Jenny Lynne (Palos Verdes, CA — 145 fsw)

After we dove the Santa Clara, we headed north to the Jenny Lynne. In many ways, it is the exact opposite of the Santa Clara wreck. Instead of a disintegrated, wooden ship that sunk many decades ago, it is a steel hulled fishing vessel that sank in 2003 and is largely intact.

Background

The Jenny Lynne was a 66′ long, 21.6′ breadth, 106 gross ton steel hull fishing boat built in 1972.

It sank on December 6, 2003 off Long Point, Rancho Palos Verdes. It was fishing for sardines and started taking on water and sank soon thereafter. The crew was rescued by another boat, the San Pedro Pride. There was some talk of insurance fraud, but who knows? That same rumor also circulated about the Infidel.

One of the links below is a story from the diver who found and restored the ships horn. That article has some information about the sinking from the local San Pedro Daily Breeze newspaper (what my dad used to call the “fish wrapper”) and some information from the Coast Guard on the vessel. It lists the “previous owner” as Vito Terzoli but the other referenced post below by Max Bottomtime has a “quote” from the “owner” Vito about the sinking. Again, who knows?

When I searched for Vito, I found his obituary (Nov 12, 1934 – Jan 19, 2013) and he sounds like a good “Pedro” guy who I (and my dad) would have liked to spend some time with. The obituary mentions his boats, the Anna Maria II and Maria T but no mention of the Jenny Lynne.

The wreck

The wreck lies in 145 feet of water and is very close to shore. With a scooter and good navigation, you could get there from a short dive (modulo the “interesting” entry that would happen in that area of the shore). I was initially expecting a ship about the size of the Infidel but it “felt” a lot bigger. The wreck is largely intact and still has a lot of the electronics you would expect to see on a modern ship.

Given how close the wreck is to shore, it is usually pretty poor visibility but we lucked out and had good visibility (other than the time I got distracted and dropped my fins into the sand)! I had originally planned to take pictures to build a photogrammetry model but I’m still very new at that and I couldn’t figure out how to properly photograph a ship largely on the side and with large steel masts sticking out.

The other interesting note is that the pictures posted by Max Bottomtime in the Scubaboard post referenced below, his pictures show a LOT of white metridium anemones on the wreck. I don’t think I saw any. I’ve seen a ton on the A.C.E. wreck off Dana Point in different times of year and at many other wrecks so I’m not sure if it is a seasonal occurrence or temperature related or something else.

Pictures

Below are a few of the pictures I took of the Jenny Lynne. I highly recommend going to dive this wreck if you can get a good visibility day like we had. That probably means wintertime.

References

1. Scubaboard post by Max Bottomtime
2. Ships horn recovery & restoration
3. Vito Terzoli Obituary