Back at the Wawinet

Another run over the *Wawinet*. At left in the split screen is the boat’s course. The bottom contours, overlaying the contours of Garmin’s detailed fishing-mode nav chart, were generated by me using Garmin’s QuickDraw technology, which converts sonar soundings into contours. (The green circle tells me I am going slow enough for good returns from that zone.) Something this search has taught me is that QuickDraw doesn’t “see” something as large as the Wawinet (87 ft long, about 12 ft wide). She no longer has a deck, which might otherwise create a contour, and the program seems to filter out the hard targets of her hull sides.

I was back today in the vicinity of where I located the Wawinet on Wednesday. The water was surprisingly calm for a Saturday, with minimal boat wake, so I made a couple fresh sonar runs and came up with better images than on the initial day. High-frequency CHIRP sonar can produce remarkably photograph-like imagery. What little waviness appears in these images is due to the boat bobbing in a bit of chop. I have zero doubt that this is the Wawinet, which as I explained in the last post was an 87-foot propellor-driven vessel owned by former NHL player Bert Corbeau. She sank in September 1942 after touching the nearby bank at the south end of Beausoleil Island on a night cruise. Twenty-five of forty-two people aboard were lost, including Corbeau.

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