Michigan Shipwreck Research Association

MSRA has conducted joint operations with David Trotter's Undersea Research Associates (URA) and Clive Cussler's National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA).

[citation needed] Until 1998 when MSRA began regular side-scan survey work, the waters off the coast of West Michigan were some of the least explored in the Great Lakes.

Until recent advances in technical diving, which now allow divers to go deeper for longer, shipwreck hunters paid very little attention to the region off West Michigan due to its excessive depth.

[citation needed] MSRA began conducting annual 10-day shipwreck search expeditions in 1998 during the spring months when conditions on the lake are best for side-scan survey operations.

[3] In 2011, MSRA conducted an extensive archaeological survey of the wreck of the Thomas Hume located far off New Buffalo, Michigan, in Illinois waters.

[5] MSRA surveyed a wreck that became exposed at the White Lake Channel mouth in Muskegon in December 2019, and identified it as the schooner Contest.

[6] Since 1998, MSRA has hosted an annual film festival called Mysteries and Histories Beneath the Inland Seas in the spring in Holland, Michigan.

MSRA generally makes public the locations of the shipwrecks it finds and encourages responsible diving on these historic sites.