Blanche King

Built in 1887 in Maine this American built schooner was 192 feet long 42 feet wide and displaced 1156 tons. With an iron frame and wooden sides and deck she had two decks, four masts and most distinctly a drop keel (meaning that the keel could be hoisted up into the ship significantly reducing hr depth)  in a massive centerboard trunk amidships, for taking coal up shallow rivers to timber mills.

She sank in 1920 en route from Norfolk to Bermuda with a cargo of coal when she became stranded on the southwest reefs and sank into a sand hole between the reef in 35 feet of water not far from where Chubb head beacon is now.

Today the wreck consists of the extensively degraded remaining sections of the iron hull with wood remains attached to the extremely corroded metal frames of the mid decks (the upper part of the deck is completely gone) with evidence of the centerboard trunk still in place amidships.

Evidence of metal cable and rigging are strewn over and around the wreck and reef with some dead eyes (lower parts of the ships rigging that held up the mast at the side of the wreck) 

The capstan or winch is at the front of the ship and some ballast is exposed at the rear. 

This is a well-known and very popular dive site that is regularly dived by the west end dive operators.

The Blanche King was never considered lost and has always been a known fishing site.

This wreck is part of the Bermuda Shipwreck Certificate Program instituted by the Department of Tourism. It is also buoyed under the Bermuda Dive Sites program established by the Marine Environmental Committee of the Bermuda National Trust in association with the Ministry of the Environment Buoy program and is a protected site with a 300m no fishing limitation.

The Blanche King was listed in the Bermuda Sun Unprotected Historic Wrecks List submitted by the Receiver of Wreck in October 1977