(Image via facebook.com)
Volunteer Writer: Emma Bowser
Email: ebowser@umassd.edu
Le Lyonnais was a French ship built during 1855 in England by Laird & Sons of Birkenhead, for a business named “Compagnie Franco-Americaine.”
It was built when steam ships were beginning to become popular, and thus it was intended to be a dual-purpose form of transportation.
The crew that found her off the coast of New Bedford wrote in their Facebook post, “She was equipped with sails and a horizontal steam engine and is an early example of a passenger liner with two mid-Nineteenth century innovations: a screw propeller and an iron bull.”
The ship was intended to provide transportation for both passengers and cargo between France and the United States.
However, it never finished its maiden voyage and ended up sinking before it could return to Le Havre from New York City.
The ship was damaged during a collision with the Adriatic, which was a ship from Maine it encountered off of the coast of Nantucket on November 1. The Adriatic suffered some damage after the collision, but successfully continued its voyage.
Le Lyonnais was also damaged and sunk due to water intake because the crew could not sufficiently repair the ship while sailing. It took three days to completely sink, and only 16 of the 132 passengers survived.
The site of the Le Lyonnais is currently located approximately 200 miles from New Bedford, Massachusetts. However, further research involving court documents and the testimonies of the survivors may mean that “the ship actually sank farther out to sea on the George Banks.”
Many people have been searching for the lost wreck.
This includes Eric Takakjian, a shipwreck hunter and captain of the boat that found the shipwreck, who began his search around 2001.
Jennifer Sellitti and Joe Mazraani started looking for it as well in 2016. Sellitti and Mazraani located the shipwreck in August 2024, just over 150 years after the ship had hit rock bottom.
Conversations with local fishermen brought up some “anomalies on the ocean floor,” and that, in addition to information obtained through other research, made the hypothesis that Le Lyonnais was nearby probable.
The team used side-scan sonar to help accelerate the process and make locating potential shipwreck sites easier.
However, they had to wait a while after they completed their scans before they could dive down and confirm whether or not Le Lyonnais was where they thought it was.
After they double-checked the specifications of the ship, they were able to confirm that it was Le Lyonnais. The unique metal hull and horizontal steam engine helped make the identification process go smoothly.
The exact location of the shipwreck isn’t public knowledge yet, but the team did say that it’s in deep water and buried in sand. There are plans to return to the wreck’s site to continue their research.
The story of Le Lyonnais was compelling enough to motivate the eight-year-long passion project. Jennifer Sellitti told the Boston Globe,
“I very quickly just became obsessed with this ship and her story…and every little piece of information I uncovered was this sort of…unraveling of what really is an incredibly story about this collision.”
She also stated that she feels like being able to find Le Lyonnais makes her feel like she’s giving closure to all the people who suffered from the ship sinking.
Sellitti has written a book on the topic of Le Lyonnais’ unfortunate encounter and consequent sinking titled The Adriatic Affair: A Maritime Hit-and-Run Off the Coast of Nantucket.
The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and will be officially published on February 28, 2025, by Schiffer Publishing for $34.99.