Project Shiphunt: Sony, Intel, & NOAAs Collaboration to Discover Great Lakes Historic Shipwrecks

by Tane Casserley

Project Shiphunt brought five high school students from Saginaw, Michigan, to Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan, to search for, and document, a shipwreck. The collaboration of staff and resources from within NOAA (Thunder Bay, Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, Maritime Heritage Program, U.S. Coast Survey, and Monitor National Marine Sanctuary), and partners from the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research and Technology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute made it possible to conduct remote sensing operations using multi-beam and side scan sonar for target acquisition, and ROVs and technical diving for ground truthing. Sponsored by Sony and Intel, a documentary was filmed as part of the project following the five high school students on their journey searching for lost Great Lakes ships.