October 1, 2025 — On January 9, 1929, the ST Seiner set sail from New London, Connecticut. On January 18, the captain of the steam-powered fishing trawler made his required daily check-in with the Portland Trawling Company, the ship’s owner. But the next day, he failed to touch base with the company, and on January 22, the vessel missed a scheduled port stop. No one ever saw or heard from the Seiner again.
Now, nearly 100 years later, shipwreck hunters say they have discovered the long-lost vessel off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The Atlantic Wreck Salvage, a New Jersey-based company that searches for lost shipwrecks, announced this month that it had located the ship on the eastern edge of the Georges Bank area roughly 125 miles off the coast. The vessel is submerged 200 feet deep.
Officials say they hope the discovery will provide some sense of closure for the descendants of Thomas Miller, the vessel’s captain, and the 20 other crew members who perished with the ship. The men hailed from various parts of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Newfoundland, Canada. Family members are encouraged to reach out to the company.
The Atlantic Wreck Salvage team first discovered the ship using side-scan sonar aboard the D/V Tenacious in 2022. They suspected the wreck was the Seiner, but time and weather constraints prevented them from diving to the wreckage, so they could not confirm its identity.
Read the full article at the Smithsonian Magazine