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On the evening of her last voyage, Wisconsin had been making good time until approximately midnight, when the already heavy winds picked up and began to batter the ship. Wisconsin soon began to take on water, and by 1:30 AM, five holds had already flooded. At this point Captain Dougal Morrison put out the first call for help. Picked up by a radio operator in Racine, the Coast Guard was quickly dispatched to Wisconsin’s aid. By the time they arrived at 4:00 AM, Wisconsin was in dire straits. Her engine room had flooded, leaving the ship without power, and the seas were so turbulent that the small surfboats used by the Coast Guard could not approach without danger of being smashed against Wisconsin.
At 4:30 AM, Captain Morrison gave the order to abandon ship. The heavy waves made the deployment of lifeboats challenging, and washed multiple crew members overboard. However, by 7:00 AM the two Coast Guard surfboats, and the private fishing tug that had followed them, had rescued 49 people from the lifeboats, and an additional 10 directly from the water. Sadly, nine crew members were lost, including Chief Engineer Julius Buschmann, and Captain Morrison, who was last seen waving from the deck of the Wisconsin.
Today, Wisconsin rests under 130 ft of water, only 5.25 miles off the shores of Pleasant Prairie. She is one of Lake Michigan’s most popular dive sites, and has been on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places since 2009.
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