Underwater Archaeological Society of Chicago

Minutes

September 30, 2015

Bob Rushman welcomed nineteen members.

Printed copies of the minutes were available and the vice president and treasurer were not present.

In October, members will nominate new officers and elections will take place in November. During the business part of the meeting Bob Rushman's videos of the Buccaneer were shown followed by a ten-minute presentation from Carol Sommers of diving at Hornby Island in British Columbia. UASC- with Jim Gentile as the project leader--sunk the Buccaneer. Its history included being a new Coast Guard cutter in 1925, and as the Dexter chased rum runners and sunk one called I'm Alone. A song was written about the event called "The Sinking of the I'm Alone". The many lives of the Buccaneer include the designation as the YP63 during WW2, then became a private yacht, then the Trinidad, a party boat operating out of Chicago. Its last decoration was as a pirate ship and divers who visit it have kept the zebra mussels off the skull and crossbones on the smokestack and off the beautiful fish murals inside.

Tom Palmisano mentioned that he and Keith Pearson followed the tug which took out the Straits of Mackinaw and took videos and photos of the sinking. It was suggested that Keith be invited to bring them it to show to UASC members at a meeting.

Bob Gadbois gave out important information as to procedures to follow if members want to present any audiovisual programs. They must bring their own computer, IPad or IPhone and it must be compatible to a VGA input in order to use the projector. If your computer is not VGA compatible (and many aren't) you need to bring a cable adapter that connects to your HDMI outlet and has a VGA connection at the other end. Your program should be tested at home and you need to have everything ready to go. Do not just bring a flash drive. All computer systems are different and these preparations will ensure that your program works.

ICSSD--Tickets were available to be bought for the President's Day Dinner at Klaus Restaurant, 5734 W. 22nd. St. in Cicero on October 24. Pumpkin carving at Haigh Quarry will be next Sunday, October 4. Refreshments will be provided by Atlantis. It starts at 10am and one should bring extra weights for the pumpkin. The Underwater Competition will be March 13th,2016 in Elk Grove Village and Tom Freeman volunteered to help train a team.

Survey training will be postponed since we have speakers for the next two meetings--In October it will be Ross Richardson from Michigan.

Chet Childs will conduct the presentation for the Ridge Historical Society, possibly joined by Dan Doherty.

Survey work and other dive activity -- Bob Rushman, Ryan and Jorge dived the Tacoma and Material Service Barge from Tom Palmisano's boat. Ryan Fly and Dean Nolan dived the Morley off Evanston and found the visibility as very bad. Tom said visibility on the Hume was good, but unfortunately in years past, once charters started operating, about items started to disappear. Valerie Van Heast wrote a book about the wreck. John Bell said that the first draft of the Car Ferry #2 report is essentially complete and he will submit it to advisors before the final copy is presented. Colin snorkled the Thirty-first Street Beach and Tom told a story of a friend who used a drysuit and fanned the sand in shallow water at the Twelfth Street Beach and found hundreds of items over the years, including rings.

Chicago Maritime Museum--Jim Jarecki said that the ceilings are done, the floor will be tiled soon and the exhibits will be done in a couple of months. He attended the Manitowoc meeting with Tom Lutz. The second weekend in September of 2016 the meeting will be in Alpena (a 7 hour drive) at the NOAA museum and where Car Ferry #1 is located, still upright and in good condition. Their archeologists have expressed an interest in comparing the two ferries. October 18-20 Is the Open Archives Day when the local and national archives here will be open for tours. A pre open-archives event will be on October 10-11 as well as an Introduction to Evanston Archives. Contact Jim who at this writing has already sent out an informative e-mail. The Wisconsin Underwater Archaeological Art Fest and Maritime History Conference will be held in Green Bay on Saturday, October 10 and you can drive up with Jim. October 23-25 there will be a trip to Toledo and details will be in a future e-mail.

Bob has received an e-mail from a Columbia student who would like to interview UASC members about underwater archeology. Let Bob know if you are interested and he will contact her.

Program--Tonight's program is a half-hour internet presentation from DAN's website. Members are asked to look at the site and choose other on-line programs for possible showings at meetings when we do not have a speaker.

Tonight's title is "Situational Awareness: Metacognitive Approach to Personal and Team Safety" and the presenter was Dr. Richard Sadler who is himself a diver, as is his entire family. In his talk, he analyzed real-life situations of failures and disasters with flying a plane and diving both having in common checklists and possible dangerous or fatal situations. Everyone is susceptible to disasters even if well- trained and well-intentioned. Seventy to eighty per cent of mishaps are caused by human factors, with complacency, fatigue and poor planning playing a roll. There actually is an eight-second delay for the brain to figure out what to do in response to an emergency situation. It is important to not have one's mind on automatic pilot, to get out of biased strategies and constantly be dynamic and self-checking.

The meeting was adjourned at nine pm.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Carol Sommers