NJHDA will be presenting their 15th annual New Jersey Shipwreck Symposium on Saturday evening, April 14, 2018 at the InfoAge Science History Learning Center from 8PM to 10:30 PM. The center is located at 2201 Marconi Road, Wall, New Jersey. Admission is $20 per person. Reservations are required as seating is limited. Light refreshments will be available. For reservations, directions and more information, please call 732-776-6261 or e-mail NJHDA at info@njhda.org.
This year’s theme is “Research and Exploration.” The symposium will feature a host and three speakers discussing exploring shipwrecks and what they have discovered during the process. NJHDA’s purpose is to preserve New Jersey’s shipwreck and maritime history. The event raises funds for NJHDA’s museum expansion project.
Guglielmo Marconi brought radio to market and targeted the maritime industry. In 1909, the Steamer FLORIDA rammed and sank the Ship REPUBLIC. 1,500 lives were at risk, but Marconi’s radio operator saved the day. Three years later came the wreck of the TITANIC and 1,500 lives were lost despite the use of radio. “Due to this horrific catastrophe the Radio Act of 1912 was passed requiring all trans-Atlantic vessels to carry radio and man it 24 hours a day,” said NJHDA President Dan Lieb. “The sale of stock in Marconi’s company allowed him to build the initial set of buildings at what is now InfoAge, formerly U.S. Army Camp Evans in Wall, New Jersey,” he added. “The buildings at InfoAge are linked in a real and meaningful way to TITANIC, the world’s most famous shipwreck,” Lieb further added.
The event will be hosted by Captain Steve Nagiewicz, an acknowledged authority on shipwrecks and scuba diving. Nagiewicz recently publishing his first book, “Hidden History of Maritime New Jersey” which is published Acadia Publishing. He currently teaches Environmental and Marine Science at Atlantic City High School and Stockton University.
The first presenter is Matthew Breslin. Intrigued by a shipwreck that has defied identification for decades, Breslin has taken on an effort to resolve this long-standing mystery off the New Jersey Coast locally known as the Sea Girt Wreck. Only recently certified as a SCUBA diver and still in high school, Breslin has assembled a team of underwater photographers, videographers, researchers and skilled divers to help him figure out the name of the vessel that lies nine miles off of Sea Girt in 85 feet of water. Now seventeen, Breslin started scuba diving when he was just thirteen years old.
“I became interested in diving because I was curious to what lies under the surface of our ocean,” said Breslin. “According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, we have explored less than five percent of the ocean and I would like to be one of the pioneers that dives into the unknown,” Breslin added.
When asked how he became interested in the Sea Girt Wreck, Breslin said, “My first dive on the Sea Girt Wreck was the first time I had ever dove on a New Jersey Shipwreck that was not a part of the artificial reef program. It was definitely an experience I won’t forget,” he added. “After swimming around the wreck, I continued to think about what might have occurred on the site that made this ship sink,” he further added.
The second presenter is Dan Lieb. Lieb will discuss how a group of friends got together to identify a mysterious wreck off Manasquan locally known as the Manasquan Wreck. “It went by the names the Rickel Wreck, the Barrel Wreck and the Hardware Wreck due to the fact that you could find barrels full of hooks, screws, upholstery tacks, carpenter squares, drills, hinges, door knobs… anything you could find in a hardware store,” Lieb said. “In fact, it was these items that actually helped NJHDA identify the wreck. By carefully researching when they were made we were able to find information on a vessel that wrecked off Manasquan,” Lieb added.
Lieb began diving when I was 15 years old. “I received my SCUBA certification when I was 17,” Lieb said. “Since then I have made over 2,000 dives. I’ve dived throughout the region and in the Caribbean,” Lieb added. He loves diving with his wife of 26-years, Theresa.
The last presenter of the evening will be Charles Haas. In 1993, Charles Haas, co-founder and president of the Titanic International Society, became the first teacher in the world to make the perilous 12,500-ft dive to the wreck of RMS Titanic. In 1996, he made a second dive, filmed by the Discovery Channel for the documentary Titanic: Untold Stories, taking viewers on a guided tour of the wreck.
This program, premiering at the NJHDA’s 2018 Symposium, recounts Haas’s dives through his photographs and personal recollections. How does one get to the Titanic? What’s it like in the submersible Nautile? What can be seen of Titanic’s wreck? What are the implications of the ship’s current condition in 2018? Haas will conclude with recent developments in the ongoing story of history’s most famous liner. A question-and-answer period will follows.
“My grandfather worked for a stevedoring company in New York City,” said Haas. “When I was about 12, he took me to his office which overlooked New York Harbor. As several giant ocean liners passed by, he said, ‘Did you know that a ship just like these sank because it hit an iceberg?’ He then loaned me his copy of Walter Lord’s book, “A Night to Remember,” Haas added. “I was totally enthralled by it. In high school I did several “research papers” on the topic, and when I went off to college, I spent much of my free time in the library’s microfilm room reading newspaper coverage of the disaster. I’ve been reading and digging ever since,” Haas further added.
Charles Haas and friend John received telephoned invitations to meet with George Tulloch, co-leader of five “Research and Recovery Expeditions” from 1987 through 1998. “When the 1993 expedition was being planned, Tulloch invited us to be co-historians,” Haas said. “Tulloch hinted that each of us might make a dive to the wreck, and on June 10, 1993, I became the world’s first teacher to dive to the wreck, and John Eaton followed one day later,” Haas added. “I made a second dive in 1996 to narrate a “guided tour” of Titanic for the Discovery Channel documentary Titanic: Untold Stories, and both of us also participated in the 1998 expedition,” Haas further added.
NJHDA has established a New Jersey shipwreck history museum that features cannons, portholes, deadeyes and other artifacts recovered from shipwrecks off the Jersey Shore. Our museum is located at the InfoAge Science/History Center in Wall, New Jersey. The Center is open on Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesdays from 1PM to 5PM.
NJHDA, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable historical research organization. All donations are tax deductible.
https://njhda.org/