The Story and Discovery are Chronicled in a New Book, “The Adriatic Affair”
Atlantic Wreck Salvage (AWS), owner and operator of D/V Tenacious, announced today the discovery of the 1856 transatlantic passenger steamship Le Lyonnais. The liner collided with the American sailing vessel Adriatic off the Coast of Nantucket on November 2, 1856. One-hundred-and-fourteen of Le Lyonnais’ 132 passengers and crew died in the disaster.
Le Lyonnais was built by Laird & Sons (now Cammel Laird) in 1855 for Compagnie Franco- Americaine. She was one of six ships built by Laird for Franco-Americaine to be used in transatlantic passenger and mail service. Le Lyonnais was built during a time when ships were making the transition from sail to steam. She was equipped with sails and a horizontal steam engine and is an early example of a passenger liner with two mid-Nineteenth century innovations: a screw propeller and an iron hull.
Franco-Americaine launched Le Lyonnais in January of 1856 and put her into service carrying cabin-class clientele and cargo between New York and Le Havre, France. On November 2, 1856, during her first return voyage to Le Havre from the Americas, she collided with the Maine- built barque Adriatic, which was en route from Belfast, Maine to Savannah, Georgia. Adriatic left Le Lyonnais with a small hole in her hull that eventually overwhelmed the vessel. Adriatic was injured in the collision but remained afloat. She assumed Le Lyonnais was uninjured because the steamship continued her course. Adriatic sailed to Gloucester, Massachusetts for repairs. Le Lyonnais sank days later.
Shipwreck hunter Captain Eric Takakjian first searched for Le Lyonnais in the late 2000s. Captain Joe Mazraani and Jennifer Sellitti of D/V Tenacious reignited the search in 2016 and spent eight years working with Takakjian to locate Le Lyonnais’ final resting place. The team side-scanned potential targets in 2022 and 2023 and, after reviewing the data, narrowed the search down to a series of potential candidates. They returned to the search area on August 20-25, 2024, to dive the targets, one of which they identified as Le Lyonnais. Members of the discovery team include Andrew Donn, Joe Mazraani, Kurt Mintell, Tom Packer, Jennifer Sellitti, Eric Takakjian, and Tim Whitehead. Francois Merle, Rick Simon, and Joseph St. Amand participated in earlier search efforts.
“Being one of the first French passenger steamships to have a regularly scheduled run crossing the Atlantic and an early transitional steamship make Le Lyonnais’ discovery significant,” said Takakjian.
“Her iron hull construction methods represented some of the earliest examples of that type of hull construction for oceangoing ships known to exist. Similarly, her propulsion machinery is unique in that it represents one of several engine designs that were tried before precedents were set on ocean steamship machinery. Le Lyonnais’ direct acting horizontal engine predates inverted compound engines which became the norm shortly thereafter,” said Takakjian.
Divers Donn, Mazraani, Packer, and Whitehead made a total of thirteen dives to the wreck and took measurements and video. Donn, a diver/photographer who played a significant role in all three search expeditions, further documented the wreck with still photographs. The team reviewed the data topside and made a preliminary identification based on the ship’s size, location, iron plating, an examination of her portholes, and the presence of a unique steam engine.
“One of the large cylinder heads pointed horizontally and not very high off the sand. Measuring that cylinder with my good friend and dive partner Tom Packer, we confirmed that it measured precisely 57”, the exact size for the cylinders on Le Lyonnais’ engine,” said Mazraani. “On a subsequent dive, I spotted a deadeye – a wooden block used in a ship’s rigging system. Those clues with the location, sonar data and measurements, further solidified that we were diving the lost French liner.”
The wreck lies approximately 200 miles from D/V Tenacious’ launch point at New Bedford’s Fleet Marina in an area known as Georges Bank. The team is not revealing Le Lyonnais’ exact location or depth. They intend to return to the site to further explore and document it.
Discovery team member Jennifer Sellitti has also written a new book entitled The Adriatic Affair: A Maritime Hit-and-Run Off the Coast of Nantucket (Schiffer Publishing, $34.99, Hardcover, on sale February 28, 2025) which will provide an in-depth history of the Adriatic and Le Lyonnais hit-and-run, as well as more information on the sinking and survivors. The epilogue covers the details of the search and discovery of Le Lyonnais, as well as additional underwater and topside photographs from the expedition. The Adriatic Affair is available now for pre-order wherever books are sold.
“Le Lyonnais, her passengers, and her story captivated me and set me on an eight-year journey in search not only of her final resting place but also for the truth behind her sinking and its eventful aftermath,” said Sellitti. “Marking that journey with a book and collaborating with my friends on such an important discovery still feels surreal.”
Passengers from prominent New York and Boston families were traveling to France aboard the vessel on its ill-fated voyage including: Albert Sumner, brother of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, and his wife and daughter; John Gardiner Gibson, the oldest son of Charles Hammond Gibson and Catherine Gardiner Gibson, who were the first residents of what is now Boston’s Gibson House Museum; Theodore Bailey, Jr. the son of the New York Senator; and Composer Thomas Bassford and his wife Margaret.
