Book Description

GARY GENTILE'S POPULAR DIVE GUIDE SERIES Over 100 GPS and loran numbers included As suggested by the title and series name, this volume covers the most well-known wrecks sunk in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay. For each of the wrecks covered, a statistical sidebar provides basic information such as the dates of construction and loss, previous names (if any), tonnage and dimensions, builder and owner (at time of loss), port of registry, type of vessel and how propelled, cause of sinking, location (GPS and/or loran coordinates if known), and depth. In most cases, an historical photograph or illustration of the ship leads the text. Throughout the book is scattered a selection of additional photographs. Each volume is full of fascinating narratives of triumph and tragedy, of heroism and disgrace, of human nature at its best and its basest. These books are not about wood and steel, but about flesh and blood, for every shipwreck saga is a human story. Ships may founder, run aground, burn, collide with other vessels, or be torpedoed by a German U-boat. In every case, however, what is emphatically important is what happened to the people who became victims of casualty: how they survived, how they died. Also included are descriptions of the wrecks as they appear on the bottom. At the end of this volume is a bibliography of suggested reading, and a list of GPS and loran numbers of wrecks in and adjacent to the area covered. Wrecks covered in Shipwrecks of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia Waters are: Annie, Brazil, Charon (Revolutionary War gunboat), Chilore, City of Annapolis, Cumberland and Congress (from the Civil War Battle of Hampton Roads), Diamond Shoals, Dorothy, Edward R. Baird, Jr., Florida (Confederate raider), Julia Luckenbach, Katahdin, Lorraine, Louisiana, Monmouth, Nellie Pentz, North Carolina, Pilot, Texas/San Marcos (battleship), Virginia (ex-Merrimack), West Point, William Donnelly, and Wm. D. Sannere. Also included is a special section about shipwrecks in Dutch Gap and Kiptopeke State Park.