A fishing boat built in Boothbay that went missing without a trace nearly 100 years ago has finally been located.
The ST Seiner set sail Jan. 29, 1929 from New London, Connecticut.
But the steam-powered fishing trawler’s owner, The Portland Trawling Co., never heard from the boat again.
Now, 97 years later, shipwreck hunters say they have discovered the long-lost vessel off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The Atlantic Wreck Salvage, a New Jersey-based company that searches for lost vessels, says it has located the ship on the eastern edge of Georges Bank, roughly 125 miles off the coast.
The boat is sitting on the ocean floor, 200 feet below the surface.
Officials say they hope the discovery will provide some sense of closure for the descendants of Thomas Miller, the vessel’s captain, and the 20 crew members who went down with the ship.
Measuring 139 feet long and made of steel, the Seiner was built by the Rice Brothers Corp. in Boothbay, Maine, in 1921.
What happened to the ship in January 1929 isn’t entirely clear, but according to experts with Atlantic Wreck Salvage, the vessel likely foundered in a storm.
Rice Brothers was a long-running shipbuilding company that operated in East Boothbay from 1892 to 1956.
The company built a variety of vessels, including yachts, schooners, and ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and its former site is now home to the Washburn & Doughty shipyard.
Rice built sloops and ketches as well as larger vessels like passenger steamers, trawlers, and lightships.
During Prohibition, they built ten 75-foot patrol boats for the Coast Guard.They also built two submarine chasers and numerous minesweepers for the Navy during World War II.
