NY explorers find steamer wreck in Lake Ontario

[October 30, 2013]  OSWEGO, N.Y. (AP) -- A team of New York underwater explorers says it has found the wreck of a Canadian steamship that sank off the eastern shore of Lake Ontario nearly a century ago.

The trio from the Rochester area announces Wednesday that they recently discovered the 128-foot Roberval in more than 300 feet of water 16 miles off Oswego.

Jim Kennard says he and his partners were wrapping up their season of searching for historic shipwrecks when their sonar equipment detected a wreck they later identified as the Roberval. The Ottawa-based steamer was hauling lumber across the lake's eastern end when it sank after being hit by a rogue wave in September 1916.

Of the nine-member Canadian crew, two drowned and seven survived, including four who made a raft out of floating lumber.

[Associated Press]

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