David Trotter is a renowned shipwreck discoverer, deep diver, author, lecturer and photographer. In over 20 years of diving, he has been the first to locate, identify and document 70+ Great Lakes shipwrecks. His shipwreck discoveries and programs have been featured on television and in newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada. He has written several articles on Great Lakes shipwrecks that have been published in historical journals and national scuba diving publications.
Through Undersea Research Associates, founded to present the Great Lakes community with an electronically sophisticated means of underwater search and survey for archeological and commercial purposes, he presents visual underwater time capsules of marine history. Utilizing state-of-the-art side scan sonar, with outstanding skilled operators, the organization offers high resolution bottom profiling at depths to 1,000 feet, underwater site survey and underwater photographic documentation.
Steamship Frank H. Goodyear
On May 22, 1910 the steamer Frank Goodyear was making her way down Lake Huron in heavy fog. It was the early morning and the day watch was just finishing breakfast as the steamer crept down the lake in the soup-like fog. Captain Russell Heminger was on the bridge when the bow of the steamer James B. Wood appeared suddenly out of the fog, and struck deeply into the port bow of the Frank Goodyear.
There had hardly been time to sound the danger whistle when the collision took place. The 436 ft steam ship plunged to the bottom in four minutes. The minimal warning time, coupled with the confusion aboard the Goodyear, were contributing factors to the deadliness of the event; the Goodyear took 19 humans to their deaths and only five survivors.
Ninety-three years later, during regular grid search activities, the URA team members saw the outline of a shipwreck print out on the sidescan paper at 3:30 in the morning. While most people were home sleeping, or relaxing at their weekend getaways, the URA team labored through the weekend, surveying the Lake Huron bottom land for just such a prize as the well-preserved wreck of the Frank H. Goodyear.
