Original subtitles

- All right, drop it.

narrator: Tonight on

"The Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters"...

narrator: The mystery disappearances

that started it all.

- This was one of the first prominent incidents

that drew attention to these cursed waters.

narrator: Were a pair of Civil War ships

two of the Triangle's earliest victims?

♪ ♪

These are some of the oldest wrecks

we've looked at in the Bermuda Triangle.

narrator: Was it a freak accident?

- Is there any possibility

of lightning hitting those ships?

♪ ♪

narrator: Or something darker?

- You put gunpowder in, close it back up,

and then shovel it into the furnace.

♪ ♪

This could be the smoking gun to identify this wreck.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

narrator: There is a place that evokes

fear and fascination.

Bounded by Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico,

the Bermuda Triangle has swallowed

countless ships, planes, and people.

♪ ♪

Now an elite team is on the hunt...

- Dive, dive, dive.

narrator: And making big finds.

- We've discovered "Challenger."

narrator: Their secret weapon,

a wreck map decades in the making.

- These are dangerous dives.

- Ah!

- Any sane person would not be doing this.

narrator: Their mission:

solve the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle,

one wreck at a time.

- Dude, are you seeing this?

- Mother Nature is gonna take these wrecks away.

The clock is ticking.

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

- Morning, guys.

- Good morning.

narrator: As the sun rises in Jacksonville, Florida,

wreck divers Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

are loading up.

♪ ♪

Their target today is 80 miles offshore.

It's called the prop wreck.

- This is a site that came to our attention

from local spear fisherman that have been

fishing the site for decades.

♪ ♪

The reason it's called the prop wreck

is because that's one of the most prominent

features you see on the bottom.

You have a long drive shaft

with a big squared iron propeller at the end of it.

♪ ♪

- This one is pretty far offshore.

We're going about 80 miles.

It's gonna take us a long time to get out there.

Being this far offshore, there is a certain

level of caution that we need to take.

If we have any issues or anything like that,

it's going to take us just the same amount of time

to get back as it did to get out here.

narrator: But it's a risk worth taking.

The team has two main suspects for this wreck.

Both are among the earliest known vessels

lost in the greater area of the Bermuda Triangle.

October 1865,

just months after the end of the Civil War,

the D. H. "Mount" leaves New York City

bound for Jacksonville, Florida.

- The D. H. "Mount" was a single decker

propeller-driven steamer that was built

in 1863 out of white oak.

narrator: On board are 23 Union-supporting citizens,

including a judge who was poised to join

the post-war Florida government, Samuel Burritt.

A Confederate reign of terror drove these passengers

north during the war.

Now they're heading home to an uncertain welcome.

- Although the Confederate army had surrendered

a few months before, resentment and resistance

in Florida still remained a concern.

♪ ♪

- The Civil War had just ended,

and these 23 pro-Union people

were now able to come back to help direct

the future of the state of Florida.

narrator: The ship is last spotted

200 miles south of Cape Hatteras

in no apparent distress.

But as it approaches the outer reaches

of the Bermuda Triangle, the ship vanishes.

- On the D. H. "Mount," there were 23 passengers

that were returning home.

They had everything on board, from their clothes

to their belongings to even dinner plates.

There were several rumors as to how

the D. H. "Mount" could have disappeared.

You know, was it fire?

Was it a rogue wave?

We don't have any answers as to why

all these passengers just vanished.

♪ ♪

narrator: After a long, bumpy ride,

the boat is finally approaching the prop wreck.

- We do have a suspect vessel for it.

And so we're going to try to go down on this dive

and try to gather enough information

to support our theory of what this could be.

narrator: Today's mission is complicated

by the strange fact that prop wreck could be one

of two almost identical ships.

If it's not the D. H. "Mount," it could be

a ship lost in these waters 12 years later,

the SS "Leo."

Friday, April 13, 1877, the steamship "Leo"

is carrying high society passengers

from Georgia to the Bahamas.

In the early morning hours, passengers are awakened

by a disaster below deck.

One witness later reported angry forked tongues of fire

burst out of the ship's hatches.

"Leo" starts to take on water.

- Of the 53 passengers and crew,

20 people perished in the fire

and ultimate sinking of the "Leo."

♪ ♪

narrator: What had caused the intense fire?

Newspaper articles at the time were filled with horror

at the unexplained tragedy.

It may have been just the beginning

of a new pattern of mysterious losses in these waters.

- We've only had the name the Bermuda Triangle

since around 1950.

But when you go back and look

at the "Leo" and the D. H. "Mount,"

you have to wonder,

could these ship disappearances

have actually been

the Bermuda Triangle's first blood?

♪ ♪

narrator: The prop wreck is on

the intended routes of both ships,

so it could be either the "Leo"

or the D. H. "Mount."

♪ ♪

- If we could find an artifact

with the name of the wreck on it

or a date on it or anything of the sort on the bottom,

that's going to be crucial to identifying this wreck.

- So we had a lot of fish on it.

- Lots of fishes on it.

- Yeah.

narrator: Jimmy and Captain Aaron Dickerson

spot what looks to be the wreck target.

- We definitely got relief off the bottom.

- Yep.

- We're not super deep on this one.

I mean, we're talking 120 feet max.

We still need to treat this with caution.

I mean, we're still pretty far offshore.

♪ ♪

narrator: Jimmy and Mike prepare to dive.

Because the depth is not extreme,

they will have 60 minutes of bottom time

until they begin a short decompression ascent.

- Dive, dive, dive!

♪ ♪

narrator: Right away, they hit

their first challenge:

a strong current.

With their scooters, they power through.

[whirring]

They reach the bottom, and the clock starts.

There's no sign of the wreck...

[tense music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Until fish.

Old wrecks become reefs that attract sea life.

♪ ♪

And then...

there it is.

The shipwreck is barely visible under a thick coating

of encrustation, an indication that this wreck

could be over 100 years old.

They spot the long shaft that leads them

to the large propeller for which the wreck is named.

Mike and Jimmy measure it.

narrator: It's 10 feet by 12 feet,

with a design that's consistent

with Civil War era steamships.

Then they notice something strange.

The large wreck looks to be tipped on its side,

as if spilling out its contents.

♪ ♪

They dig the sandy bottom to see what artifacts

might be buried there...

and hit pay dirt.

narrator: An iron spike like the ones that

held together the wooden beams of Civil War steamships.

♪ ♪

And then the team uncovers an even more significant clue.

narrator: The team knows that

the passengers on one of the ships

were returning home with all their belongings,

including dinner plates.

Are these the remains of the D. H. "Mount"?

♪ ♪

Then Mike finds another clue.

narrator: Oddly shaped metal with a distinctly gold color.

narrator: And there's more and more.

Did this melt in a fire that took down the ship?

If that's the case, could this be the "Leo"?

narrator: Jimmy Gadomski and Mike Barnette

are trying to identify a mystery shipwreck

known as the prop wreck.

It may be one of two lost ships

that were among the first to disappear

in the area of the Bermuda Triangle.

The D. H. "Mount," which vanished in 1864 at the end

of the Civil War, bringing citizens loyal to the north

home to Confederate territory,

or the "Leo," a virtually identical ship

said to have gone down in a mysterious fire in 1877.

And Mike has found a telling clue.

narrator: Brass melts at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

It suggests an intense fire.

narrator: With the one hour dive clock running out,

the divers collect samples of brass and china.

Time's up.

They start making their way to the surface.

♪ ♪

- We went down, saw a lot of steam machinery,

found some interesting artifacts.

We saw some melted brass.

Under a high heat, you're gonna see it melt like this.

And then when... as the water cools off,

so you see these weird shapes like this.

So this is indicative of a fire at sea.

narrator: Jimmy's interested in a different clue.

- There's a lot of broken china down there.

This is probably the biggest piece I can come across.

Lots of detail and whatnot on it.

Sometimes we could pull old lettering

or something off of the china

that would help us identify it.

♪ ♪

narrator: Mike and Jimmy take their evidence back to shore

for further examination.

♪ ♪

They sit down with team member

Jason Harris, a retired Air Force pilot

and an accident investigator.

Historian David O'Keefe joins the meeting remotely.

- What's up, Dave? - Hey, boys.

How you doing?

- So what did you guys find that was unique on this dive?

- Let's start with showing you the measurements

of the prop here.

- Looks pretty large in size.

- Yeah, exactly.

I mean, this actually speaks to the era as well,

'cause this is a very primitive propeller.

We were able to ascertain this is an old steamer,

very archaic, definitely 19th century,

probably Civil War era.

narrator: Propellers, also called screws,

had only been in use for about 30 years

at the time of the Civil War.

By 1864, propeller-driven steamers

were quickly replacing paddle steamers

that struggled in rough seas.

Early steam ships also had sails in case

the engines broke down.

- You have any idea of what may have brought the ship down?

- We have found multiple fragments of china

on the bottom... - Really?

- As well as molten brass

that is melted and now hardened.

And we have, actually, a piece of this brass with us.

- [groans] - Check that out.

- So this is basically something

that was destroyed by way of fire.

- It just melted, 'cause obviously,

brass has a lower melting point

than, say, like, steel or iron. - Yeah.

- And as it melts, it just turns molten.

And it hits that cold water and obviously

freezes it into whatever shape.

And all that china as well, hits that cold water,

it just shatters.

narrator: Passengers returning home

likely brought china on the D. H. "Mount,"

but the ship disappeared without a trace.

It might have suffered a fire, but there's no way to be sure.

On the other hand, survivors of the "Leo"

reported their ship was on fire

when it went down in a storm in 1877.

Jason points to one obvious cause of fire

on ships in the 19th century.

- Lightning has always been a factor of safety at sea,

especially in the 1860s and 1870s

when ships didn't have

lightning protection mechanisms.

♪ ♪

narrator: Contemporary British Navy records document

235 lightning strikes that resulted in

40 ships damaged or destroyed by fire.

The British Navy experimented with ways to reduce damage

from lightning strikes, but those technical advances

were not yet found on American commercial vessels.

♪ ♪

Mike has a theory based on another common threat

to early steamships.

- These boilers had a tendency to blow up.

At one point over 20% of steamboat losses

were due to boiler explosions.

- Oh, wow.

- Well, exploding boilers and fires on board steamships

are not really my expertise,

but I do know the person to speak to.

narrator: To ID the prop wreck

and determine if it's either the "Leo"

or the D. H. "Mount," the team will need

more evidence from the bottom and more research

on what could have caused

a fire hot enough to melt brass.

- So, hopefully, next time we meet,

we'll have more information for you

and give us a little bit more insight to what the identity

of the prop wreck.

- No, that's fantastic.

It sounds like we all got our work cut out for us.

♪ ♪

narrator: David's first stop is Chicago,

home to an authority on nautical history

named Gene Salecker.

- Gene is an expert on these ships,

and in particular how the boilers tick.

So what I want to do is I want to basically pick his brain

to see if there is a possibility

that the boiler may have been the issue for these ships.

♪ ♪

- Boiler explosions were just waiting to happen.

It wasn't a matter of if. It was a matter of when.

narrator: In early steamships,

stokers shovel coal into a furnace

that sends heat upward to a large steel tank

of water called the boiler.

From there, steam rises into metal drums and moves

the pistons of the engine that turns the propeller.

But steam pressure was a constant hazard.

The engineer had to carefully monitor the pressure gauges

or risk a catastrophic explosion.

- So if that's the case, to be able to figure out

exactly what happened, what are some

of the indicators they should be looking for?

- Well, if they have found the boiler

that they can look into,

they can see, is there a portion of that boiler

that is blown away?

narrator: But according to Gene,

not all boiler explosions were accidental.

- Perhaps if it's from the lower bottom front of it,

that could be possible sabotage.

- Oh, really?

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

narrator: Sabotage is a possibility

the team never expected.

One method was to toss an explosive into the firebox

under the boiler.

- So, I mean, how common was sabotage

towards the end of the Civil War?

- It was actually fairly common.

We've determined that there's been about 35 steamboats that

were destroyed by Confederate boat burners,

as they called them.

- 35, wow.

I mean, that's quite significant.

Steamships in the 1860s were essentially

floating tinderboxes.

You've got a boiler, you've got coal,

you have kerosene lamps that are all over the ship,

above and below decks.

I mean, under the best of circumstances,

it is a ticking time bomb.

But you add bad seas and perhaps even

the specter of sabotage, and boy, you have

the specter of sabotage, and boy, you have

a tragedy waiting to happen.

narrator: Why would someone want to sabotage either ship?

It turns out a passenger on one of the ships

was a tempting target.

narrator: Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

have found the sunken remains of a shipwreck that could tie

to one of two steamships that were among

the earliest known casualties of the Bermuda Triangle.

One key clue: china.

narrator: It may have been in the personal belongings

of Unionists returning home to post-war Florida

on the D. H. "Mount."

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

Jason Harris is following up on this clue.

Jason meets with Civil War historian Dr. Seth Weitz

to learn more about who was on the D. H. "Mount"

when it went missing.

Could someone have intentionally

sunk the D. H. "Mount" to take out these Union sympathizers?

- One of the theories is that the D. H. "Mount,"

and more specifically the passengers,

that they would have been targets of sabotage.

- On board were at least 20 or so Unionists,

and one of them was a prominent

Jacksonville citizen, Judge Samuel Burritt.

They're headed ultimately to Tallahassee

for a new constitutional convention

that's supposed to restore Florida to the Union.

narrator: This convention was to enact

a new constitution for Florida

that would offer voting and civil rights

for former slaves.

- So you can imagine that he felt that

he had a target on his back.

- Is there any type of precedence for sabotage

or any type of nefarious activities

during this time period?

- There were a lot of conspiracies, plots

that were kind of hatched by the Confederates

before and possibly after the Civil War.

- Tell me about the kind of things that they

would use for sabotaging.

- Towards the beginning of the war,

Confederate President Jefferson Davis

actually is looking for new ways to hurt the Union cause.

What comes into play is the idea of a coal torpedo.

♪ ♪

I can show you what a coal torpedo looks like.

We have a replica of one here.

It looks like a lump of coal, but it's a ceramic piece

with a hollowed-out core in the middle

where you put gunpowder in, close it back up,

and the hope was that whoever was dealing with it would just

shovel it into the furnace, into the boiler

and it would cause an explosion which would do

massive damage to a ship.

narrator: Once the coal torpedo

is thrown into the firebox,

the gunpowder will ignite, potentially triggering

a boiler explosion so violent,

it sends debris flying a mile into the sky.

♪ ♪

Back on the water, Mike and Jimmy

make their long eight-hour journey to the prop wreck.

♪ ♪

The goal for today is to look for any evidence

that could tell which ship they found,

the D. H. "Mount" or the "Leo."

Of particular interest is the boiler.

The team wants to know if the boiler exploded

and if there are signs of possible sabotage.

♪ ♪

- Let's try and work around the bow section.

That was pretty significant in our last dive here.

Check out midship too, see if there's any...

anything midship that could tell us

any reason why she went down.

- All right, let's do it.

♪ ♪

- Dive, dive, dive!

♪ ♪

narrator: After reaching the wreck,

the dive clock starts.

Almost immediately,

Mike spots something buried in the sand.

narrator: It's a brick.

narrator: Bricks lined the boiler

on early steamships.

This brick still bears the stamp of its manufacturer.

narrator: The manufacturer could be a clue

to the prop wreck's identity.

Jimmy adds the brick to his collection bag.

♪ ♪

But as Mike and Jimmy work 120 feet down,

trouble stirs up top.

♪ ♪

- We've got a visual on a ship coming right at us.

narrator: A large container ship anywhere near a dive site

is a major hazard.

- Trying to get this incoming ship here

to alter its course since we have divers in the water.

narrator: Mike and Jimmy are 120 feet down,

and the bottom of a ship this size

can extend 35 feet below the surface,

exposing divers to intense turbulence

exposing divers to intense turbulence

and massive propellers.

- That's why we're definitely concerned.

♪ ♪

narrator: Shipwreck hunters Mike Barnette

and Jimmy Gadomski are back on the prop wreck

looking for clues.

They think it's either the D. H. "Mount," a steamship

that disappeared in 1865, or the "Leo,"

a steamship lost to a mysterious fire

12 years later.

What they don't realize is that a container ship

is getting dangerously close.

Dive boat captain Aaron

urgently reaches out to the other ship.

♪ ♪

- Good morning, sir.

This is the research vessel "Explorer."

I actually have divers in the water.

I'm off your bow right now.

♪ ♪

narrator: If it gets too close,

this ship will create chaos for the divers in the water.

♪ ♪

Down below, Jimmy and Mike are oblivious to the dangers.

♪ ♪

They scan the wreck for clues.

♪ ♪

Mike takes photos of what's left of the boiler,

so he can study them later for evidence of an explosion.

♪ ♪

Topside, Aaron is trying to keep the divers safe.

♪ ♪

- So I've already talked to the captain.

He knows that I have divers in the water,

so he is watching out,

and he's gonna steer clear of us.

- Yeah, he is definitely altering course.

This is, you know,

a little stress, a little bit of excitement,

but just another day in the Bermuda Triangle.

♪ ♪

narrator: Crisis averted.

♪ ♪

Jimmy and Mike wrap up their dive

as the clock runs out.

♪ ♪

They have some new imagery

of the steam engine and boilers,

and recovered a brick most likely

used to line the boiler.

It may prove to be a key clue to ID

this wreck as either the D. H. "Mount"

or the "Leo."

♪ ♪

- Tell me more about this particular artifact

and what'd you guys learn about the brick here.

- So this foundry was actually on Staten Island.

We know the D. H. "Mount" was built

in Bound Brook, New Jersey.

- OK. Yeah. - Very close to Staten Island.

Conversely, the "Leo" was built in Brooklyn, New York.

So basically, Staten Island rests right

in the middle of two of those,

so it's probably supplied both of those vessels.

So we're on the track, but not the smoking gun.

narrator: The brick is further confirmation

this is a Civil War era steamship.

But it could have been on either the "Leo"

or the D. H. "Mount."

- So what other diagnostic features

can start narrowing down what we're looking at here?

♪ ♪

narrator: Mike shows the photos he took of the boilers.

His analysis takes one theory off the table.

- Exploring the wreck, we find two large

railroad style boilers, but they're intact.

There's no sign whatsoever of any damage

or catastrophic explosion.

So it's clear the fire that consumed this vessel

started somewhere else.

narrator: That means neither sabotage nor faulty boilers

sank the ship.

So what could cause a fire hot enough to melt brass?

- Are we forgetting the fact that it could be just

Mother Nature claiming the ship?

- That's where lightning comes in.

There were some incidents of lightning strikes

blowing up ships around this time.

So I'm going to go, I'm going to see if there's

any possibility that this could be the reason

why the ship was lost.

- And Jimmy and I know, we've been out before,

and when you get in a bad storm, you know,

you're concerned about your antennas getting struck,

frying all your electronics.

- It kicks up quick, and a lot of times

you want to get around the storm, stay away

from the storm because lightning is a big hazard

to vessels out there.

- So lightning could be a good explanation for this.

narrator: More clues may be hiding

in the historical record.

First reports from the "Leo's" survivors

expressed confusion over what caused that hellish fire.

Jason wants to see if later accounts add clarity.

- What I want to do is I want to go dig a little bit deeper

and learn more about the "Leo" to see if that provides

some information that will help us to solve this mystery

that we're looking at.

narrator: The team will split up

to continue their investigation.

Jimmy and Mike prepare to dive the wreck again,

while David will meet with a lightning expert.

And Jason heads to the archives.

And Jason heads to the archives.

- Yeah, talk soon, boys.

- All right, let's do this.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team has discovered

a Civil War era steamship wreck

that might be tied to one of the earliest known ships

to disappear into the Bermuda Triangle.

There are signs of fire on the wreck,

but what could have caused it?

♪ ♪

David O'Keefe heads to North Carolina

to meet marine lightning expert Ewen Thompson.

- How you doing?

- Hi, how are you?

narrator: Could lightning have caused that fire?

And how can we tell?

- So, I mean, first of all, how prevalent is lightning

in the Bermuda Triangle area?

- As far as oceans go, there's a much higher

prevalence of lightning off the coast of Florida.

I just generated some maps this morning,

and what I did is I overlaid the Bermuda Triangle

over the lightning incidence map.

And you can see that these white spots here

are very high incidence of lightning.

narrator: Ewen's maps reveal that Florida has the highest

incidence of lightning in the U.S.,

with the high danger zone extending out

into the Bermuda Triangle,

where violent storm patterns threaten ships and planes

with catastrophic electrostatic discharges.

- So basically the same route that the "Leo"

and the D. H. "Mount" were taking.

♪ ♪

So is there any possibility

of lightning hitting those ships

and actually causing an explosion?

- The mast would be the first suspect to look at...

the wooden mast.

It's flammable.

If it got struck by lightning, it could burst into flames.

And if you take one of these boats from a center dock here

and you put it out on the ocean,

it increases the risk of a lightning strike

about five times.

- Five times, wow. - Yeah.

narrator: Each mast doubles the risk

of a lightning strike.

Three-masted ships,

like the D. H. "Mount" or the "Leo,"

would be 20 times more at risk of a direct hit.

- OK, so that's a bit more significant than I thought.

Then, certainly, the dive team should be looking for signs

of lightning strike as one of the possibilities

for taking this down.

- A definite possibility, yes. - Yeah.

♪ ♪

- When I do forensic work of analysis of what happened

during a lightning strike, what I look for

is carbon tracks, which are deposited

by the lightning on its way down.

♪ ♪

narrator: Lightning strikes often leave tracks

of burnt black carbon

that sometimes end in featherlike patterns

called Lichtenberg figures.

- Now, do you think there's a possibility

of those still surviving underwater

all these years later?

- Carbon survives for a long time, so, yes, yes.

If you're lucky, you could maybe find

some carbon tracks.

- OK.

♪ ♪

narrator: The team is hoping that

there may still be signs of carbon tracks

on the prop wreck.

Weather reports indicate

exceptionally calm offshore conditions.

♪ ♪

The team jumps at the window.

Once onsite, the water is so calm

they don't even need a shot line

to guide them to the wreck.

- We tied off, so there's not gonna be

a "dive, dive, dive" call.

Guys, get suited up, you're ready to go.

Whenever you're ready, pulls open.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

narrator: Back on their dive scooters,

Jimmy and Mike head 120 feet down

for one more dive of the prop wreck.

Their primary objective is to find carbon tracks

that would indicate a lightning strike.

The wooden masts have been largely eaten away,

but the divers dig in the sand for long burnt strands

or Lichtenberg figures of charcoal.

♪ ♪

They spend 50 minutes on the task,

but they find no evidence of lightning.

♪ ♪

Their time is almost up,

and then they spot something.

♪ ♪

narrator: Mike's uncovered a round piece of brass

with a glass window and a dial inside.

narrator: It's a pressure gauge.

- So this is a deep pressure gauge.

You see the glass here there's going to be under here,

it's kind of pushed in.

But with a little bit of cleaning,

we might actually find a manufacturer's information,

maybe a date or a serial number that we can trace

back to the actual vessel.

back to the actual vessel.

narrator: This gauge measures the pressure

on a steam engine boiler.

And it may be the smoking gun clue

the team has been looking for.

narrator: Mike Barnette and Jimmy Gadomski

have just completed another dive on the prop wreck.

They found a gauge that could be the final clue

to solve the mystery.

Is the wreck the "Leo," or is it the D. H. "Mount"?

To know the answer, Mike takes the gauge

to be professionally restored.

- This artifact potentially has some very

important information that can help us identify this wreck.

So we're going to talk to an expert

and see if he can reveal a little more information

for us on this gauge.

[suspenseful music]

♪ ♪

narrator: That expert is George Collard

in Portland, Maine.

- Thank you. Nice to meet you.

- George, I am so glad to meet you.

I hear you are the guru of steam gauges,

and we've got a steam gauge for you to look at.

narrator: Mike is hoping this gauge will

finally reveal whether he's found

the D. H. "Mount" or the "Leo."

- What kind of important information

would a gauge how that would potentially help us

identify a shipwreck?

- Well, if you find serial numbers,

you can try to reference the date

of the gauge's manufacture.

- Well, let me show you our steam gauge.

I'll show you, first, what it looked like when we found it

on the bottom of the wreck.

So this is when we originally found it.

- Oh, my gosh, you just picked it up, that...

Oh, wow.

- Yeah.

[muffled speech]

This is where I got through the glass

and what appears to be some engraving down here.

It's really...

- That's where the serial number is.

- We actually did the initial cleaning on it,

but we knew we wanted to send this to a restoration expert.

And this is the gauge itself.

♪ ♪

- Oh, my gosh.

- What can you tell us of that serial number?

Is there any way to use that information to help date it?

- Very much so, very much so. - OK.

- I've compiled every gauge...

and this is very likely 1864.

♪ ♪

narrator: As Barnett hoped, it's a breakthrough clue

that may finally put a name on this shipwreck.

- I mean, I can't wait to take this information back

to the land team and the rest of the group.

And they're going to be head over heels about this.

♪ ♪

narrator: With the gauge information in hand,

Mike meets up with Jason Harris and Jimmy Gadomski.

- What's going on, fellas? How y'all doing?

- Hey. - What's happening?

- Good to see you guys.

It looks like you got some pretty cool stuff here.

Tell me a little bit about what happened on that last dive.

- So we got back in the water. We got an amazing artifact.

So we found a pressure gauge just right

near the boiler and engine.

- Now it's cleaned up and you can

decipher a lot of information.

I took this to a steam engine expert,

and he determined this was most likely built 1864.

narrator: That date makes a strong case

for one of the two missing ships.

- This came off the "Leo." - Yeah.

That, I think, it makes sense because based on your numbers,

so we know the D. H. "Mount" was built in 1863

and the "Leo," which was built two years later in 1865.

This number seems like it corresponds more to "Leo"

than the D. H. "Mount."

Would you agree with that? - Definitely, yeah.

This came off the "Leo."

narrator: The gauge was made in 1864,

a year after the D. H. "Mount" went to sea.

But the team's other suspect, the "Leo," launched in 1865.

It's a perfect match.

This artifact had to come off the "Leo."

One big question remains:

what caused that mysterious fire

that sank the "Leo"?

Jason Harris has new answers.

- You know, doing a little bit of digging,

there were some things that jumped out with regards

to the "Leo" in particular.

It had some really interesting cargo.

They were carrying a case of china,

was one of the particular pieces

of information we learned.

♪ ♪

And they were carrying roughly about 130-plus gallons of gin.

narrator: Jason's found eyewitness accounts

saying crewmen were securing loose cargo

when their lantern ignited fumes

from a broken cask of gin.

It was alcohol that triggered the blaze,

not a boiler explosion or lightning.

And adding all the clues together,

the size of the propeller, the brick, the melted brass,

broken china, and most importantly,

the date of the gauge, the team can

finally identify this wreck.

- I think we have a really, really strong case.

I mean, this is almost insurmountable,

the amount of information and evidence we provide.

I think this is indeed the "Leo."

♪ ♪

- This is some phenomenal work on behalf of you guys.

Just really being relentless and persevering

to get answers to this mystery.

- So we're now digging up history

and putting a name

to a very historic moment in time

and a historic shipwreck.

- I think we've really nailed this down

and solved another mystery.

narrator: It's a big win for the team

and finally solves the mystery of the prop wreck.

But what happened to the D. H. "Mount"?

That ship remains a mystery for now.

- One down, thousands more to go.

♪ ♪

narrator: The search will continue.

♪ ♪