Forelle
Fishing Tug · Lost 1923 · Chicago & Southern Lake Michigan
A steel fishing tug carrying grapes vanished in a 1923 gale; her wreckage drifted up off Kenosha days later.
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The Vessel and Her Loss
Johnston Brothers built the steel fishing tug Forelle at Ferrysburg, Michigan, in 1908. On September 19, 1923, she loaded 5,800 packages of grapes at Benton Harbor for Milwaukee. She never arrived, and searchers including a Coast Guard cutter found no trace until fruit baskets, light screens and lifejackets were found off Kenosha on September 22. Further wreckage the next day indicated she sank near Kenosha.
Vessel
- 1908
- US registry no. 205777
- Johnston Brothers
- Ferrysburg, Michigan
- Steel
- 54.6 ft
- 15.8 ft
- 46 gross tons
- Oil engine, screw
- Not established
Loss
- September 19, 1923
- Storm
- Lake Michigan off Kenosha, Wisconsin
- Lake Michigan
- Benton Harbor, Michigan → Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- 5,800 packages of grapes
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Kenosha, Wisconsin
Institutional inventory position not used; surveyed provenance not established.
Evidence
Overall confidence: Documented (84/100)
Number aboard, casualties, exact sinking time, depth and surveyed position are not established in the source reviewed.
Wisconsin Historical Society and Wisconsin Sea Grant — Wisconsin Shipwrecks: Forelle
Construction table and complete Final Voyage narrative read; underlying newspapers not independently inspected.
