The wreck of the Francisco Morazan can still be seen just a couple of hundred yards from the shore of Lake Michigan. Yet the ship floundered and was abandoned in 1960.
The ship was built in 1922 in Germany and you can still tell today, looking at the wreck, that it has its origins in the early part of the twentieth century. It looks so dated.
It was sailing from Chicago to Holland when it ran into foul weather. It was loaded with a bizarre selection of cargo. (Aluminium, baled hair, bottle caps, canned chicken, castings, chemicals, Gilsonite, hides, lard, machinery, phosphate, scrap metal, solder dross, tinplate, and toys – according to Wikipedia).
The ship ran aground because of a blizzard and its associated bad weather. The captain of the ship was only 24 years old and had his pregnant wife aboard with him. She was airlifted from the ship.
The captain and crew remained for a few days as the ship was in no danger of sinking but eventually, it was determined that the ship was a complete write-off. The weather meant that salvage efforts were unsuccessful. The ship was left to rot.
According to the National Park Service the ship’s owners, somewhat mysteriously, could never be found and to this day, the broken wreck of the Francisco Morazan lies off South Manitou Island, the property of the State of Michigan and inhabited exclusively by seabirds.
See the seriously spooky video below.
Francisco Morazan
Wreck of the Francisco Morazan,
Glen Arbor Township,
MI,
USA
