AH-WR-0625

Bayou Teche

Wooden Steam Cargo Ship · United States · Lost Present at Mallows Bay by the late 1920s · Chesapeake Bay

A Louisiana-built wartime steamship, one of the best-preserved hulls among the wooden ghost fleet resting in Mallows Bay.

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Artistic recreation based on recorded historical documents. See the documented evidence.

Historically Reconstructed. Drawn from partial documentation of this vessel together with her known class and configuration. See the documented evidence.

The Vessel and Her Loss

Bayou Teche was built in 1918 by the Jahncke Shipbuilding Corporation of Madisonville, Louisiana, one of six wooden cargo steamships built there for the United States Shipping Board's wartime Emergency Fleet program. Like most of her class, she was completed too late to serve overseas. She was retired after the war, sold for scrap, and towed to the Potomac River, where she has rested at Mallows Bay since the 1920s. Surveys describe her as among the more intact hulls in the ghost fleet.

Vessel

Built: 1918
Registry: Maryland archaeological site 18CH511
Builder: Jahncke Shipbuilding Corporation
Yard: Madisonville, Louisiana
Material: Wood
Length: 281.8 ft
Beam: 45.2 ft
Tonnage: 3500
Propulsion: Steam, single screw
Owners: United States Shipping Board

Loss

Date: Present at Mallows Bay by the late 1920s
Cause: Intentional sinking
Location: Mallows Bay, Potomac River
Water: Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay watershed
Voyage: Not established
Cargo: Not established
Aboard: Not established
Lives lost: Not established
Master: Not established

The Wreck Today

Depth: Not established
Condition: Partially submerged on its keel, oriented east-to-west, bow toward shoreline; stern post, rudder post and engine platform intact; considered one of the more intact Mallows Bay hulls.
Orientation: East-west, bow toward shore
Discovered: Not established
Protection: Within Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary and the Mallows Bay-Widewater National Register Historic District