PORT TOWNSEND — Images of the wreck of the SS Governor gathered during four submarine dives at the end of June will be presented at the Northwest Maritime Center tonight.
Joel Perry, vice president of expeditions for OceanGate of Everett, will discuss the dives in the group’s manned submarine, the five-person Antipodes, and show images of the 90-year-old wreck at the meeting at 6:30 p.m. today at the center at 431 Water St., Port Townsend.
Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis for the free event.
The free event is sponsored by the Jefferson County Library, the Northwest Maritime Center and the Jefferson County Historical Society.
Perry will show two-dimensional sonar images, video and a three-dimensional model of part of the 417-foot passenger liner, which sank off Point Wilson on April 1, 1921.
The 3-D model of part of the wreck is a mosaic of 11 scans stitched together, Perry said.
Historians and librarians will present an overview of the history of the Governor and the aftermath of the shipwreck, Perry said.
Meredith Wagner, associate director of the library, will provide the introduction.
Photographs, objects and documents — including a chart showing how the collision happened — from a variety of sources will be exhibited.
The Governor sank 240 feet in Admiralty Inlet about one mile from Port Townsend.
Eight of the 240 people aboard did not survive.
The steamship was on a routine run to Seattle from San Francisco and had just dropped off some passengers in Victoria before heading southeast toward Puget Sound.
As the ship rounded Port Townsend, the SS West Hartland, which was leaving Port Townsend for India, rammed into the Governor amidships on her starboard side, ripping open a 10-foot gash in the iron hull.
Reports later said the Governor’s pilot mistook the West Hartland’s running lights for fixed lights on Marrowstone Point and so didn’t yield the right of way.
Photos of the Governor and information about the submarine dives can be found at www.opentheoceans.com/governor.htm.