Kate Kelly

3D ModelNoAI

The 126 ft two-masted schooner Kate Kelly was built in 1867 in Tonawanda, NY. In its twenty-eight-year career it was wrecked and repaired multiple times – much more than most ships probably due to poor captaining. With repair bills mounting the owners were unable to pay the bills and it was sold at auction in 1877. As the ship aged and became leakier it was unable to carry cargoes of grain or iron products and was mostly confined to hauling lumber products. In 1895 it was hauling a load of hemlock railroad ties from Alpena to Chicago when it capsized and sank in a bad storm off Wind Point Light near Racine. Today it is a popular Wisconsin dive site. The model was created from 1,945 30-megapixel images shot by Andrew Goodman with support from Kendra Kennedy on a joint Wisconsin Historic Society and GLSPS 3DShipwrecks project.