Sunken Submarine Discovered Off CMCo’s Coast

OCEAN CITY, Md. – Atlantic Wreck Salvage (AWS), owner and operator of D/V Tenacious, announced Dec. 10 the discovery of a submarine off the Delmarva Peninsula. 
According to a release, the vessel has yet to be dived and visually identified, but based on side-scan sonar data, the location and the historical record, the team firmly believes it to be the wreckage of the R-8 (S.S. 85), an American submarine dispatched by experimental aerial bomb testing, in 1936. 
The discovery is historically important because R-8 is one of few American submarines resting in diveable East Coast waters that had yet to be located. The R-8 was one of 27 R-class submarines commissioned by the U.S. Navy during WWI, but she was not completed until after the Armistice. 
She was built in 1918 by Fore River Shipbuilding, in Quincy, Massachusetts, a shipyard that built many of the U.S. Navy’s destroyers and early submarines. R-8 transited the Panama Canal, became a part of the Pacific Fleet, and participated in naval training off the coasts of California and the Gulf of Mexico. 
In 1923, she sailed west to Pearl Harbor, where she participated in training and operations with fleet units for the next eight years. In 1927, R-8 searched for pilots who had gone missing during the Dole Air Race, the first airplane race from California to Hawaii. R-8 was called back to the East Coast, in 1930, and became part of the Inactive Naval Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia. 
She sank in the Navy Yard Feb. 26, 1936, was raised in April, struck from the Navy list in May, and used as a target in an aerial bombing test in August. Four near misses with 100-pound bombs ultimately sent her to the bottom of the ocean and sealed her fate. 
“The sonar data leaves little doubt that the R-8 has been located,” stated world-renown sonar expert Garry Kozak, of GK Consulting, who analyzed sonar data with the team. “The submarine in the image is the correct length, width and height. One set of prominent features of the R-class subs visible in the scan image is the spray rail configuration on the conning tower.” 
Shipwreck historian, author and wreck hunter Capt. Eric Takakjian and D/V Tenacious Capt. Joe Mazraani have been working on the R-8 Project for many years. In 2020, when AWS acquired side-scan sonar capabilities, Mazraani moved D/V Tenacious from her home port, in Point Pleasant, to Ocean City, Maryland, to conduct searches for R-8’s remains. Capt. Ted Green assisted the team by providing information about potential targets he gathered throughout his years captaining his dive boat, OC Diver. 
Veteran wreck diver Mark Nix, who dove with Green on OC Diver and now dives with D/V Tenacious, was an integral part of the search team. 
“The discovery of any new vessel is exciting,” stated Takakjian, who has discovered more than seventy shipwrecks in his career. “It appears from the sonar images that the site will reveal a very well-preserved example of an R-class submarine in existence anywhere. We are looking forward to conducting additional research and to diving the wreck in 2021.” 
At this time, the team is not releasing additional information about the depth or the location of the vessel until they can dive the wreckage and make a formal identification. Side scan sonar images reveal that the vessel is intact and sits upright on the ocean floor. The images were acquired with a Klein System 3000. 
Joseph St. Amand subsequently processed the sonar data, using SonarWiz from Chesapeake Technology, so the team could compare the vessel on the ocean floor with historical photographs and plans of the R-8. This is not the first submarine discovered by D/V Tenacious. 
In 2012, the team discovered the remains of U-550, the last U-boat thought to remain in diveable North Atlantic waters. R-8 discovery team members Kozak, Mazraani, Tom Packer, and Takakjian were all part of the U550 discovery team. Members of the R-8 discovery team include Takakjian, Ted Green, Kozak, Nix, Packer, Christopher Ogden, Jack Lawniczuk, St. Amand, Jennifer Sellitti, and Mazraani.