The 29 surviving crew members and passengers piled into lifeboats as the wreckage of their ship settled to the lake bottom below.

In May, after rigorous research and one unsuccessful dive, a team of divers found the ship’s remains in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary.

Such finds help modern historians understand how the communities bordering the Great Lakes came to be — plus, the thrill of discovery is “just pretty neat,” said diver Mark Gammage, part of a team that led the search for the historic vessel.

Scroll down to view video of the discovery and exploration of the propellor steamer Challenge in the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, courtesy of Mark Gammage and Joe Van Wagnen. Story continues below the video.

Courtesy Photo A diver explores the bow of the propeller Challenge in this courtesy photo taken by Becky Kagen Schott and provided by Mark Gammage.

The discovery marks the latest addition to the Alpena-centered sanctuary that’s home to nearly 100 well-preserved shipwrecks, their zebra mussel-clad skeletons offering lessons about shipbuilding and human endeavor from decades and even centuries past.

The Challenge, which Gammage and his diving team found this summer, represented a new type of transportation in 1852, when an investor commissioned it and two sister ships to transport passengers eager to settle new communities around the Great Lakes.

On its maiden voyage in 1853, the Challenge picked up passengers — as well as hams, butter, and other freight — between its home port of Buffalo and Chicago.

Somewhere in Lake Huron, after a stop at Mackinac Island on its return trip, the Challenge’s boiler exploded.

The ship sank within minutes. Five people died and four were injured by the blast and its aftermath.

Courtesy Photo The explosion-torn boiler of the propeller Challenge appears in this photogrammetry model created by Ken Merryman and Andrew Goodman and provided by Mark Gammage.

The survivors escaped in two lifeboats that were soon picked up by a schooner’s crew, who had heard the explosion from 10 miles away.

After years of research, including dives into Alpena County Library archives and newspaper clippings from around the state, an underwater search for the Challenge in the summer of 2020 turned up nothing.

Fresh research turned up the log of another ship, reporting a mile-wide debris field of furniture and cabin wreckage, which tipped Gammage off about the Challenge’s route and offered a new place to look.

In May, a five-hour dive led Gammage and diving partner Joe Van Wagnen to the Challenge, a gaping hole in its toppled boiler bearing witness to the violence of the explosion that sank it.

Boiler explosions, fires, and other disasters sank multiple other Great Lakes ships in the early 1850s as passenger travel transitioned from paddlewheel to propeller-powered ships, Gammage said.

Courtesy Photo The shipwreck of the propeller Challenge appears in this photogrammetry model created by Ken Merryman and Andrew Goodman and provided by Mark Gammage.

Despite the danger, the Europeans settling towns like Alpena at the time still stepped aboard, making the Challenge and its contemporaries a crucial component of the history of the Great Lakes region.

Finds like Gammage’s discovery add to the rich knowledge about shipbuilding and history already protected by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Centuries ago, shipwrights didn’t draw or archive their plans, so modern historians have to look at wrecks to learn about the ships that transported the people and supplies that built the region, Gammage said.

After releasing word of his discovery online this week, Gammage learned that another explorer actually found the Challenge sometime in the past 20 years but did not widely broadcast the find.

Though his may not have been the first set of eyes to view the vessel since its demise, Gammage still celebrates the joy of discovery and the chance to add to the historical treasure trove of the marine sanctuary.

“You just get so pumped up” when nearing a long-sought shipwreck after years of research and searching, he said. “And then, all of a sudden, you find it.”

Courtesy Photo The shipwreck of the propeller Challenge appears in this photogrammetry model created by Ken Merryman and Andrew Goodman and provided by Mark Gammage.

This story was edited to reflect that the Challenge sailed on its maiden voyage in 1853. That date was incorrect in an earlier version of the story.

Courtesy Photo A diver explores the boiler engines and fire box of the propeller Challenge in this courtesy photo taken by Becky Kagen Schott and provided by Mark Gammage.