spiegel Grove (Art to Media, https://www.scubadiving.com/training...e-wreck#page-2 )


You can see a very detailed history of the wreck at http://www.sfdi.com/spiegelgrovesinking8.html


Bob Synder provides impressions as the first person to see the righted wreck in 2005 after the hurricane. http://www.fla-keys.com/diving/spiegel-grove/


A general history of the vessel and wreck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Spiegel_Grove_(LSD-32)


A discussion of undersea forces during hurricanes: https://www.livescience.com/60354-ho...rine-life.html

and from RSMAS: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/blog/2012...g-a-hurricane/

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