SHIPWRECKS FOUND - PART 2

 15 January 2024: Here we are mid January already and the weather has been borderline awful for much of the month - so far. At least here in the United States. Flooding, snow, bitter cold, generally winter weather.... We hold onto the hope that maybe we'll have an early Spring!

Last time, we began a series - of unknown duration - on shipwrecks discovered since the discovery of the wreck of Titanic. So this will be part 2 and includes some really old ones - i.e. from the time of Kubla Khan! Continuing from the Wall Street Journal piece:

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1991: Stella

• Year lost: 1899
• Location where found: Channel Islands coast
• Found by: Jersey Sub-Aqua Club

The Stella was a steamer put into service in 1890 to ply the route between the English mainland and the Channel Islands. It was sailing at 18 knots when a thick fog descended. The crew thought they were farther out from the Casquets, a dangerous rocky reef with lighthouses used by mariners for the turning point to Guernsey. The shoals tore the bottom out of the hull, and the vessel sank in eight minutes; 105 passengers and crew lost their lives. In 1991, John Ovenden, an amateur diver from Jersey, and a team of divers from Jersey Sub-Aqua Club found the wreck.

1994: Ships from the fleet of Kublai Khan

• Year lost: 1274 or 1281
• Location where found: Imari Bay off the coast of Takashima, Japan
• Found by: Kenzo Hayashida, director of the Institute of Asian Research in Underwater Archaeology in Japan

After conquering Korea, the Mongol prince Kublai Khan made several attempts to conquer Japan with huge fleets of ships. In either 1274 or 1281, the fleet was thwarted by a large storm known as a “kamikaze” (“divine wind”) – a term later adopted by Japanese pilots who flew suiсide missions against Allied ships during World War II. The story of the great tempest has become a major part of Japanese folklore, but where were the ships? In 1994, a research team led by Kenzo Hayashida, director of the Institute of Asian Research in Underwater Archaeology in Japan, found three stone and wooden anchors in Kozaki Harbor, a small cove on the south coast of Takashima. Later that year, they found the remains of a ship in 45 feet of water. Hayashida was confident that this was a ship from the fabled fleet. [ed: sorry we don't have a photo of one of the Khan's vessels - photography had  not been invented yet!]

1995: La Belle

          Year lost: 1686

 Location where found: Matagorda Bay off the coast of Texas

• Found by: Archaeologists from Texas Historical Commission

In 1684, the French ship La Belle and three other ships belonging to the famed explorer René-Robert Cavelier, known as La Salle, set sail from France for the Mississippi River with 300 settlers aiming to colonize the area, discover trade routes, and find Spanish silver mines. Some of the ships were lost to pirates and storms en route. The La Belle veered hundreds of miles off course into Matagorda Bay off the coast of Texas, where it sank during a storm in 1686. It was found in 1995 by marine archaeologists from the Texas Historical Commission. The hull has been recovered, along with artifacts including tools, trade goods, weapons, and personal items of the would-be settlers.

1996: Queen Anne’s Revenge

Queen Anne's Anchor raised

Year lost: 1718

Location where found: Beaufort Inlet off the North Carolina coast

Found by: Private salvage company [ed: the late writer Clive Cussler's underwater archeology firm, NUMA actually found it]

Queen Anne’s Revenge had a complicated history. It was originally a Royal Navy vessel, it became a French slave ship, and then it was commandeered by the pirate Blackbeard in 1717. A year later, the ship ran aground in the Beaufort Inlet off the coast of North Carolina and Blackbeard escaped from the wreck. The ship was discovered in 23 feet of water by a private salvage company in 1996. More than 30 cannon and 250,000 artifacts have been removed from the wreck. [ed: we have posted about this discovery in the past.]

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OK - that will wrap up this edition of recently discovered shipwrecks and we'll continue the series with the next post. Based on reader feedback, there seems to be some interest here - for which we thank you!

Until next time,

                                                          Fair Winds,

                                                                   Old Salt

SHIPWRECKS FOUND SINCE TITANIC (PART 1)

 5 January 2024: Here we are in a shiny new year with the prospect of everything good looming on the horizon (we hope!). So, happy new year! We start the year - our 11th calendar year - with over 183,000 readers, so with that in mind, we will try to continue posting interesting articles for you until either we run out of things to write about or we lose interest....or you do!

This first post of the new year will start a series of posts on shipwrecks discovered since the discovery of the Titanic wreck by Bob Ballard. Not sure how many posts will be necessary, but we will try to offer a broad selection concluding with the 2022 discovery of Shackleton's ship, Endurance, under the ice in Antarctica. All from the Wall Street Journal (on line edition).

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It often seems that people have been fascinated with shipwrecks for quite some time. Since the time of the Greek poet Homer in 675BCE, shipwrecks have played an integral part in literature, featuring prominently in great works, from “The Odyssey” by Homer, to “Twelfth Night” and “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare. The most well-known shipwreck in history, the RMS Titanic, which went down in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912, has always captured the attention of people throughout the world.

Although explorers such as Jacques Cousteau have long stirred imaginations with underwater probes of doomed vessels, it was the discovery of the RMS Titanic in 1985, 73 years after its sinking, by professor of oceanography and maritime archeologist Robert Ballard that caused interest in shipwrecks to soar. Since then, there’s been an explosion of shipwreck finds around the world.

Finding a shipwreck has been the stuff of fantasy for as long as people have sought opportunities beyond the horizon. There are many sites worldwide that have wrecked vessels to discover, where divers can explore remains of sunken history; it’s estimated that there are more than three million undiscovered shipwrecks around the world.

24/7 Tempo gleaned information from sources such as Guernsey Museums, Naval History and Heritage Command Marine Insight, UNESCO, History, and Archaeology Mysteries, as well as various media websites to compile a list of shipwrecks located after discovering the Titanic.

David Mearns, who discovered a few of the notable shipwrecks on this list, told History that there are several reasons for the uptick in finding sunken vessels. Records around the world have been digitized, making them more easily accessible and explorers have better tools for searches. These include autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, and remote-operated vehicles, or ROVs, which allow explorers to probe almost any ocean depth and cover a wider area than had previously been practical.

Since discovering the Titanic’s final resting place, shipwreck hunters have discovered ships battered by hurricanes like the SS Central America, which contained gold from the 1849 Gold Rush; vessels from the fleets of the Spanish Armada, Vasco da Gama, LaSalle, and Kublai Khan; the world’s oldest intact boat lying off the Bulgarian coastline; and many World War II-era ships sunk in battle, some of them found by the research team of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

The most recent significant discovery came in early March 2022, when researchers and maritime archeologists found the British vessel Endurance, the lost ship of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, that was crushed by sea ice and sank in 1915.

Here are shipwrecks unearthed after discovering the Titanic

1985: Ships from Spanish Armada

• Year lost: 1588
• Location where found: Off the Scottish and Irish coasts
• Found by: Local British divers

You might recall from your grade-school history books that the Spanish Armada, sent by Spain to invade England in 1588, encountered raging storms off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Ships foundered, killing 5,000 Spaniards. In 1985, local divers discovered the wrecks of three vessels of the doomed fleet – La Lavia, La Santa María de Visión, and La Juliana. Thirty years later, several cannons from La Juliana were found off the Irish coast.

1985: Nuestra Señora de Atocha

• Year lost: 1622
• Location where found: Off the Florida coast
• Found by: Treasure hunter Mel Fisher

Famed treasure hunter Mel Fisher hit the jackpot in 1985 when he discovered this Spanish merchant ship off the Florida coast. The ship was one of at least eight vessels lost in a hurricane in 1622 that sent to the bottom cargo worth more than $450 million today. The ship contained 40 tons of gold and silver and around 70 pounds of Colombian emeralds. The discovery ended Fisher’s quest for the ship, which had begun in 1969. [ed: the Maritime Museum in Key West has many of the artifacts and they are quite fascinating. If you are in KW, make this a priority!]

 

1988: SS Central America

• Year lost: 1857
• Location where found: Off the South Carolina coast
• Found by: Columbus-America Discovery Group

The SS Central America, bearing 477 passengers and almost 10 tons of gold discovered in California during the 1849 Gold Rush, was bound for New York City from Panama when it was struck by a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina. The shipwreck was discovered in 1988 along with $150 million worth of gold. The find triggered a complex legal case involving research scientist Tommy Thompson who claimed not to know the whereabouts of the haul, enraging his investors. Thompson refused to cooperate with authorities and was jailed for contempt.[ed: as far as we know, he still languishes in prison]

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OK we have a start with a few - some we have written about in Maritime Maunder  while others are/will be new to these pages. Hope you will enjoy learning about some of these discoveries.

Until next time, 

                                           Fair Winds

                                              Old Salt