2026年2月15日 / 美国东部时间下午1:53 / CBS/美联社
搜索人员上周宣布，一艘在近150年前的密歇根湖风暴中沉没的豪华蒸汽船残骸已被发现，这一始于近60年前的搜寻终于完成。
致力于在全球范围内寻找沉船的”沉船世界”组织周五透露，由伊利诺伊州沉船猎人保罗·埃伦领导的团队于2022年10月发现了”拉贝尔湖号”（Lac La Belle）的残骸。该船残骸位于威斯康星州拉辛和基诺沙之间约20英里的近海海域。
埃伦对这艘船的兴趣可追溯到几十年前，他周日告诉美联社，此次发现的消息被推迟是因为团队希望包含一个该船的三维视频模型，但恶劣天气和其他事务使潜水团队直到去年夏天才得以重返沉船现场。
拉贝尔湖号的船尾显示其中一个螺旋桨缺失。保罗·埃伦/沉船世界
“拉贝尔湖号”曾是密歇根湖上最受欢迎的蒸汽船之一。这艘217英尺长的巨轮于1864年在俄亥俄州克利夫兰建造，早年大部分时间在克利夫兰至苏必利尔湖之间航行，1866年在圣克莱尔河因一次不幸的碰撞沉没，当时水深25英尺。该组织称，这艘船于1869年被打捞上来并进行了全面修复。
密尔沃基的恩格尔曼运输公司购买了这艘船，并将其投入到前往密歇根州大急流城的客运航线中。
1872年10月13日，船上载有53名乘客和船员，以及大麦、猪肉、面粉和威士忌等货物，在离开密尔沃基约两小时后，船体从一个未知来源开始不受控制地进水。尽管船长试图掉头，但天气恶化，巨浪熄灭了船上的锅炉火焰。
凌晨5点左右，”拉贝尔湖号”船尾先下沉，乘客和船员乘救生艇前往岸边。途中一艘救生艇倾覆，造成8人死亡。
80岁的埃伦从15岁起就开始搜寻沉船。他说，自1965年以来，他一直试图确定”拉贝尔湖号”的位置。2022年，他利用同为沉船猎人兼作家的罗斯·理查森提供的线索缩小了搜索范围，仅用两小时就通过侧扫声呐在湖上找到了这艘船。
“这有点像解谜游戏，”他说，”有时你没有太多线索来拼凑这个谜题，但这次我们成功了，并且立即就找到了它。”这一发现让他”欣喜若狂”。
像”拉贝尔湖号”这样的大型木制蒸汽船需要纵向拱架结构来增强强度。保罗·埃伦/沉船世界
埃伦拒绝讨论导致此次发现的具体线索。理查森周日在简短的电话采访中表示，他得知一名”特定地点”的商业渔民从湖中捞起了一件他称为19世纪蒸汽船特有的物品。他不愿进一步透露沉船搜寻竞争变得有多激烈，以及这些信息可能会为其他搜寻者提供另一种研究思路。
埃伦说，沉船的外部覆盖着斑马贻贝，上层船舱已不复存在，但船体看起来完好无损，橡木内饰仍然状况良好。
威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校的威斯康星水务图书馆称，五大湖地区有6000至10000艘沉船，其中大部分仍未被发现。近年来，由于担心入侵性斑马贻贝正在缓慢破坏沉船，沉船搜寻者们正以更大的紧迫感在这些湖泊中搜寻。
2025年5月，一名威斯康星州渔民在雾中发现了J.C.艾姆斯号（J.C. Ames）的残骸，这是一艘在密歇根湖水下沉没超过一个世纪的废弃拖船。
2024年9月，海洋历史学家布伦登·贝洛德和鲍勃·杰克宣布发现了约翰·埃文森号（John Evenson）的残骸，这艘拖船于1895年6月在协助一艘货船进入密歇根湖的urgeon湾运河时失事。这两位历史学家还在2024年6月发现了玛格丽特·A·缪尔号（Margaret A. Muir）双桅船。
2024年3月，在密歇根湖360英尺深的水下发现了蒸汽船密尔沃基号（Milwaukee）的残骸，该船于1886年与另一艘船只碰撞后沉没。
这一发现距离一名男子和他的女儿发现一艘1871年沉没的船只残骸仅几个月，而那艘船比密尔沃基号早沉没15年。
“拉贝尔湖号”是埃伦发现的第15艘沉船。”这只是又多了一个需要确认的标记，”他说，”现在我们要继续寻找下一个。这越来越难了，容易找到的已经都被发现了。”
Luxury steamer that sunk in Lake Michigan more than 150 years ago has been found
February 15, 2026 / 1:53 PM EST / CBS/AP
The wreck of a luxury steamer that sank in a Lake Michigan gale nearly 150 years ago has been discovered, searchers announced last week, completing a quest that began nearly 60 years ago.
Shipwreck World, a group that works to locate shipwrecks around the world, revealed Friday that a team led by Illinois shipwreck hunter Paul Ehron found the wreck of the Lac La Belle in October 2022. It was found about 20 miles offshore between Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Ehron, whose interest in the Lac La Belle dates back decades, told the Associated Press on Sunday that the announcement of the discovery was delayed because the team wanted to include a three-dimensional video model of the ship but poor weather and other commitments kept his dive team from going back down to the wreck until last summer.
The stern of the Lac La Belle is showing one of her propellers missing. Paul Ehorn/Shipwreck World
The Lac La Belle was one of the most popular steamers on Lake Michigan. The massive 217-foot ship was built in 1864 in Cleveland, Ohio and spent most of her early years running from Cleveland to Lake Superior before an unfortunate collision sank her in 25 feet of water in the St. Clair River in 1866. She was raised in 1869 and had to be completely reconditioned, the group said.
Milwaukee’s Englemann Transportation Company purchased the ship and ran her in the passenger trade to Grand Haven, Michigan.
On Oct. 13, 1872, with 53 passengers and crew on board plus a cargo of barley, pork, flour and whiskey, she departed Milwaukee when, about two hours into her trip, she began leaking uncontrollably from an unknown source. While the captain tried to turn her back, the weather deteriorated and huge waves extinguished the ship’s boiler fires.
At around 5 a.m., the Lac La Belle went down stern first as passengers and crew watched on lifeboats. One of the lifeboats capsized on the way to shore, killing eight people.
Ehorn, 80, has been searching for shipwrecks since he was 15 years old. He said that he’s been trying to pinpoint the Lac La Belle’s location since 1965. He used a clue from fellow wreck hunter and author Ross Richardson in 2022 to narrow down his search grid and found the ship using side-scan sonar after just two hours on the lake, he said.
“It’s kind of a game, like solve the puzzle. Sometimes you don’t have many pieces to put the puzzle together but this one worked out and we found it right away,” he said. The finding left him “super elated.”
Large wooden steamers like the Lac La Belle needed longitudinal hogging arches for strength. Paul Ehorn/Shipwreck World
Ehorn declined to discuss the clue that led to the discovery. Richardson said in a short telephone interview Sunday that he learned that a commercial fisherman at a “certain location” had snagged what Richardson called an item specific to steam ships from the 1800s. He declined to elaborate further on how competitive shipwreck hunting has become and the information could alert searchers to another way to conduct research.
The wreck’s exterior is covered with quagga mussels and the upper cabins are gone, Ehorn said, but the hull looks intact and the oak interiors are still in good shape.
The Great Lakes are home to anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 shipwrecks, most of which remain undiscovered, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Water Library. Shipwreck hunters have been searching the lakes with more urgency in recent years out of concerns that invasive quagga mussels are slowly destroying wrecks.
In May 2025, a Wisconsin angler fishing in the fog discovered the wreck of the J.C. Ames, an abandoned tugboat submerged in the waters of Lake Michigan for more than a century.
In September 2024, maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Bob Jaeck announced they had discovered the wreck of the John Evenson, a towing tug that was lost in June 1895 while assisting a freighter as it was entering the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal in Lake Michigan. The two historians also found the schooner Margaret A. Muir in June 2024.
In March 2024, the wreck of the steamship Milwaukee, which sank after colliding with another vessel in 1886, was found 360 feet below the water’s surface in Lake Michigan.
That discovery came just a few months after a man and his daughter found the remains of a ship that sank in Lake Michigan 15 years before the Milwaukee, in 1871.
The Lac La Belle is the 15th shipwreck Ehorn has located. “It was one more to put a check mark by,” he said. “Now it’s on to the next one. It’s getting harder and harder. The easier ones have been found.”
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