Intact “ghost ship” discovered off coast of O‘ahu

The U.S.S. Kailua, a sunken cable repair ship that was torpedoed in 1946, was recently rediscovered off the shores of O'ahu, Hawai'i. The ship's wheel, shown here, was still in its original location. Image courtesy of HURL.

Researchers from the Hawai‘i Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) and NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) have announced the discovery of an intact “ghost ship” in 2,000 feet of water nearly 20 miles off the coast of O‘ahu. Sitting upright, its solitary mast still standing and the ship’s wheel still in place, the hulk of the former cable ship Dickenson, later the USS Kailua, was found on the seabed last year on a maritime heritage submersible mission with HURL’s submersible pilot Terry Kerby. “It is always a thrill when you are closing in on a large sonar target with the Pisces submersible and you don’t know what big piece of history is going to come looming out of the dark,” said Kerby.

Read more about it and watch the video at KHON2 and Popular Mechanics; read about it in UH System News, NBC News; Honolulu Civil Beat, Kaunānā, The Guardian, Science 2.0, LiveScience, and EurekAlert!.