The 510 foot long and 84 foot wide Spiegel Grove is a retired U.S. Navy Thomaston-class Dock Landing Ship (LSD-32). She was named for Spiegel Grove, the home and estate in Fremont, Ohio, of Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States.
The Spiegel Grove was commissioned in 1956 and decommissioned in 1989. She was one of the eight vessels in the Thomaston-class of landing ship docks that transported troops and landing craft around the world. At her stern, she was equipped with a 170 foot long , 45 foot wide and 40 foot deep well deck for military landing craft. With 2 steam turbine powered engines and two shafts the vessel traveled at speeds of 21 knots.
After many years of red tape and financial problems the Spiegel Grove finally moved from Virginia to Florida in May 2002 to become the largest ship intentionally sunk to turn into an artificial reef. However, the ship sank prematurely on May 17th 2002. During the sinking, the Spiegel Grove suddenly started rolling on her starboard side, ending up upside down on the sea bottom and leaving her bow protruding slightly out of the ocean.
On June 10th 2002, the Spiegel Grove was rolled onto her starboard side at which point she sunk to stay. She is located 6 miles off the coast of Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The depth of the wreck requires divers to be at least Advanced Certified. In July 2005, Hurricane Dennis shifted her right side up due to surge and currents. There are numerous mooring buoys on the Spiegel Grove which provides easy down-lines for divers.
Here at Ocean Divers we get great enjoyment from diving on the Spiegel Grove. The ship attracts numerous marine life from large Goliath groupers to schools of shimmering small fish and colorful tropical fish. There are some amazingly huge midnight parrotfish! There is also a lot of coral growth as we have just celebrated the Spiegel Groves 10th year since her sinking.
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