Lost 1900 - Wooden sailing vessel - identified by Government/Bermuda 100 as the salvage schooner Gleana
Kevin's Wreck takes its name from Kevin Burke, one of Bermuda's pioneer recreational divers, who found it and whose dive business later became Blue Water Divers & Watersports. For years dive guides described it as a little-known English sailing ship, dated to the 1700s purely from how far it had broken down, lying a short way east of the Virginia Merchant (1661).
The Government's wreck records and the Bermuda 100 project now identify the site as the Gleana, a schooner converted for salvage work and owned by the Lusher brothers. Around 1900 the Lushers were salvaging the Minnie Breslauer, which had sunk off the South Shore in 1873. With a storm coming in they left the Gleana anchored to the wreck and went ashore - local lore says to sample the salvaged wine - and the schooner broke free and was wrecked on the breakers near Cross Bay. Lead ingots stamped by a Portuguese foundry have been raised from the site, and several are displayed at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute.
The wreck is now little more than a keelson set into the reef, drift pins and keel spikes, scattered ballast stones over a sand hole, and patches of metal sheathing; BWD's guide also notes a capstan. As with the nearby Virginia Merchant, the real draw is the reef: deep chasms, tunnels and caves to swim through (with glassy sweepers inside), a long narrow split in a breaker you can swim along for about 80 ft, trumpetfish, blue angelfish and jolthead porgies in the sand hole. Depths stay under about 50 ft, so it suits most divers; visibility averages around 70 ft in summer and can top 150 ft in winter.
Approximate position, for interest only - never use for navigation.