Lost 1943 - Former luxury yacht; US Army harbour boat / troop transport
The Colonel William G. Ball started life in 1929 as the Sialia, a luxury yacht built by George Lawley & Son of Neponset, Massachusetts, and was later renamed Egeria. In 1941 the US Army Transportation Corps bought her, gave her the name Colonel William G. Ball and fitted her out to carry troops; in wartime Bermuda she served as a local harbour boat.
In June 1943, by the usual account, her captain, Fred Anderson, was bringing her back to port in a severe storm when she struck Mills Breaker, a shallow reef off the East End, and sank. The Army's investigation found that the buoy meant to warn ships off the breaker had broken free of its mooring and gone; the King's Harbour Master's notices in the Royal Gazette show the Mills Breaker buoy reported missing in March 1941 and not replaced until March 1944.
The year of her loss is not settled. No report of it appeared in the Royal Gazette - wartime censorship kept the loss of a US Army vessel out of the paper - and the Receiver of Wreck's official list of historic wrecks, published in 1964, gives the year as 1942. Both years fall within the period when the buoy was missing. The same list describes her as an iron yacht and places her at 32° 24' 28" N, 64° 37' 39" W on Mills Breaker.
She lies on the same reef as the British sailing ship Beaumaris Castle, lost there 70 years earlier, and was featured on a Bermuda Monetary Authority shipwreck coin in 2007.
A shallow wreck in 15-26 ft, easy for beginners and good for snorkelling in calm conditions, usually dived together with the Beaumaris Castle on the same breaker; Berg's 1991 guide counts at least three wrecks there, the third being the brigantine Avenger. Mills Breaker is on the exposed eastern edge of the reef platform, so calm weather is needed. Published guides give little detail of what remains.
Records disagree about the year the Colonel William G. Ball was lost: our best account says June 1943, but the official 1964 list of wrecks gives 1942. Wartime censorship kept her loss out of the newspaper. Do you know when she went down?
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Approximate position, for interest only - never use for navigation.