Minnie Breslauer

History

The Minnie Breslauer was a brand-new British iron steamer on her very first voyage when she was lost in 1873. She was bound from Lisbon to New York with a cargo of fruit and wine (cork and lead ingots with Portuguese foundry marks are also reported from the wreck) under Captain Peter Corbett, who had no charts of Bermuda aboard.

At about five on the morning of 6 January 1873 the mate, William Chater, sighted Bermuda light some twenty miles ahead and called the captain, who took charge. Corbett held on in towards the South Shore, and at 8 a.m. the ship struck a reef off the south-west of the island and foundered about a mile offshore, south-east of Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, in about eight fathoms. All 24 of her crew survived. A story later grew up that she was pulled off the reef and sank under tow towards St George's, but the reports of the time say only that she struck and went down where she lay.

A Marine Court of Inquiry sat in Hamilton within days and suspended Corbett's certificate for nine months and Chater's for six. A Board of Trade note of September 1873 records that the two men got their certificates back, because the reef was not marked on the general charts, though it did appear on the Admiralty chart of Bermuda. In April 1873 B.W. Walker & Co. auctioned the hull, machinery, donkey engine and winches as she lay, and they were bought by John S. Darrell. The Philadelphia salvors B.W. Walker & Co. and the Lusher brothers worked the wreck in 1873-74 with the vessel Gleana; during a storm, while her crew sheltered ashore, the Gleana broke from her anchor and was herself wrecked on the reef nearby. Some of the cargo even took root: by May 1873 young vines grown from grapes washed ashore from the wreck were growing wild at Warwick Bay.

Diving the wreck today

The wreck spreads down the edge of the reef from about 35-45 ft at the broken, coral-covered bow to around 70 ft at the stern. The stern is the highlight: still semi-intact, with the steering quadrant, rudder and a four-bladed propeller in place, and divers can look in beneath it. The ship lies over on her port side; her single large boiler and engine parts sit amidships.

The depth makes it better suited to divers with some experience; it is a regular South Shore boat dive in summer. Storms have occasionally uncovered bottles from the cargo; leave anything you see in place.