Pere Marquette 18 sinking cause

[MilwBob]

As with her sister ship, Milwaukee (sunk with all hands 1929) flooding occurred in the flicker (on these ferries, the very aft compartment), the engine room crew quarters. No one has been able to determine the cause of the leak. It is speculated that eventually the car deck flooded up to the coal hatches for the bunkers which weren't watertight, thus sealing their fates.

I guess to me it was always obvious that the water came in through the stern lift gate which flooded the flicker first and then that flooding dropped the stern lower where more seas could wash over her gate until it was opened to dump the cars out which exposed the sinking stern even more.

The 18 had no sea gate, the stern was open. The Milwaukee had a 5 ft high gate ( the standard height), but was damaged during the storm that sank it. After it's sinking, the ferry operators on Lake Michigan raised the stern gate heights to 9ft.

[Jared]

As with her sister ship, Milwaukee (sunk with all hands 1929) flooding occurred in the flicker (on these ferries, the very aft compartment), the engine room crew quarters. No one has been able to determine the cause of the leak. It is speculated that eventually the car deck flooded up to the coal hatches for the bunkers which weren't watertight, thus sealing their fates.

I guess to me it was always obvious that the water came in through the stern lift gate which flooded the flicker first and then that flooding dropped the stern lower where more seas could wash over her gate until it was opened to dump the cars out which exposed the sinking stern even more.

[MilwBob]

As with her sister ship, Milwaukee (sunk with all hands 1929) flooding occurred in the flicker (on these ferries, the very aft compartment), the engine room crew quarters. No one has been able to determine the cause of the leak. It is speculated that eventually the car deck flooded up to the coal hatches for the bunkers which weren't watertight, thus sealing their fates.

[Rob]

The initial cause of flooding is what is unknown. She had just come off a summer of excursions, and it is postulated that she might have damaged an area that wasn't below the waterline when she was relatively light with excursionists but that was submerged when the was fully loaded. She sank on her first trip back with the Pere Marquette Railroad hauling railcars.

[Jared]

I was reading in today's history that the PM18's sinking remains unsolved. I thought she shipped water over her open stern which caused flooding in the back engine room which is why she sank stern first and was discovered at 30° angle into the bottom?