Minnie Breslauer

History

The Minnie Breslauer was a brand-new British cargo steamer on her very first voyage when she was lost in 1873. She was carrying a Mediterranean cargo of wine, dried fruit, bales of cork and heavy lead ingots for New York when her captain, Peter Corbet, came in towards Bermuda's South Shore without local knowledge and hit a submerged reef.

Accounts differ on what happened next: one says an attempt to go astern off the reef opened her up, another that she was pulled off and was being taken towards St George's for repairs when she sank. Either way she went down about a mile off Horseshoe Bay, and all 24 of her crew survived. A Board of Trade note of September 1873 records that the master and mate got their certificates back because the reef was not marked on the general charts, though it did appear on the Admiralty chart of Bermuda.

The Philadelphia salvors B.W. Walker & Co. and the Lusher brothers worked the wreck in 1873-74 with the vessel Gleana. During a storm, while her crew sheltered ashore, the Gleana broke from her anchor and was herself wrecked on the reef nearby.

Diving the wreck today

The wreck spreads down the edge of the reef from about 35-45 ft at the broken, coral-covered bow to around 70 ft at the stern. The stern is the highlight: still semi-intact, with the steering quadrant, rudder and a four-bladed propeller in place, and divers can look in beneath it. The boiler and engine parts sit amidships.

The depth makes it better suited to divers with some experience; it is a regular South Shore boat dive in summer. Storms have occasionally uncovered bottles from the cargo; leave anything you see in place.