Shipwrecked Esmeralda found off Key Biscayne

An 8-year-old Miami maritime mystery is solved.

An antique luxury yacht found 200 feet deep on the ocean floor off Key Biscayne has been identified as the Esmeralda, a casualty of a September 1926 hurricane that devastated Miami.

Michael Barnette, who heads the all-volunteer Association of Underwater Explorers (AUE), said he is "99.9 percent" positive of the shipwreck's identity.

"Everything just lines up correctly," Barnette said.

The 147-foot-long ship was first documented by divers Jack Javech, Tony Martínez and Jim Vahey in 1994. They recovered a plaque with the name of the engine builder, Gas Engine & Power Co., along with a porthole and some other artifacts, but were unable to identify the wreck.

The divers consulted Miami maritime historian Terry Helmers, who suggested it might be the Esmeralda. But that lead wasn't followed up until Barnette explored the wreck last year and began perusing Lloyd's of London insurance records.

By comparing records and photographs with his own diving observations, Barnette concluded they had found the Esmeralda.

According to Barnette, the yacht was built in 1897 by the Charles L. Seabury Co. of Morris Heights, N.Y. With tapered lines and trimmed in teak and mahogany, it was named the Hiawatha and plied the Great Lakes as a pleasure yacht until the early 1920s.

In 1924, it was purchased by Thomas J. Peters of Miami, who brought it home and renamed it Esmeralda.

The Esmeralda sank at Miami's municipal dock -- now Bicentennial Park -- when the 1926 hurricane barreled through South Florida.

Exhaustive efforts were made to raise it throughout the next year -- eerily reminiscent of the recent deployment of the artificial reef Spiegel Grove.

A derrick barge sank twice trying to bring the Esmeralda up from the bottom; salvage experts were called in to present their ideas.

Eventually, the city decided to spend up to $10,000 to rent equipment to raise and remove it.

Two days after Christmas in 1927, the Esmeralda was towed out to sea and detonated, sending it to the bottom.

It lies in federal waters north of Biscayne National Park.

Barnette said the wreck is in very good condition.

"It sank upright with the bow snapped off and lying right next to it," he reported.