PORTLAND – Photos of two schooners that collided and sank while sailing to Boston laden with coal in 1902 show the vessels came to rest side by side on the ocean bottom.

The wrecks of the Portland-based Frank A. Palmer and New York-based Louise B. Crary were discovered 13 years ago north of Cape Cod in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, but they weren’t photographed until last summer.

Dramatic images released this week reveal that the Bath-built wooden sailing vessels, each 270 feet long, are intact and remarkably well-preserved.

“It’s like finding a mummified body,” said Bruce Terrell, a marine archaeologist with the National Marine Sanctuary program in Silver Spring, Md. “These pictures have the power to stir emotions.”

The sonar images were taken while researchers were studying the wreck of the Portland, the luxury steamship that sank off the Massachusetts coast in 1898, killing all 192 people on board.

Anne Smrcina, education coordinator for the Stellwagen Bank sanctuary, said the Palmer and the Crary make up the largest wreck site in the sanctuary, which is 842 square miles between Cape Ann and Cape Cod.

The precise depth and location of the wrecks has not been disclosed, in part to prevent someone from plundering what remains.

The Palmer and the Crary were sailing from Newport News, Va., to Boston, each carrying about 7,400 tons of coal.

On Dec. 17, 1902, under clear skies at 7 p.m., the Crary’s first mate badly miscalculated the distance between the two ships.

The bow of the Crary plowed into the port side of the Palmer, leaving both vessels fatally damaged. In less than 10 minutes, the ships sank.

“The foremasts fell, and the ships were tangled,” John Rheinhelme, a seaman on board the Palmer, later told the Boston Herald. “Then the stern of the ship arose in the air and started down head first.”

Of the 21 crew members, 15 managed to clamber onto the lifeboat. Before they were found three days later, four of them had died from exposure, one had committed suicide and the rest were frostbitten.

The black-and-white sonar images show the hulks of the schooners still upright and locked together, just as they were when they sank a century ago. It appears that at least one of the masts may still be in place.

“It’s in very deep water, which helped to preserve them,” said John Fish, one of two undersea explorers who found the wrecks. “It’s nice to be able to categorize and protect these shipwrecks.

Fish said he already has moved on to the next prominent shipwreck mystery. He is busy trying to locate the Wyoming, a 329-foot multimasted schooner that was built in Bath and launched in 1909.

The largest sailing vessel ever to carry cargo, the Wyoming broke in half and sank off Chatham, Mass., in 1924.