my Okoboji images

The Hafer Wreck is seldom visited by divers today. All that remains of the 22-foot launch built by the Hafer Boat Company of Spirit Lake, Iowa, is the wooden hull. News accounts of the sinking have been lost, but sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s the boat caught fire and sank near Atwell Point. Tim Fuhrmann and Tom Weishaar, divers from Fort Dodge, Iowa, found the wreck in 1990 while looking for another boat in the same area. The launch was upright and intact on the sandy bottom in 22 feet of water when discovered. It was quickly stripped by looting divers. Today it lays overturned, its hollow hull home to bass and walleye. The Hafer Boat Company went out of business in 1955 when wooden boats fell out of fashion. The top photograph was taken May 18, 2003, the bottom photograph is from May 1996.