Eidsvag
SPECIFICATIONS
COORDINATES
MAX DEPTH
RELIEF
SUNK DATE
26° 46.020' N
80
ft
0
ft
80° 00.50' W
24
0
m
m
1985
24
ft
7
m
150
ft
45.5
m
RECOMMENDED MINIMUM TRAINING
HISTORY
Like many other vessels sunk as artificial reefs offFlorida, the Eidsvag was confiscated after law enforcement officers found smuggled narcotics onboard. She was purchased by the Palm Beach County Artificial Reef at an auction, and subsequently sunk with 110 pounds of explosives detonated by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department Bomb Squad on December 16, 1985. The freighter, controversially renamed the USS Owens after the county commissioner, Jerry Owens, came to rest in 110 feet of water and n o w provides habitat for numerous resident goliath grouper.
In December 1941, the Eidsvag was completed as the Empire Sound for the British Ministry of War by Richards Ironworks Limited of Lowestoft, England. She was 137 feetlong, 24.6 feetwide, and displaced 315tons. In 1943, she was transferred to the government of the Netherlands, and renamed the Zuiderlmven. Following the end of World War II, she was sold to the French company Enterprise Generale deTransport Maritimes and renamed the Taniise II. In later years, she changed hands and names numerous times: in 1950 she was sold to another French interest, SA de Ciinents de Dannes, and renamed Cimcour 11; a Norwegian company bought the vessel in 1953, which named it Sjaholm; in 1965 she was known as the Pokal; she became the Bjerkosund in 1968 while sailing for Peddership‐ Pedersen and Sonner; finally, in 1972, she was renamed the Eidsvag. In 1985, she was sold to the Honduran shipping company Nick Ocean International, where she apparently was recruited as a drug runner.