Shipwreck "Gypsum King"

This week's feature is a print of one of my shipwreck paintings: the stranded ocean going steam tug "Gypsum King", wrecked on St. Mary Ledge, off Grand Manan Island, on January 22, 1906.



The painting depicts the tug stranded on the ledge before she broke up in a storm and sank.  The ledge drops off steeply into an underwater basin, into which most of the wreckage collected, when the tug broke and sank.  Many years ago, diving on the wreck, I found several interesting brass items in the wreckage, which are now in the Grand Manan Museum.

The "Gypsum King" was built and was owned in New York, and was used for towing barges of gypsum from the head of the Bay of Fundy to New York.  The gypsum was used for making plaster for the inside walls of houses throughout the US Northeast.