Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

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ANSA
September 27, 2005



Cargo of silver and gold was lost off Tuscany 164 years ago.
Rome - A team of Italian divers is preparing to descend into the waters off the island of Elba in search of a massive hoard of gold and silver coins believed to have sunk there in 1841.

The coins, along with an unknown quantity of precious jewels, were being carried secretly aboard a Genoese steamship when it was attacked by a Neapolitan vessel for reasons which remain unclear.

The steamship, the Polluce, sank and all its precious cargo was lost.

But its wreck was recently located at a depth of 103 metres, about five miles out from Elba's main port. Weather conditions permitting, a team of divers will begin the treasure hunt at the start of October, descending to the sea floor in a pressurised chamber and then venturing out to explore.

They will comb the wreck and sift the surrounding sand with equipment similar to that used to recover the black boxes of crashed airliners.

The expedition is being mounted by a private association, the Historical Diving Society of Italy, which has won the sponsorship of regional and national authorities.

Whatever is found will remain the property of the Italian state and so cannot be sold. Instead the HDSI, which has stumped up over 500,000 euros for the operation, intends to set up a travelling exhibition and recover its investment from ticket sales.

"We're not 100% sure there's anything there. It's something of a gamble," admitted Enrico Cappelletti, a writer and diving enthusiast who spearheaded the initiative after extensive research.

Although there have been several attempts to find the legendary treasure, past expeditions never knew exactly where to look and all of them failed.

But in the late 1990s a French historian managed to pinpoint the location from old library records and documents in state archives. He then promptly sold the information to a group of English adventurers .

Forging the necessary authorisations, the group hired the necessary equipment, found the wreck and tried secretly in 2000 to recover its treasure.

But, despite having practically destroyed the wreck in the course of their search, they only managed to find 2,000 coins and a few jewels.

The art squad of the Italian Carabinieri police got wind of the operation and, when the English treasure hunters tried to sell their coins at a London auction house, British detectives stepped in and seized their haul.

Scotland Yard handed the coins over to their Italian colleagues the following year.

Cappelletti investigated the illegal bid made by the English adventurers, and even spoke to some of them. In the process of his enquiries, the precise position of the Polluce eventually emerged.

Soon after the Historical Diving Society of Italy, a group of people interested in underwater archaeology, began planning a new, authorised mission to find the treasure.

Because the details of Polluce's precious cargo were omitted in official documents, several legends have grown up about what it contained. One of them says the ship was also carrying the gold-plated coach of Ferdinand IV, then king of Naples.


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Stanford University
September 28, 2005



A conservationist works on Henry VIII's warship, the Mary Rose. The ship wreaked havoc on the French navy for 34 years until she was wrecked in 1545. Salvaged from the sea in 1982, she now rests in the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England.

Pieces of her helm recently traveled to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, where intense X-rays pierced the wood to analyze the sulfur and iron within.

Led by University of Stockholm Professor Magnus Sandström, researchers had studied another historical treasure, the Swedish warship Vasa, at SSRL in a similar way in 2001 (see http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2002/february27/vasa-227.html).

This time, Sandström's team is also using a newer technique—they've scanned a small X-ray beam over the oak timbers to map where the different elements reside. Exposed to the oxygen in air, the iron from corroded iron bolts in the ship catalyzes the oxidation of sulfur in the timbers into sulfuric acid, which could slowly degrade the wood until its stability is lost.

The ship is in no immediate danger, however, because the acid gets washed away during conservation. A spray treatment replaces the water in the degraded wood with waxy polyethylene glycol, so the wood does not shrink or crack as it dries out.

The researchers suggest that long-term preservation requires chemical treatments to remove or stabilize the remaining iron and sulfur compounds, and reducing humidity and access to oxygen. Photo courtesy of The Mary Rose Trust.


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Tampa Bay Business Journal
September 28, 2005

Odyssey Marine Exploration said it would continue work on a shipwreck search project as long as the weather remains favorable for operations.

The "Atlas" project involves a search for five, high-value shipwrecks in an area encompassing more than 5,000 square miles. Since announcing the start of the project on May 4, Odyssey has searched more than 3,700 square miles and located more than 2,100 anomalies on the sea floor using an advanced high-resolution side-scan sonar system. More than 400 of 1,000 of the anomalies selected for inspection have been visually inspected with ZEUS, its remote-operated vehicle.

"During the past five months of our 'Atlas' project, we've searched an area larger than all our previous shipwreck searches combined," said Greg Stemm, co-founder of Odyssey Marine Exploration, in a release.
Odyssey said it expects work on the Atlas project to continue another two to six weeks, depending on weather patterns this fall. Odyssey plans to resume search operations in the "Atlas" area when weather permits in 2006.

After the weather window closes for the Odyssey Explorer on the "Atlas" project for 2005, Odyssey plans to relocate the ship to the Western Mediterranean, where work can continue through the winter. Immediately after mobilization of additional equipment and the archaeological team, it plans to begin operations on the shipwreck site believed to be HMS Sussex.

"We're pleased that by working together with the United Kingdom, Spain and the Junta de Andalucia, we have been able to develop a cooperative relationship that allows us to proceed with the Sussex in a collaborative and friendly manner," said John Morris, Odyssey's CEO and co-founder, in a release.

HMS Sussex was a large 80-gun English warship that sank in 1694 with a reported large cargo of money. The ship remains the exclusive property of the Government of the United Kingdom and Odyssey has an exclusive partnering agreement for the archaeological excavation of the Sussex.


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NAS
September 2005

The Nautical Archaeology Society Annual Conference, Portsmouth: 12/13 November 2005.
Featuring presentations from a range of professional and amateur archaeologists, the 2005 NAS Annual Conference will provide an opportunity to discuss research, review the archaeological activities of members and exchange ideas on managing our maritime heritage on both a national and international level. The speakers will include:

· Anton Englert (Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde)
· Robert Parthesius (Avondster Project, Amsterdam)
· Joe Flatman (Institute of Archaeology, University College London)
· Jens Auer (Wessex Archaeology)
· Waldemar Ossowski (Polish National Maritime Museum, Gdansk)
· Lucy Blue (Centre for Maritime Archaeology, Southampton)

Supported by Action Stations, the event will also incorporate the 2005 NAS AGM. the 3rd Annual Adopt-A-Wreck Award, and the Inaugral NAS Photographic Competition.

For full details of the conference, speakers and post-conference programme and information about how to register, please visit the Conference pages of the NAS Website: http://www.nasportsmouth.org.uk/news/conference2005.php or email the conference organiser, Sarah Ward: sarah@nasportsmouth.org.uk.


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DEGUWA
September 28, 2005

The German Society for the Promotion of Underwater Archaeology (DEGUWA) sincerely invites to the "In Poseidons Reich XI" conference, which is organised in conjunction with the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University of Frankfurt a. M. It will be held on 17th – 19th February 2006 in the rooms of the latter institution. The topic is:
TRANSPORT CERAMICS: An article of mass production as key to the history of economics and trade in the ancient world.

We encourage contributions on classifications, petrological analyses on provenience, epigraphic features etc. with the aim to elucidate the economic organisation of the ancient Mediterranean. This will be an interdisciplinary conference in two respects: Firstly it aims to splice the humanities with the sciences. Secondly it will be a venue for archaeologists who study places of amphora & pithoi production and discard on land and for those who study the same commodities under water as cargoes of shipwrecks.

If you intend to submit a paper or just participate, please refer to the following address. The closing date for announcing contributions is 15.11.2005.

DEGUWA Secretariat
Hetzelsdorf 33
91362 Pretzfeld
Germany

Tel: +49 (0)9197 625889
Fax: +49 (0)9197 1684
E-mail: info@deguwa.org.

Please refer to our website for further information about the DEGUWA. The official Call for Papers is downloadable as PDF-file http://www.deguwa.org/en/conferences/.

The English version, however, is still under construction and many more features will follow in due time.


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ESRF
September 26, 2005

An international team of researchers has analysed the sulphur and iron composition in the wooden timbers of the Mary Rose, an English warship wrecked in 1545, which was salvaged two decades ago. The team used synchrotron X-rays from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (USA) and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (France) in order to determine the chemical state of the surprisingly large quantities of sulphur and iron found in the ship. These new results provide insight to the state of this historic vessel and should aid preservation efforts. They are published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.


The Mary Rose served as English King Henry VIII's principal warship for 35 years until she went down outside of Portsmouth in 1545. In 1982 the hull was recovered from the sea and is currently undergoing a conservation process. The first author of the publication, Magnus Sandström, and his colleagues showed recently that the accumulation of sulphur within shipwrecks preserved in seawater is common by studying the Swedish warship Vasa, which remained on the seabed for 333 years. Their research concluded that sulphur in contact with oxygen could pose conservation problems. Over time, sulphur can convert to sulphuric acid, which slowly degrades the wood until the hull's stability is lost.

The authors examined the Mary Rose to determine the potential threat and found about 2 tons of sulphur in different compounds rather uniformly distributed within the 280-ton hull. To determine the sulphur species present in the wood, researchers first carried out experiments at SSRL. The team needed to obtain complimentary information in order to know the precise location of sulphur species at the micron scale and they then came to the ESRF. By studying thin wood slices perpendicularly cut to the cell walls at X-ray microscopy beamline ID21, they found high concentrations of organo-sulphur compounds in the lignin-rich areas between the cells, which may have helped preserve the ship while it was submerged in the seawater. This helped to understand how accessible and reactive the different sulphur compounds found are to acid-producing oxidation.

Plenty of iron and pyrite is also present in the Mary Rose, which is a concern, since in the moist wood iron ions can catalyse the conversion of sulphur to sulphuric acid in the presence of oxygen. The authors suggest that chemical treatments to remove or stabilize the remaining iron and sulphur compounds, and reducing humidity and oxygen access, are requirements for long-term preservation.

At the Mary Rose Trust they are already investigating new treatments to prevent new acid formation. For slowing down the organo-sulphur oxidation reaction and prevent new acid formation, wood samples from the Mary Rose are being treated with antioxidants in combination with low and high grade polyethylene glycol (PEG). Another approach to slow down acid formation in PEG treated conserved archaeological wood is to maintain it in a stable climate. It is hoped that keeping a constant low humidity of 50-55% without variations of temperature will stop changes in sulphur speciation. To maintain a stable microclimate within the wood structure a surface coating offers a possible solution, although the effectiveness of this approach has yet to be tested. “This ongoing research is considered to be an important step forward in devising improvements to the current Mary Rose hull treatment programme”, explains Mark Jones, curator of the Mary Rose.


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The Daily Pennsylvanian
By Zoe Tillman
September 27, 2005


The Magan III was Anthropology
professor Gregory Possehl's attempt
to recreate a Bronze Age boat.
It sank after several hours.

After first failure, Penn Museum curator to set out again on Bronze Age boat
Anthropology professor Gregory Possehl's boat currently rests 6,000 feet beneath the Arabian Sea.

After only hours on the water, the Magan III, a 40-foot boat made of reeds and bitumen -- a tar-like substance -- began sinking as heavy winds rocked the craft and water spilled over the sides.

"At 8:30, I heard the boat was in trouble, and at about 10 to nine I heard the boat had sunk," said Possehl, curator of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology's Asian section.

Possehl was quick to add that no one on board was harmed, since the Magan III, although meant to be a replica of an ancient vessel, was equipped with a life boat and life jackets.

The Magan III's journey began earlier that day -- Sept. 7 -- at a harbor in Sur, Oman.

After boarding a ship belonging to the sultan of Oman, Possehl and his colleagues -- Maurizio Tosi, Serge Cleuziou and Tom Vosmer -- watched as "the boat was towed out of Sur harbor into the open sea with eight people on board."

For the first few hours, Possehl recalled, the sea was calm. By 5 p.m., though, the wind picked up and the boat began to quickly take on water.

Sensing the boat's imminent fate, the crew abandoned the ship and its contents -- which included a traditional complement of dates, dried fish, honey and water.

The abrupt end of the Magan III's journey brought Possehl back to Penn.

In retrospect, Possehl blamed the boat's demise on "a design flaw that further sea trials may have discovered."

The idea of building a boat to replicate the journey of ancient mariners from Oman to India first began in 1995. An excavation in Oman that was part of the Joint Hadd Project -- an archaeological project which studies the easternmost tip of Saudi Arabia-- found 200 pieces of bitumen covered with sea barnacles.

Indus civilization pottery carbon-dated to 2400 B.C. was found with the bitumen, suggesting that sea trade been conducted throughout the Arabian Sea at that date.

To prove this theory, Possehl, Vosmer and Joint Hadd Project co-directors Tosi and Cleuziou -- curator of maritime history at Australia's Perth Museum -- took a hands-on approach and began building boat models based on existing archaeological data.

Possehl stressed the authenticity of the boats.

"We made our own rope, gathered our own reed, made our own sail from woven wool, and we imported the bitumen from Iraq."

After they successfully built and and tested two earlier versions of the craft, the Magans I and II, the government of Oman approached Possehl and his colleagues in February 2005 with an offer to fund the construction of a full-sized model, the since-lost Magan III.

Despite the Magan III's unsuccessful voyage, Possehl was confident that this was not the last time such a project would be attempted. Plans are already under way, he said, for the construction of the Magan IV and V.


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news10.net
September 27, 2005



A cylindrical "monster" made of iron erratically plies the Delaware River between Philadelphia and South Jersey, causing panic in a region gripped by war fever.

Harbor police chase the frightening contraption, running it aground on a small island near Camden. Having "chained" the vessel to a pier, harbor police seize its crew.

The scene could be something out the vivid imagination of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells.

But it's not. It's May 1861. The Civil War is barely a month old. The contraption is a "diving machine," developed by French inventor Brutus de Villeroi and described in a period newspaper story as "half aquatic, half aerial and wholly incomprehensible."

Nearly 145 years after this strange foray, possibly a publicity stunt by its inventor, a small group of local historians is searching for the submarine, believing the mystery machine may still rest in the muck somewhere along the Rancocas Creek here.

It's now being called Alligator Jr. because it was the smaller prototype of the U.S. Navy's first submarine, the U.S.S. Alligator, the subject of an ongoing search off the coast of North Carolina and a Science Channel documentary that will air Oct. 5.

For a Delran woman, the fate of the prototype is every bit as interesting as the search for the Alligator itself.

"The fact that there was this submarine in our backyard, in our creek, is really hard to believe," said Alice Smith, a 57-year-old archivist with the Riverside Historical Society.

She has spent the past year digging into Alligator Jr.'s past, trying to determine what ever happened to de Villeroi's Delaware River "submarine boat."

The chief scientist for the expedition pursuing the actual Alligator believes Smith may have a better chance finding her sub than he has finding the Alligatorbecause the Rancocas search area is much smaller.

"It sounds promising, very promising," said Michael Overfield of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Alligator Jr.'s discovery would give his team important insights into how the submarine was constructed, especially important if the Alligator is never found, he said.

The prototype was built with a propeller but the first version of the Alligator had an unusual system of oars designed to work underwater that was supposed to increase maneuverability.

But the Navy found this sacrificed speed and the Alligator was refitted with a hand-cranked propeller before it disappeared off North Carolina during a storm.

Little evidence remains of either submarine other than newspaper accounts, letters and some general design plans.

Overfield hopes the discovery of the Union's Alligator will complement the discovery of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley off South Carolina in 1995.

That submarine, pulled up along with the remains of its crew, sank in 1864 during its attack on the Union warship Housatonic; the attack marked the first sinking of a warship by a submarine.

"This ties into the maritime heritage of our country, a piece of our history that has been forgotten," Overfield said of the search for the Alligator.

It was to be President Lincoln's secret weapon; it is believed that Lincoln even observed trial runs.Smith presents a compelling case that its prototype is still somewhere to be found in marshes along the Rancocas. Her case is based on newspaper accounts, letters and interviews of residents who remember playing around rusted debris that could have been de Villeroi's "submarine boat."

"If it's out there, it's probably a heap of rust that would disintegrate if you tried to move it," Smith said.

Aside from the possibility of a search plane equipped with a specialized metal detector, there is little NOAA or the Navy could provide to complement the local effort, Overfield said.

Hand-held metal detectors, small boats and walking -- methods employed by members of the historical society -- are the best search methods for the marshes around the Rancocas, he said.

"I don't think advanced technology is going to help in that environment," he said.

Overfield's team made its third attempt to search for the Alligator off Cape Hatteras earlier this month. The search was cut short after just one day because of the approach of Hurricane Ophelia.

The Alligator left the Philadelphia Navy Yard in June 1862. The Navy pressed de Villeroi to have it available to take part in the famed encounter between the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac but the submarine wasn't ready in time.

The Alligator was later deemed too hard to steer to attempt another mission: clearing mines from Virginia's James River, highway to the Confederacy's capital at Richmond.

It was being towed to take part in Union operations against Charleston, S.C., when a bad storm forced the crew of the tow ship to cut the Alligator free. It slid into the "Graveyard of the Atlantic," an area notorious for bad storms and shipwrecks.

At this point, investigators can only make educated guesses as to where it lies. It may have drifted before sinking and coordinates given of where the sub was cut free could be wrong.

Complicating matters even more, the search area straddles the sharp drop-off of the continental shelf, meaning the Alligator could be in shallow water or very deep water.

The NOAA-led team has been scouring an area of 150 square nautical miles located about 30 miles off Ocracoke, N.C.Smith has a much smaller area to search, no more than a few square miles. But she's faced with limited assets and the prospect of not knowing exactly where to look.

She has decided to begin the search on a marshy ditch off the Rancocas in Riverside. It's across from Delanco, which Smith believes served as a base for the crew of the prototype.

At one time the ditch was straight; it now has a bend. Smith believes this is a clue.

"I believe a storm or hurricane dislodged (the submarine) and it blocked the ditch," Smith said. "The water had to find a different way to flow out. It's just a hunch."

But undergrowth was too thick during the first search; an attempt to go up the ditch in a small boat last month was also unsuccessful.

The society plans another walking search in the late fall or early winter, when vegetation dies back.

Riverside resident Bud Eldridge, 61, trapped muskrats, fished, hunted and played along the creek as a boy. He believes the searchers are looking in the wrong place.

He recalls seeing large rusting chains and a rusting pipe with a partially opened lid protruding from the mud about 20 feet from the edge of the creek. That was some 45 years ago.

The site is farther up the creek, near the old railroad bridge that has since been rebuilt to carry the light-rail line across the creek.

Eldridge now believes this pipe and lid could have been the sub's hatch. "It never occurred to me at the time that it could have been a submarine, he said.

Even then the structure was badly rusted. "It would be neat to know that years ago that's what we were playing on. But I can't see how anything would be left of it," he said.

While severe deterioration is a strong possibility, Overvield said, the sub would be well preserved if much of it was resting in the relatively oxygen-free environment of mud.

"There's a good chance it sank into the mud and has been laying there forgotten, like the Alligator has been," he said. "There are pessimists and there are optimists; I prefer to be an optimist."


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Do Fundo do Mar
September 26, 2005



Irá ser lançado amanhã, 27 de Setembro, o livro Naufrágios e Acidentes Marítimos do Litoral Cascaense com autoria de Manuel Eugénio e Guilherme Cardoso.

A apresentação do livro terá início às 18 horas no Salão Nobre da Junta de Freguesia de Cascais e será feita pelo Prof. Doutor José d'Encarnação.

O acto será presidido pelo Presidente da Câmara de Cascais.


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Stone Pages
September 25, 2005

There is a star attraction at the International Conference of Experimental Archaeology which opened in Anguillara (Lazio, Italy). It's a dug out canoe built 8,000 years ago by primitive people who had set up camp along the shores of Lake Bracciano. 9.5 m long, according to initial studies, the canoe will enable archaeologists to understand the naval construction techniques of this type of craft which, in those days, could also go out into the open sea. The boat, which was found last summer near what is believed to have been a shipyard, is unfinished.

"At the moment, the canoe has been put inside a reliquary full of special liquid to conserve it. The important date is when it's going to be restored. It will be given by the Monuments and Fine Arts Office to a firm that specialises in this sort of work, which will be done on the premises. Even visitors and scholars will be able to see the techniques during the entire period it is being restored," said Carmelo Capone, the councillor responsible for tourism and productive activities in Anguillara.

This exceptional discovery also opens up a new prospective for researching the peoples who lived in central Italy during the Neolithic period and in the Bronze Age. In fact, it is known that in the second half of the 5th millennium before Christ, some people coming from the sea, went up the Arrone river, the effluent of Lake Bracciano, where Anguillara Sabazia is located, to reach and then settle below what is today the headland of the place called "La Marmotta". Moreover, it happened before the Neolithic settlement that until now has been found on the shores of only one lake in the whole of Europe. In fact, some villages around lakes in Germany, France and Switzerland only came into being up to ten centuries later.


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Statesman Journal
By Ron Cowan
September 25, 2005

Nautical artifacts fill this privately owned lighthouse visible from Highway 101.
YACHATS -- Some of Oregon's lighthouses are close enough to touch and welcome visitors who savor their history and ambience.

Others are like the legendary sirens of the sea, so near and yet so far, such as Tillamook Rock, isolated on a craggy piece of basalt off the Oregon Coast, or Cape Arago, precipitously clinging to an eroding islet banned to the public.

The Cleft of the Rock Lighthouse is even more tantalizing.

Although located at the foot of the popular headland known as Cape Perpetua, close to busy Highway 101, this pyramidal-shaped lighthouse is a private home not open to the public.
The stunning setting, overlooking the crashing surf of the Pacific Ocean and set amid picturesque green trees and foliage, makes it very inviting.

If visitors knew what was inside the lighthouse and adjoining home, they would be even more eager to visit.

Cleft of the Rock is the home of James Gibbs, who not only built his 34-foot tall lighthouse in the mold of a bygone Canadian beacon, but filled the structure and his home with the artifacts, beacons and assorted equipment of old lighthouses and ships.

If there were a lighthouse museum, it would look like this.

"We used to have tons of people come up here," he said. "It's easily accessible, but it got to be a headache after a while."

Now 83, he welcomes only the occasional journalist and seems to want to hear others' stories as well as share his own.

Gibbs, co-author of "Oregon's Seacoast Lighthouses" and other books, bought this 5-acre setting in 1973, building his home and lighthouse in 1976.

Nowadays, with the boom in coast building, he complains that he is land rich and money poor.
Born in Seattle and raised on Queen Anne Hill overlooking Elliott Bay, Gibbs fell in love with lighthouses at age 11.

"It kind of catches on," he said.

"It's a little bit of everything. They're about as close to a church as you can get."

They have towers, and they save people, said Gibbs, who took the name of his lighthouse from an old hymn.

"So there's kind of a correlation there," he said.

"I think one thing just leads to another."

Gibbs previously built another private lighthouse in 1967, the Skunk Bay Lighthouse on the North Kitsap Peninsula in Washington, using a lantern house from an old lighthouse.
He also had first-hand experience at a working lighthouse.

After attending the University of Washington, Gibbs joined the Coast Guard during World War II and was assigned in 1945-46 to the old Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, long since de-commissioned.

"At that time, I was in my 20s, and all the other men were in their 60s and 70s," Gibbs said.
"When I went to Tillamook, it was the first time I was in the service."

During the war, he also served in beach patrol detachments in Rockaway and Pacific City, organized to guard against Japanese invasion. Also before service at Tillamook Rock, he went to sea duty on an active class patrol cutter.

Gibbs' love of the sea endured after his 4 1/2 years in the Coast Guard.

"I've never been out of the sight of saltwater all my life," he said. "I'm grateful for that."

Gibbs was employed, mostly as editor, at the Marine Digest in Seattle for 20 years and also lived in Bellevue, Wash., and Maui, Hawaii, before making his home in Yachats with his late wife, Cherie.

Over the years, he authored 17 books on lighthouses, ships and shipwrecks and served as president of the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society.

All those years and interests seem to have stuck to him like metal to a magnet, judging by the dozens of artifacts in his home, not counting the numerous collectibles he has given to museums.

"Last year, I gave away 300 glass floats," he said.

"The things I've kept have a story to them."

There are Japanese glass floats and a large wheel from the Tugboat Katy poised against the large windows overlooking the ocean -- it's supposedly haunted, as the wheel is known to sometimes turn on its own.

The tiny lighthouse has railings that came from the former keeper's house at Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

In the downstairs of the lighthouse, there is an 1880 dustpan from the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, a utility box from Heceta Head Lighthouse and a stopwatch from the Columbia River Lightship. Brass oil cans came from Tillamook Rock and Heceta Head.

There is a binnacle and compass from a German cargo ship and sidelights from a four-masted schooner.

There is even a metal crank from the Point Sur Lighthouse in California.

A homey sign in the little lighthouse reads, "God said, Let There be Light."

The front door has two old ship's portholes.

"It's very quaint," Gibbs said. "You have a little of everything here.

"I guess I'm the biggest relic. Most of the old keepers have died. There's very few of them left."
The living room in his tidy, attractive house is called the "wreck room," with photos of old shipwrecks. There are French-manufactured classic lenses, one salvaged from a junk yard.

There is a big, 250-year-old metal anchor, metal compasses and binnacles (the compass housing) and what he calls a $5,000 ship's bell from the excursion ship the Princess Kathleen in Alaska.

The ship went aground while carrying passengers, then sank when the tide rose again the next day, Gibbs said.

An unlucky entrepreneur purchased salvage rights for $5,000, but all his men were able to retrieve was the ship's bell.

Gibbs later obtained the bell for $25 from an investor in the ill-fated project.

In the back of the house is Grigg's bedroom, but the bed is really a bunk, now covered in an American flag that once flew over the Yachats Post Office, which was saved from the Battleship USS Oregon.

The ship served with distinction in the Spanish-American War before being disassembled for its metal.

The wooden bunk, with its below-bed chests and attached desk, was in a superior officer's compartment near the wheel house.

The bed is not mere decoration.

"That's the only bed I have in the house," Gibbs said.

The story of the sea is one of love and loss, and for Gibbs, the sea has been both.

His beloved dog Anchor, a chocolate Labrador mix, was a mascot of the lighthouse for 10 years and considered a splendid water dog.

Anchor was on a beach under the perpendicular rock face of the cape on a January day in 1987 when a seething surf sent a mammoth, 25-foot sneaker wave toward the beach. The dog was slammed against the cliff, the backwash carrying her out to sea.

Five days later, her body washed back to land, carried into the rocks of Deadman Cove, directly below the lighthouse.

Gibbs buried Anchor in a grave in front of the house, overlooking the sea, adding another layer of history to a site already filled with it.

Although visitors can't get close to Cleft of the Rock, they still can enjoy the shores of Yachats, a small town known for its fine dining, atmospheric motels and a rocky coastline that can produce spectacular effects during winter storms.

The town, known as "the gem of the Oregon Coast," has a quiet village atmosphere but a quirky attitude reflected in the offbeat events, from mushroom fests to alternative lifestyle fairs, staged at the Yachats Commons to the casual lifestyle.

The name Yachats, pronounced YAH-hots, is derived from the Chinook Indian word, Yahuts, meaning dark water at the foot of the mountain.


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China.org
September 23, 2005



In June, local fishermen discovered the wreckage of a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) ship in the "Bowl Reef" or Wan Jiao in Pingtan County, Fujian Province.
Archaeologists identified the wreck as having been manufactured during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1723) and named it "Bowl Reef No. 1", Wan Jiao Yi Hao.

To their surprise, the archaeological team also found rare pieces of blue and white porcelain among the wreckage, loot that could hold the key to an ancient maritime trading route.

Excavation works began on September 17, conducted by research staff from the National Museum's Underwater Archaeological Research Center. Blue and white porcelain bowls and plates, and pieces of ceramics were found. Experts identified them as everyday products most likely made in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. Preliminary studies also revealed that these products were bound for export, destination as yet unknown.

Excitement and puzzlement grew on Tuesday as more porcelain products were added to the haul.


One small plate decorated with plum blossoms especially caught the attention of the researchers. On its underside is inscribed the words Shuang Long, or "double dragons", in simplified Chinese characters. As simplified Chinese characters were adopted in printing and writing only after 1949 and the two simplified Chinese were unlikely to be any discernible pattern, experts regard this as a mystery. They can only be sure of the fact that the plate was produced more than 300 years ago during the reign of Emperor Kangxi.

Experts also found the pattern on another porcelain product difficult to explain. The pattern, which depicts a hunting scene, includes a man riding a horse. Experts were able to say the man is a Chitan because of his distinctive hairstyle. The Chitan people are an ethnic group that dominated much of Manchuria during the Chitan or Liao Dynasty (916 - 1125). According to Chen Huasha, a researcher of the Palace Museum, this is the first time that a Chitan figure has been found on blue and white porcelain.

The scene also has as a woman dressed in ethnic Han costume and holding a falcon on a calico horse. Experts say it is possible that the woman riding on the horse could be Wang Zhaojun, one of the Four Beauties in Chinese history. Wang, an insignificant member of Emperor Yuan's imperial harem, was given to the Hun Chanyu Huhanye who visited the Han Dynasty ruler in 33 BC to pay homage and to ask for a Han princess to take as his wife. Chanyu Huhanye was the ruler of the Hun, a nomadic tribe that was constantly at war with Han rulers during China's Warring States Period.


The site where the wreck was found is also of particular interest to researchers. They have yet to decide what the relation is between Bowl Reef and the ancient maritime "Silk Road", if at all.
There are other experts who hope to draw a clear maritime trading route in reference to other wreckage sites that have been found in Guangdong and Fujian Provinces.

The maritime trading route experts talk about first came about during the Qin (221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-AD220) dynasties. In its heyday during the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, merchant ships set off from Guangdong and Fujian provinces carrying Chinese silk, tea, porcelain and lacquer products via the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, across Southeast Asia and even traversing past Africa en route to Europe. Recorded shipwrecks along this route exceed 100.

But details of the route remain a mystery. All experts know is that Quanzhou and Fuzhou in Fujian Province were important ports of call for merchant ships plying the route.

Experts hope that the porcelain found on Bowl Reef No.1 and other relics will help them to solve this mystery.





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Norwich Bulletin
By Carol Phelps
September 22, 2005


The state of Connecticut has many symbols. Among theses symbols are State Hero Nathan Hale, State Heroine Prudence Crandall, and Leo Connellan, the State Poet Laureate. The State Ship is the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), which was the world's first nuclear powered submarine. It is also a National Historic Landmark and is permanently situated next to the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton.

The sub was built at Electric Boat Division, General Dynamics Corporation in Groton, Ct.
Her keel was laid in 1952, and she was launched and commissioned in 1954.

The Nautilus is credited with breaking many records. Upon leaving the dock at Groton, Ct., she made the longest submerged journey in history to Puerto Rico. She was also the first ship to reach the North Pole.

In 1980 the Nautilus was decommissioned and converted to a floating museum on the Thames River neighboring the submarine base in Groton. The base was the first military submarine facility in 1915, and thanks to the recent efforts of the state and local supporters, the submarine base will continue to stay open.

Six ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Nautilus. The name is derived from a Greek word which means sailor or ship.

The first Nautilus was a schooner that served in the War of 1812, the second was another schooner that served in the Mexican-American War, the third served in World War I. The fourth Nautilus was a Patrol Boat commissioned in 1917. The fifth,(SS-168 was one of the largest submarines ever built for the Navy during World War II. And of course the sixth was the (SSN-571), the first nuclear powered submarine in the world.

Over the century, the submarine has changed its form many times.

A bell like structure called Bushnell's turtle, was built in 1777 in West Saybrook. It appeared to defy any kind of buoyancy. It was used in the Revolutionary War to destroy British ships and was the first submersible ever used in military conflict. A cutaway model of it is on display at the museum.

A large submarine hangs from the ceiling of the museum giving an inside look of its compartments. There are two mini theaters to view films of submarines past and present.

Visitors can look through operating periscopes and on occasion see a submarine going by on the river.

The Nautilus is open to the public. You can walk through selected spaces and peek in through glass enclosed sleeping quarters, kitchen, dining area and control room.

You'll get a feel for what it must have been like to be in close quarters during long voyages under the sea. In contrast, today's submarines are cities beneath the sea and a forceful deterrent to any would be enemy.

People are fascinated with submarines and a visit to the museum will answer some of its mysteries.

Admission to the museum is free. It is handicapped accessible. A unique gift shop offers a variety of nautical items.

For more information, call 1-800-343-0079 or visit the web at www.ussnautilus.org.living@norwichbulletin.com.


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BBC
September 21, 2005



Sections of the bow and anchor of the Tudor warship Mary Rose are to be raised to the surface next month, it was announced on Wednesday.

The fragments of Henry VIII's flagship, which sank in 1545, were found in 2003 in the Solent.
The vast majority of the hull was raised in 1982 but the bow section remained in the silt off Portsmouth.

The raising of the bow and the anchor will improve the understanding of the main part of the ship.

It is hoped the sections will be raised by divers on 11 October, the anniversary of the recovery of the hull 23 years ago.

The dive is being financed by the Ministry of Defence, which has investigated the site as part of a proposal to widen the channel into Portsmouth Harbour for the new larger aircraft carriers.

Although the widening will not affect the Mary Rose site, timbers have been left exposed by previous dives.

John Lippiet, chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, said: "It will be an exceptionally important dive for the Mary Rose, and the recovery of two vulnerable items from the seabed, the stem timber and the anchor, will mean that we can rebury the remaining timbers to keep them safe.

"Future generations will no doubt return for further excavations, but the site will be well protected.

"The stem is of huge significance and will help historians, archaeologists and our many visitors to have a far greater understanding of the Mary Rose as a ship."


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npr
By Nell Boyce
September 21, 2005



During the Civil War, when soldiers were shooting primitive muskets, the United States Navy was building its very first submarine: The USS Alligator.

The 50-foot iron tube looked like something right out of Jules Verne. It was so small that crew members had to crouch inside; the propeller was turned by hand.

The Alligator was meant to be Abraham Lincoln's secret weapon against the Confederacy's dangerous new ironclads: It would sneak under enemy ships so that a diver could plant explosives. But the Alligator never saw combat. She was lost in bad weather in 1863, while being towed south to attack the port at Charleston, S.C.

An Office of Naval Research ship is exploring waters off the coast of Oakracoke, N.C., an area flagged by experts who used historical documents and computer models to recreate the Alligator's path.

Michael Overfield of NOAA, who is coordinating the search, is aware of the odds against finding the small sub, particularly with new complications from Tropical Storm Ophelia. But, he says, "I don't give up easy."


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Indiana News
September 23, 2005

EVANSVILLE, IND. -- The projected path of Hurricane Rita toward the Gulf Coast has disrupted plans for sailing a World War II-era warship to its new home along the Ohio River.

Officials had hoped that the LST 325 would be in place in Evansville by Oct. 1.

But Capt. Bob Jornlin and officers aboard the ship scrapped their planned Thursday departure from Mobile Bay, Ala., as Hurricane Rita turn north, making an eight-foot storm surge possible in the New Orleans area.

"It would have been crazy for us to go out there, under the circumstances," Jornlin said after conferring with U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers officials Thursday in New Orleans.

Work has continued on the nearly $3 million project of building a new Ohio River dock where the ship will be moored as part of a World War II museum. A total of 167 similar vessels, which carried troops, vehicles and other equipment directly to shore, were built at the Evansville Shipyard during 1942-45.

Rita appeared to be headed for landfall somewhere between Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., nearer LST's intended course, the captain said.

He said it was unlikely the ship would be on the Ohio by Oct. 1, but could sail in time to allow veterans attending a convention of those who served aboard the USS Oriskany to tour the vessel by Oct. 3.

LST 325 is scheduled to sail through New Orleans' industrial canal to the Mississippi River _ a route 12 hours shorter and farther from Rita's path than entering the river directly from the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers officials expressed fears that rainfall Thursday or a later storm surge could break dikes at New Orleans, Jornlin said. That would likely knock out electrical power and make it impossible to open canal locks, they told him.

Evansville Visitors and Convention Bureau's Marilee Fowler said safety was most important.

"It's up to Mother Nature how this will play out," she said. "The important thing is the captain and crew and the ship are safe. We want them here, but we want them here in one piece."


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Sootoday.com
By David Helwig
September 20, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to fund the completion of a maritime museum Surfboat House Exhibit describing the story of the United States Life-Saving Service.

Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) announced the $24,790 grant."

As much as we value our Great Lakes as the nation's greatest natural resource, we also must value and preserve the history," Stupak said. "This new exhibit will show how the Life-Saving boats did so much to protect sailors on the sometimes treacherous Lakes and seaways."

The museum opened the new exhibit in the 1923 U.S. Coast Guard Surfboat House on the site.

This building is the original structure used by the U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Station at Whitefish Point between 1923 and 1951, to launch hand-pulled surfboats, manned by Coast Guard crews, to come to the aid of vessels in distress on Lake Superior's Shipwreck Coast.

The funding will pay for exhibits that tell the dramatic story of the Coast Guard, and of its predecessor U.S. Life-Saving Service on this dangerous shoreline.

The men and women of the Life-Saving Service were known as the "Storm Warriors." whose motto was, "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."

This funding is matched by a grant from Michigan Humanities Council and private donors.

IMLS funding will pay for a full-size mannequin for the exhibit; exhibit cases and case covers, also known as vitrines; video presentation equipment showing historic footage of Life-Saving personnel in action; and other associated exhibition expenses.

The exhibit already features a replica 26-foot Beebe-McClellan Surfboat, complete with mast, oars, ready to launch; and a replica Beach Cart, used by the Life-Saving Service to carry equipment to the site of a shipwreck.

The Surfboat is supported by a grant from the TEA-21 program of Michigan Department of Transportation, and the Beach Cart through a private donor.

"I would like to thank Congressman Stupak and his staff for assisting the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society in securing this very important IMLS grant," said Tom Farnquist, Executive Director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.

"This funding will help pay for fabrication and installation of interpretive exhibits that tell the exciting story of life saving efforts performed by the U.S. Life Saving Service and Coast Guard.

The many thousands of visitors who travel to Whitefish Point each year will now be able to learn of the heroic rescues, hardship and loneliness surfmen and their families shared while manning the desolate stations along "Lake Superior's Shipwreck Coast."

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum is owned and operated by the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society.

The museum remains open every day, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., through October 31.
A special one-day event is offered annually on November 10 in remembrance of the loss of the famous steamer Edmund Fitzgerald.

For more information, please call toll-free, 800-635-1742.


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Aventuras na História
By Andressa Rovani

Arqueólogos começam este mês a mapear os mais importantes naufrágios das águas brasileiras.

Eram 4h20 da madrugada de 6 de março de 1916 quando um relâmpago mostrou ao comandante José Lotina, do transatlântico Príncipe das Astúrias, que um rochedo estava próximo demais para um choque ser evitado. Ao som de marchinhas de carnaval tocadas por sua orquestra, o chamado "Titanic brasileiro", de 150 metros de comprimento, naufragou em menos de cinco minutos, levando junto mais de 500 passageiros. No fundo do mar de Ilhabela (SP), ele se tornaria a prova do mais mortífero naufrágio brasileiro.

Estima-se que entre 4 e 11 mil naufrágios ocorreram na costa e nos rios do Brasil desde que uma das naus da comitiva de Américo Vespúcio se desgarrou da frota e afundou em nossas águas, em 1503, inaugurando esse tipo de tragédia por aqui. Entre as embarcações, há tanto galeões espanhóis como navios de imigrantes europeus, ou submarinos alemães da Segunda Guerra Mundial.

Em busca desse tesouro de ferrugem estão piratas modernos e pesquisadores interessados no valor histórico das relíquias. O Centro de Estudos de Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática (Ceans), da Universidade de Campinas, começa este mês um trabalho que não deve durar menos de cinco anos: mapear os naufrágios já descobertos no país. O inventário vai começar em Recife, conhecida como a capital dos naufrágios. "A idéia é criar mecanismos de proteção do patrimônio subaquático", diz Gilson Rambelli, diretor do Ceans e autor do livro Arqueologia até Debaixo D'Água.

Objetivos menos nobres também rondam o passado submerso no Brasil. Hoje, quem descobre um naufrágio pode ficar com 40% a 70% do que for encontrado. Em vez de baús cheios de ouro, os exploradores procuram objetos como âncoras, porcelanas e talheres, bens culturais de enorme valor. "Muitas vezes, o melhor e o mais importante do ponto de vista histórico fica com as empresas que patrocinam as expedições, desmantelando trabalhos arqueológicos relevantes", afirma Rambelli.

OS PRINCIPAIS NAUFRÁGIOS DO BRASIL
Quinhentos anos de história embaixo d'água

1- Nau Santa Rosa, Cabo de Santo Agostinho (PE), 1726
Um dos navios naufragados mais procurados no mundo, a nau Santa Rosa foi misteriosamente incenciada em alto-mar, afundando em 22 novembro de 1726 no litoral pernambucano. Levava a Portugal o Quinto (a porção de ouro das minas que pertencia à Coroa portuguesa), além de milhares de rolos de tabaco, caixas de açúcar (uma fortuna na época), couro, arcas de jacarandá e pedras semipreciosas.

2- Galeão Sacramento, Baía de Todos os Santos (BA), 1668
O galeão Santíssimo Sacramento naufragou quase na terra firme de Salvador, em maio de 1668. Ele escoltava uma frota de 50 barcos mercantes da Companhia Geral do Comércio do Brasil, incumbidos de trazer de Lisboa João Corrêa da Silva, que assumiria o governo da Bahia. O galeão afundou depois de chocar-se com um banco de areia. Foi a segunda maior tragédia marítima brasileira, com 400 mortos.

3- Princesa Mafalda, Abrolhos (BA), 1927
Rumo ao Brasil e à Argentina, 1.261 imigrantes italianos, iugoslavos, espanhóis e austríacos se espremiam no navio. Às 17h20 do dia 25 de outubro, todos sofreram o mesmo pavor: a água inundava o navio. Aglomerados na proa, os que restavam na embarcação viram seus colegas de viagem serem devorados por tubarões. Graças ao resgate rápido feito por outros navios, o número de mortos ficou em 314.

4- Fragata H.M.S. Thetis, Cabo Frio (RJ), 1830
Em 1810, o Tratado de Comércio e Navegação assinado por Inglaterra e Portugal aumentou as exportações inglesas para o Brasil. Um dos navios que traziam tecidos, ferramentas e farinha e voltavam com o pagamento, a fragata Thetis chocou-se com rochas, provocando a morte de 29 dos 300 tripulantes. A recuperação das barras de ouro e prata foi a primeira grande operação de resgate de tesouros no país.

5- Príncipe das Astúrias, Ilhabela (SP), 1916
O transatlântico afundou quando passava pelo Brasil rumo a Buenos Aires. Foi o maior desastre em águas brasileiras. Oficialmente iam a bordo 578 pessoas - mas havia centenas de clandestinos apinhados no porão. O Astúrias levava ouro e, no convés, 12 estátuas de bronze para um monumento, em Buenos Aires. O resgate dessas riquezas, feito com explosivos, destruiu parte do navio.

6- Submarino U-Boat 513, Ilha de Sta. Catarina (SC), 1943
O poderoso U-boat 513 (de "unterseeboot", submarino em alemão) era um dos 20 que faziam parte da ofensiva do Alto Comando alemão para impedir o apoio da América Latina aos Estados Unidos, durante a Segunda Guerra. Na tarde do dia 19 de julho de 1943, uma de suas conversas por rádio foi interceptada. Identificado, foi atacado por um avião americano, naufragando em segundos com 46 tripulantes.


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North American Shipwreck & Dive Show™ March 11, 2006 - West Bloomfield, Michigan

Diving, Exploration and Discovery
The North American Shipwreck & Dive Show is the premier exposition of scuba diving, shipwreck exploration and dive travel in the Great Lakes region.

We feature compelling presentations on the latest shipwreck discoveries in the Great Lakes, accounts of diving expeditions around the world, information on the latest scuba gear and underwater photographic equipment, and dive travel to locations everywhere.

Our exhibition halls display everything from the newest scuba equipment to artifacts from the oldest shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.

Recreational and technical divers from every level of training meet with each other and with dive industry professionals in an atmosphere of fun and creativity.

Free Exhibitions
Visit our Exhibit Hall and see it all for free! Our Exhibit Hall has everything in the world of scuba diving and underwater exploration. Scuba diving equipment, underwater cameras, diver propulsion vehicles, travel information, rescue and recovery teams, maritime museums, dive shops and boat charters – see it all and see it for free!

Want to see the whole wreck on one dive? Want to cover a mile of reef on a single tank? Think about an underwater scooter! In-water demos and product demonstrations.

Isn't it time to upgrade your scuba gear? See the latest in scuba diving technology and underwater exploration equipment. In-water demonstrations and hands-on displays.

Looking for new scuba diiving destinations? Meet with the industry's top dive travel professionals and plan the diving trip of your dreams.

Exciting Presentations
The 2006 Show has presentations for every diver, and for everyone interested in the maritime tradition of the Great Lakes.

We're all about sunken ships! We feature presentations on Great Lakes wrecks discovered in the 2005 diving season, and expeditions to shipwrecks in every corner of the world.

New to Scuba Diving? Try out scuba diving in a relaxed setting in our Olympic-sized pool. Sign up for a "Discover Scuba" session at the Show and see for yourself what it's all about!

Learn about underwater photography and videography from the pros! Find out how to take stunning stills and knock-out videos, even in cold water. Check out our displays of underwater photos and videos.

They're still down there! The cold fresh water of the Great Lakes preserves thousands of shipwrecks. Vessels that sank in the 1800's look as if they went down last year! Learn about our amazing underwater heritage that is unequalled anywhere in the world!

More, More, More! Recreational diving, technical diving, wreck diving, cave diving, public safety diving, equipment manufacturers, dive retailers, dive clubs, boats, charters, museums, dive medicine... see it all at the 2006 North American Shipwreck & Dive Show!

Additional information about the show, including ticket, location, exhibitor, sponsor, and media info, can be found at www.shipwreckshow.com.


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MSNBC
September 20, 2005


Researchers Marek E. Jasinski and Fredrik Søreide
examine some of the artifacts recovered from the
wreck of a 19th-century merchant ship.
Photo Fredrik Naumann / NTNU.

OSLO, Norway - Oil companies’ dash to build pipelines along the ocean floor has opened up one of the last archaeological frontiers — the deep-sea shipwreck.

A Norwegian team says it has finished the deepest excavation in marine archaeological history, lifting 500 porcelain plates, wine bottles, coins, chess pieces and navigation equipment from the wreck of a 19th-century merchant ship lying 560 feet (170 meters) below the sea surface.

And the $6.25 million bill was paid for by the oil companies developing the Ormen Lange gas field off Norway’s west coast, who found the wreck while mapping the seafloor to lay a pipeline.

“We rely on funding from the oil companies,” said Fredik Søreide of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “I can think of no others who would pay for it.”

The oil company consortium hired the archaeologists to investigate the site and to show them where they could build a pipeline without damaging the wreck.

Booty hunters driven by profit have dragged up gold and other valuables from shipwrecks in far deeper waters using the remote controlled technology, but archaeologists — more interested in finding artifacts for research and museum shelves — have until now been unable to fund expeditions.

Now oil companies building pipelines across ocean floors to connect ever more remote gas and oil fields to markets are stumbling across shipwrecks that need to be surveyed. And they are paying archaeologists to do so.

This is the fourth shipwreck discovered by oil firms Søreide has worked with, adding that he has already been approached about a wreck in the Gulf of Mexico next summer.

A large steel frame was placed on top of the shipwreck off Norway, allowing the archaeologists to navigate a robot around the wreck without disturbing it, delicately pulling up artifacts as it went along.

“Deep water was the last frontier for marine archaeology,” project director Marek Jasinski said.

“The new technology enables us to investigate and excavate cultural heritage in deep water with the same precision and standards as on land.”

Previously, scientists have only been able to send remotely controlled vehicles to view shipwrecks, pick objects up and take them to the surface.


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ANSA.it
September 20, 2005



Ravenna site yields first-ever image of imperial officer
The first-ever image of a soldier in the Ancient Roman navy has surfaced at a major imperial naval base at Ravenna.

The armour-clad, weapon-bearing soldier was carved on a funeral stone, or stele, in a waterlogged necropolis at Classe (ancient Classis), the now silted-up Ravenna port area where Rome's Adriatic fleet was stationed.

Previous finds at the site have only shown people in civilian garb .An inscription on the soldier's funeral slab says he was an officer on a small, fast oar-powered ship ('liburna') used to catch pirates.

Although the stele is small - about one metre (yard) long - the detail of the carving is intricate.

The soldier has the bowl haircut and delicate, child-like features typical of carvings from the 1st-century AD Julio-Claudian era.

He wears anatomically shaped body armour with shoulder strips and a leather-fringed military skirt, above the light but tough military sandals called 'caligae' (from which the notorious emperor Caligula got his name). He is carrying a heavy javelin ('pilum') and has a short stabbing sword called 'gladius' on his decorated belt.

Over his armour there is a band which experts think could be a military decoration.

Part of the inscription is missing. The soldier's name is thought to be Monus Capito. His ship was called 'Aurata' or 'Golden' and the man who put up the stele, probably a fellow soldier, was named Cocneus .

The stele was found in three metres of water by divers helping archaeologists trace a large tunnel from late Imperial times.

The stone had been taken from the burial ground and used to prop up a part of the tunnel that had collapsed.

Experts said the find would have pride of place in a Museum of Archaeology being set up at Classe.

'Classis' in Latin means 'fleet' but was also local shorthand for the fleet's base. Rome had two Mediterranean fleets, one based at Ravenna and the other near Naples. Piracy was a major problem for Roman merchant ships and the navy frequently launched punitive expeditions against raiders from Cilicia, now southern Turkey.

In one of these, Julius Caesar caught and killed pirates who had captured and held him for ransom.

Then Pompey the Great, Caesar's one-time partner and eventual rival, smashed the Cilician pirates in a famous whirlwind campaign.

The Roman navy was an extension of the army and used army fighting methods. Ships rammed and hooked enemy vessels so that soldiers could board and attack .


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The Sailor´s Paper
By Michael Brooke


The last of two living survivors of the sinking
of HMAS Kuttabul, Neil Roberts, 82, stands with
his grand children at the annual memorial ceremony
held to commemorate the 21 sailors who died when
Kuttabul was torpedoed by a Japanese midget sub in 1942.

A documentary currently being filmed with assistance from the Navy about the Japanese midget submarine attack on Sydney Harbour has rekindled the debate surrounding the fate of the third sub that vanished in mystery in 1942.

Historians and WWII veterans are divided on whether the third midget submarine is somewhere on the bottom of Sydney Harbour, or sank outside Sydney Heads after torpedoing HMAS Kuttabul on June 1, 1942.

The documentary, entitled ‘He’s Coming South – The Attack on Sydney Harbour’, is being filmed on location by Animax Films with assistance from the Royal Australian Navy.

The director of the documentary, Damien Lay, said he was inspired to make the documentary “because of the mystery that surrounds the disappearance of the third submarine”.

Mr Lay told Navy News that the documentary will be screened on Foxtel’s History Channel on Armistice Day and the evidence it presents suggests that “the third midget submarine could be anywhere in Sydney Harbour or outside the Heads.”

Neil Roberts, 82, a survivor of HMAS Kuttabul that was torpedoed by the missing submarine, said the mystery surrounding the missing sub would follow him to the grave.

“There are so many myths and legends about what happened to the third sub but nobody knows for sure.” — Neil Roberts However, former sailors and WWII veterans said the midget sub sank in Sydney Harbour where it is still waiting to be discovered.

Bob Parish, NSW President of the Naval Association, said “some time ago a side-scan sonar device detected what could be the missing submarine in deep water opposite Balls Head Reserve.”Mr Parish’s theory is supported by a former Japanese submariner, Sub LT Kazao Sakamaki, who said the missing sub sank in Sydney Harbour, because it did not have enough battery power to get outside Sydney Heads.

However, others say the sub made it out of Sydney Heads because oceanography and hydrographic ships and technology used to map the entire sea floor of Sydney Harbour had found nothing.

The documentary producer, Chris Berry, said Navy had helped with the documentary in a big way by providing historical advice and allowing filming on Garden Island, including the annual memorial ceremony to commemorate the 21 sailors killed in the submarine attack.

The midget subs were launched from three mother submarines off Sydney Heads and sneaked in at night, after a Japanese plane had conducted a reconnaissance flight over Sydney Harbour to spy on the Australian and US warships at berth. Each of the 24-metre midget submarines carried two men.

The first sub blew itself up after becoming entangled in the anti-submarine boom-gate near Watson’s Bay, while the second sub was scuttled by its crew after being depth charged into submission at Taylor’s Bay.

The fate of the third submarine has remained a mystery since it fired two torpedoes at the cruiser USS Chicago, which missed and instead hit HMAS Kuttabul, killing 21 men sleeping on-board.

Navy personnel and the public can get the Navy’s official version of events when the Maritime Heritage Centre opens on Garden Island in October.

One of the major exhibits will be ‘The Battle Of Sydney’ audio-visual display that will tell the story of the Japanese midget submarine attack. The conning tower of the second submarine will also be displayed at the RAN Heritage Centre that opens on October 4.”


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Second notification – September 2005 – CALL for PAPERS

The Centre for Portuguese Nautical Studies [CPNS] is proud to announce our second Portuguese Maritime History/Archaeology Conference

Following the major success of our first conference held during August 2004 we are proud to announce the second CPNS Maritime Archaeology Conference to be held in Mossel Bay, Southern Cape Province, South Africa from 6-8 August 2006.

We are inviting all interested parties to indicate their interest to attend and/or present at this major international event. Experts from across the world will join us in discussions on various aspects relating to Portuguese Maritime History & Archaeology during the Carreira da India period.

Overall Theme: Portuguese Maritime history during the Carreira da India period

Friday to Sunday: 3 Days with parallel sessions

Session1: Trade Ceramics and Trade goods

Session 2: Portuguese Maritime expansion, Trade routes, Ports of call, Historical background.

Session 3: The Portuguese ship

Session 4: Maritime Archaeology – Local and international projects, Museums, Legislation,
Discipline of Maritime Archaeology, Shipwreck and Survivor sites, Artefact
Preservation, Archaeologist vs Treasure-hunter incl. ‘commercial’ Archaeology

Session5: Portuguese Naval Artillery, Maps and Navigation

Session 6: Various hands-on workshops


Anybody interested in Presenting at the conference are asked to contact us asap and provide us with a suggested topic/s. You will be under no obligation to attend or speak but we need some input to start planning the program. You are welcome to suggest any topic relevant to Portuguese Maritime History or Archaeology during the period and also to suggest additional workshops you would be interested in attending or presenting. Already enquiries have been received from 12 different countries with many well known and respected scholars indicating their plans to attend and/or present..

Send us an e-mail confirming your interest in attending as speaker and/or delegate and we will add you to the conference mailing list for updates.

We will provide more detailed about confirmed speakers on our website as from November 2005. http://www.cpnssa.org/


Contact Information:

Paul Brandt
Director: CPNS
Tel: +27 82 9402423
Fax: +27 12 3192436
e-mail: pbrandt@medic.up.ac.za


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Malta Today
By Karl Schembri
September 18, 2005

Heritage chief calls for amnesty of artefact finders
An amnesty to divers who report their own findings of underwater heritage artefacts would be the next logical step for the government to effectively start preserving national heritage buried under the sea.

The call comes from experienced deep water divers and maritime heritage experts, and endorsed by the very same government agency that would be responsible for the upkeep and public exhibition of these artefacts – Heritage Malta.

Mario Tabone, the chairman of the entity entrusted with Malta’s heritage sites and museums, told MaltaToday that he agreed with a policy of granting a definite period of amnesty for whoever volunteers to present underwater artefacts to the authorities, on a similar model as adopted in the UK a couple of years ago.

“It would be a good idea,” he said. “It would boost our records of underwater treasures and our exhibits if the conscientious divers were allowed to return their artefacts without fear of being investigated.”

MaltaToday’s revelations last week of police arrests of scuba divers looting underwater artefacts has created a wave of positive reactions from the Maltese diving community, as investigators were questioning more suspects.

But divers speaking to this newspaper say the government is not investing enough in recovering, preserving and exhibiting underwater national treasures, giving a freehand to unscrupulous divers to pilfer shipwrecks and most of the seabed of its relics.

“One cannot really blame those who think they should keep these artefacts,” one shipwreck diver said. “The message they get from the government is that these finds are not that important. They feel they can appreciate them much more than the authorities.”

An amnesty coupled with a government commitment to exhibit underwater treasures for the public would definitely help boost public awareness. In the UK, a similar amnesty led thousands of divers and owners of underwater heritage artefacts came forward with previously unreported objects of historical and archaeological interest.

Tabone believes the same would happen in Malta.“I had insisted that underwater heritage finds are protected by law in the same way we protect national treasures found on the ground,” he said. “Let’s start a clean slate and give an opportunity to whoever has such items to come forward to us.”

Sources in diving circles says deep water diving is increasing in popularity around the islands, with sophisticated technology making it possible for so called technical divers to reach previously unreachable depths.

Some expert diving groups involving Maltese and foreigners who are notorious for pilfering shipwrecks were arrested in the last weeks in an unprecedented police investigation.

“They just act like cowboys,” sources said about one of the diving schools investigated.

With the long-time underwater criminal practice finally coming out in the open, bona fide divers are lauding the efforts to clamp down on scuba thieves, although foreign divers reacting to MaltaToday’s story confirmed the “cowboy” mentality reigning in some technical diving circles.

“If you won't compensate the diver for those things, then do not be surprised when the diver keeps the item for himself, or sells it to someone willing to compensate him,” one American diver of the “Underwater Explorers” community said in an e-mail. “If you're so upset that you're not getting to have or see these items ... learn to dive and go get them yourself. Then there will be nobody to have to worry about compensating.”

Derided, and deplored, by heritage experts as the underwater version of Indiana Jones, these self-appointed, unauthorised treasure hunters are making a lucrative worldwide business out of the retrieval of artefacts from shipwrecks, despite international heritage conventions and divers’ codes of conducts advocating a “look, don’t touch” approach.

A Maltese diving instructor said: “Technical divers are a great resource of knowledge of what’s hidden under the sea, so one shouldn’t just condemn pilfering without engaging the serious majority who can help monitor these sites in collaboration with the government. It would be short-sighted to focus just on prosecution while heritage authorities keep neglecting these treasures.”


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The Press Democrat
By Bob Norberg
September 17, 2005


Archaeologists and china experts think the and
white transfer print procelain pieces washed up
on Horseshoe Cove's beach and collected by Bodega
Marine Lab workers are Japnese and date from the
1870s or '80s.

Divers seek source of 19th-century porcelain shards found at Horseshoe Cove in possible shipwreck off coast.
For decades, shards of blue and white porcelain have washed up on the beach in Horseshoe Cove, where they've been collected by workers at the University of California's Bodega Marine Lab.

This week, six divers from the lab and the state Department of Parks and Recreation went looking for the source, most likely a "dog-hole schooner" wrecked offshore.

"We believe it is a schooner, a two- or three-masted sailing ship that went up and down the coast trading," said Breck Parkman, a parks department archaeologist.

The divers scoured an area just outside the cove. They found a Victorian-era window sash weight and an electric surge protector but no schooner.

Although the dive Thursday didn't find the source of the shards, it eliminated a large section of ocean. It also suggests the ship wrecked closer to shore, perhaps while trying to get inside the cove, said Henry Fastenau, the lab's diving safety instructor.

The small blue and white chips appear to have been made in the late 1800s in Japan, using an ink transfer process to put designs of egrets and geometric patterns on what were bowls, plates, cups and saucers.

The ships sailing the coast at that time, and carrying that type of porcelain as cargo, were known as dog-hole schooners, 80- to 120-foot boats that were hardware stores for isolated North Coast communities.

The boats were highly maneuverable and the crews adept at putting into the small coves - the dog holes - along the coast, such as Albion, Point Arena, Fort Ross, Mendocino and Fort Bragg, bringing mercantile goods and supplies from San Francisco and carrying out lumber and farm produce.

There are a few known shipwrecks near the cove. But it's just as likely the shards are from a wreck that isn't documented, since there have been more than 12,000 wrecks along the California coast, said John Foster, underwater archaeologist for state parks.

"It is a very unforgiving coast. You got in too close, there was no way to keep the vessel off the rocks," Foster said. "It claimed a lot of ships.

"Horseshoe Cove, named for its U-shape, is about 100 yards across and protected by a shallow reef.

Both the cove and the area around the lab are part of a preserve that is closed to the public.

But for decades, lab employees have spent lunch hours and spare time combing the cove beach, collecting about 1,500 of the shards.

On Thursday, with the divers just offshore, preserve steward Jackie Sones walked the Horseshoe Cove beach and, within about 10 minutes, found a dime-sized shard.

"I'll be here to look for shells and find one," Sones said.

"You never know what turns up."


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Daily Express
September 18, 2005

Kota Kinabalu: Sabah's historical treasures recently salvaged from the seabed, some 400 metres off Simpang Mengayau at the Tip of Borneo, are now on display at the Sabah Museum until Sept 27.

The treasures were recovered from a sunken Chinese junk that went down more than 800 years ago, believed to be from the Sung Dynasty of 960 to 1127AD.

The Chinese vessel was believed to have sunk near the Tip between 878 and 1045 AD, and a group of fishermen stumbled upon the shipwreck and its remains in March 2003.

It is believed that the sunken ship hit the sandbank between the Tanjung Simpang Mengayau and Kalampunian Island in stormy weather.

It is said that it is the oldest sunken ship ever found in the country and possibly in South East Asia to date.

Unsure of the ship wreck's significance, the fishermen informed the Sabah Museum here and the site was studied in August last year jointly by the Sabah Museum, Museum and Antiquity Department in Kuala Lumpur, and Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

The second and third phases were carried out from June to August last year with the expert assistance of UMS and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

Since the findings became public knowledge many have wondered about the type of treasures found at the site.

Hence, in conjunction with the National Day and the Head of State's birthday celebrations, the Sabah Museum decided to organise a special exhibition themed Long Live Tuan Yang Terutama (TYT).

Sabah Museum Director, Datuk Joseph Guntavid, said the exhibition from Aug 15 to Sept 27 displays seven per cent of 503 treasures found at the site and other archaeological findings in the State.

"This special exhibition will present three displays - the biography of the TYT, Treasure of Simpang Mengayau and archaeological artefacts in Sabah. The history of women's development will also be exhibited for the public's knowledge and exposure.

"Among the objectives of the exhibition are to put forward the biography of the Head of State, Tun Ahmadshah Abdullah, who is the symbol of unity, peace, prosperity, peace and harmony in the State.

"Also, the purpose of organising the exhibition is to show the public the popularity of Borneo (now Sabah) as the international trade route as early as 500AD, and to display pre-historic times of Sabah dating back to about 30,000 years ago through archaeological findings," he said recently.

Among the findings that are being displayed, he said, are plates, bowls, teapots, jars and non-ceramic pieces like bronze gongs, copper pieces, iron cooking utensils and wood fragments of sunken ships.

"All the recovered artefacts found at the site of the sunken ship are very invaluable and priceless.

"What we see as having high value is its historical intrinsic worth. If the artefacts are valued in monetary terms, they would cost hundreds of thousands of ringgit in the local market and millions of ringgit in international market," he said.

Before the Museum was informed about the site, Guntavid said many of the artefacts were already found and stolen by nearby villagers who sold them to collectors for quick gains.

He said the display on the 'Treasures of the Tip of Borneo' give an impression that Borneo since ancient times was already an established as a maritime commercial hub as well as explorers' destination.

"It was also one of the main locations of Ferdinand Magellan's voyages round the world about 500 years ago.

"Also, the exhibits of the artefacts bear witness to the existence of foreign trade links more than a 1,000 years ago especially Chinese traders as early as the 10th Century, " he said.

According to him, Borneo was known to Medieval Europe as 'Java the Great' while China called it as 'Poli', 'Poni' or 'Bun Lai'.

The discovery of the sunken ship from the Sung Dynasty era is proof of a busy trade route, and now Simpang Mengayau is being promoted to the outside world as a recreation park and a tourist destination, he said.

Guntavid said the exhibition materials were very difficult to procure as archaeologists who were involved in the discovery had to dive 40 times to the seabed to search for the artefacts.

He said the divers also had a hard time, as they had to fight strong currents and murky waters.
"Some 300 pieces of ceramic and metal artefacts including gongs were salvaged during the first phase of the research. However, only about half of these artefacts are in good condition.

"During the second and third phases, another 131 pieces of ceramic and a few pieces of wooden objects were also salvaged. These artefacts are kept at the Sabah Museum and some area still undergoing conservation treatment," he said.

The other half, Guntavid pointed out, are broken and some have cracks on them.

Apart from the treasures, Guntavid said the exhibition is also displaying other archaeological excavation sites in the East Coast of Sabah.

Artifacts like pre-historic cultural tools, handmade weapons as well as ancient kitchen utensils made of stones and animal bones and woods like from coffin remains were recovered from these sites.

One of the sites was a major prehistoric pottery-making site in South East Asia, located in Bukit Tengkorak off Semporna.

"The site was first excavated in 1988 and completed in 2003 with cooperation from the National University of Australia.

"Later, in 1994-1995, the Archaeological Centre of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Sabah Museum continued the systematic archaeological research at the Bukit Tengkorak site," he said.

Guntavid disclosed that the research, which included about two months of archaeological survey and excavations, revealed that the site was used a major pottery making area in Southeast Asia from 4340 BC to perhaps 50 BC.

He pointed out that the findings in the site dated back about 3,500 years and clay for making the pottery was also recovered, believed to have originated from large deposits of clay found at the foot of Bukit Tengkorak.

In addition, he added that the result of the research indicated that other activities like stone tool making and daily subsistence activities also took place at the site.

"A large amount of food remains like marine molluscs, fish and turtle bones indicated a maritime-based diet. Other dietary items include wild boars, mouse deer, monkey, barking deer, and crabs.

"The research also unveiled that there was cultural contact and long distance trade or exchange between the inhabitants of Bukit Tengkorak and other prehistoric communities that lived along the coast of southeastern Sabah, the Sulu Archipelago, Palawan, southern Mindanao, Minasaha, Talaud, Sulawesi and the chain of Islands between Papua New Guinea and Melanesia," he explained.

Another archaeological site that is currently on display in the Museum is the Gua Samang Buat in Lahad Datu that dates back to about 30,000 years.

He said the cave was surveyed in 1950s but was found to be of less potential. However, he said, collaboration by USM and Sabah Museum showed the site indeed has archaeological potential and, in fact, the site is now the oldest in Sabah.

Amongst the archaeological materials recovered from the sites, he said, were ancient log coffins and stone tools.

He said the State Museum is expected to do more exploration and excavation work at other identified sites in the State.


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Columbia Star
By Bill Vartorella
September 16, 2005


A model of the B-25 was created to assist
in the recovery.

Sixty–two years after plunging into Lake Murray, one of the last remaining Army Air Corps war planes has been rescued from 150 feet beneath the lake’s surface.
According to the expedition’s leader, Dr. Robert Seigler, the retrieval of the now rare B–25C bomber took several days. Divers worked on mixed gases, at depth, to attach special straps on the aircraft.

The technical team is being led by internationally–known aviation salver, Gary Larkins, who expects the entire operation (which includes the spray–down and disassembly of the aircraft) to take about two weeks. Larkins disassembled, rigged, and raised a P–38 Lightning from beneath 270 feet of a Greenland ice cap several years ago. He is regarded as the premier salver of historic airplanes, with some 68 to his credit worldwide.

Seigler, who has written a history of the Lake Murray B–25s for Warbirds International , has spent two decades researching, locating, videotaping, and securing sidescan radar images of the aircraft. Divers have been quietly examining and documenting the airplane for the past several years in preparation for the retrieval.

The final day of the airplane is well–known. After flying out of the Columbia Army Air Base on April 4, 1943, the now–rare B–25C Bomber crashed and sank in the man–made lake during a skip–bombing training mission. The military crew escaped the aircraft, which had lost power, and brought it to rest upright, with damage to only the right engine. The crew survived and were rescued.

The US Army Air Corps was unable to salvage the aircraft during WWII because of water depth. It was finally located in 1990, virtually intact, under silt.

During the past decade, Seigler, head of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Greenville Hospital System, and John Adams Hodge, an aviation and environmental attorney at Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A. in Columbia, have dedicated time, energy, and resources to the effort.

William “Bill” Vartorella, Ph.D. of Camden has helped guide the project. His firm, Craig and Vartorella, Inc. has been involved in exotic projects worldwide in the fields of archaeology, motor sports, and history.

The Seigler–Hodge– Vartorella team has continuously sought support in SC and the region from philanthropic foundations, state legislators, museum and airport officials, and corporations as they searched for a permanent site to house the vintage plane.

However, no SC venues were prepared to preserve such an aircraft in an indoor setting that met the need for painstaking restoration and ongoing public interpretation.

The project has received recognition by The Explorers Club and is designated as an Explorers Flag Expedition. The Explorers Club flag will be flown at the site. Seigler, Hodge, and Vartorella are members of the Greater Piedmont Chapter of the Explorers Club. Vartorella is a past chair of the club.

With a commitment to keeping the airplane in the South, Seigler’s nonprofit Lake Murray B–25 Rescue Project (501–c–3) has found an appropriate home for the airplane at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Alabama. There, the plane will be restored, conserved, and displayed in its public museum.

Hodge, an attorney, registered geologist, and airline pilot, and Seigler and Vartorella have collaborated with SCE&G, the SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, the US military, historians, and numerous others to prepare for the final stages of this quest.

The upcoming retrieval has not been announced previously due to curiosity–seekers who might disturb the plane’s safe resting area.

The heroism of the pilot, who is deceased, prevented the aircraft’s loss of life. One of the crewmen who escaped is still alive and lives on the West Coast. Due to his health, he may not be able to attend; however, his family may send a representative.

Hodge said, “This is about preserving our history and heritage. The aircraft is WWII authentic as it has only been seen by a handful of people since it sank more than 60 years ago. It is in incredibly good shape. Dr. Seigler has expended countless hours and dollars to preserve our history, and I hope South Carolinians will assist him in this noble project.”

According to Vartorella, donations and in–kind contributions to help defray the estimated retrieval costs of $150,000 are appreciated. “We’ve had some excellent past support from the Arcadia Foundation, and companies such as Boozer Lumber have stepped up recently, as well as anonymous individual donors,” he said. “This project is likely to get global coverage and this is an excellent opportunity for companies and individuals to let the world know that SC is committed to its heritage and, frankly, is a great place to live and do business.”

For additional information, contact the nonprofit Lake Murray B–25 Rescue Project, 106 Highland Drive, Greenville, SC 29605 or Bill Vartorella at (803) 432–4353.


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LA Times
By Steve Chawkins
September 15, 2005

In a newly published paper, two scholars have revived the controversial and long-dead theory that Polynesian sailors visited the California coast centuries before the first European explorers planted their flags here.

It might still be too soon, however, to swap out the Eureka on the state seal with an Aloha.

Even the paper's authors, UC Berkeley linguist Kathryn Klar and Terry Jones, an archeologist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, acknowledge that their theory flies in the face of prevailing thought about how ancient cultures developed. In particular, it challenges how California's Chumash Indians developed a distinctive, superbly engineered boat called the tomol.

After five years of scouring Polynesian dictionaries, analyzing ancient fishhooks and evaluating more than a century's worth of scholarly findings, the two arrived at a tantalizing conclusion:

The Chumash learned a lot about how to build their tomols — one of their culture's most important fixtures — from Polynesian voyagers who paddled into the Santa Barbara Channel sometime between AD 400 and 800. "I didn't believe it myself for the first year or two and didn't talk publicly about it until the year after that," said Jones of the theory he and Klar recently unveiled in the scholarly journal American Antiquity. "For at least 50 years, this whole idea has been considered unthinkable."

To some experts familiar with ancient Chumash watercraft, it still is."I flatly won't accept it," said Brian Fagan, a professor emeritus of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara. "It's a wonderful, bold theory, and I admire them for putting it out. But I don't think it's supportable at the moment."

The theory stemmed not from a single, huge discovery but from a smorgasbord of intriguing clues. One of the most significant involves terms — like, say, "smorgasbord" — that are borrowed from other languages.

For years, Klar, an expert in Celtic as well as Chumash, occupied herself with the kind of puzzle a linguist loves: Why is tomol — a word used for a boat unlike any other in native North America — unlike any other word in Chumash, which itself is unlike any other known language? Klar searched for a term resembling tomol or its cousin, tomolo, in nearby native tongues. She even explored languages from as far off as Aleut.

But poring over a Hawaiian dictionary one day, she was stopped short by kumulaa'au, which describes trees with useful wood. Knowing that the K and T sounds can be very close in Hawaiian, she was encouraged.

And when she discovered similar terms in the languages of the eastern Polynesians, who are believed to have ventured to Hawaii in plank canoes, she was enthralled.

"I must have looked through 30 or 40 Polynesian dictionaries," Klar said. "I found it in Hawaiian and Tahitian and Marquesan and in Cook Island Raratongan." In Tahiti, for example, the word is tumuraa'au.

On top of that, she found two more boat-related words with possible Polynesian roots in the language of the Gabrielinos, a tribe living just down the coast from the Chumash.

With each small discovery, the mystery deepened: Why and how did the Chumash, who, Klar said, "already had a perfectly good word for woodworked boat," come to use a Polynesian-sounding word for the vessel that was so crucial to their way of life? That's just what Jones wanted to know after he heard Klar speak at an academic conference. Before tomol, an earlier type of craft was an axipenesh.

"It wasn't as if the Chumash borrowed the word for something like 'rock', " he said. "It was their word for boat, which I knew was an anomalously sophisticated craft for North America."

Slowly, he started to review the evidence found by other scholars years ago.

As early as 1939, scholars had observed some striking similarities between the tomol and certain Polynesian craft, Jones said.

Both were artfully fashioned from planks that were distinctively shaped by craftsmen using nearly identical shell blades.

In Polynesia, the planks were sanded with rough plant materials, whereas the Chumash used sharkskin. The Polynesians used sharpened bone to drill holes in the planks; the Chumash used sharp stones. Both used similarly elaborate procedures to caulk the planks and lash them together with tough fiber.

All that had been documented earlier, but a couple of years ago, Jones stumbled onto a discovery that, he said, "made the hair on my neck stand up." Jones faxed some drawings of old Chumash fishhooks to Patrick Kirch, a Berkeley expert on Polynesian prehistory. One hook made from two pieces fastened together caught Kirch's eye.

"I AM STUNNED," he e-mailed Jones. "That's a Polynesian hook." Jones said tests showed that the hook was about 1,200 years old — roughly as old as the oldest known planks from a tomol.

That was the approximate age, he said, of some swordfish bones found on the Channel Islands, suggesting to him that the technologically advanced hook was used to troll for big fish.

"The timing is kind of remarkable," he said. "In Southern California, people had been making two-piece hooks for 10,000 years; but around 800 AD, they suddenly changed to a more elaborate, sophisticated style — one that looks Polynesian." All of this was leading Jones and Klar into treacherous academic waters. Scholars long ago turned against "diffusion," the idea that ancient peoples adapted the advances of other cultures, rather than inventing things on their own.

"It was an intellectually lazy concept in the old days," said John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. "People used it to say that pottery was invented once and spread around the world, that agriculture was invented once and spread, that the people who built the pyramids in Mexico must have known about the pyramids in Egypt.

"The case for contact between Polynesians and North America was particularly touchy.

At one point, one of Jones' old professors asked him: "What do you want to be — the next Thor Heyerdahl?"

It wasn't a compliment.

In 1947, the Norwegian adventurer captured the public's imagination by sailing a balsa raft from Peru to the South Seas. He hoped to show that ancient South Americans could have settled Polynesia, but many scholars today dismiss Heyerdahl as a showman who got it all wrong.

The paper by Jones and Klar was rejected for publication by one scientific journal, but even its critics take it seriously. "I think it's important that these ideas be placed on the table," said Lynn Gamble, a San Diego State University archeologist who has written extensively on the Chumash.

But some critics question whether anyone can say when the first tomol slid into the Santa Barbara Channel, speculating that the purported arrival of the Polynesians occurred centuries earlier. Others wonder why the Polynesians didn't leave a more permanent footprint.

"I think we should find more evidence than a fishhook," Gamble said. "There are only so many ways to make a fishhook."Even Jones and Klar admit that the jury is still out.

"For the scholarly community to accept this as fact, we need something more substantial," Jones said.

"We know we have an uphill battle."


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Bloomberg
By Brian Lysaght
September 16, 2005

Admiral Horatio Nelson, who led Britain's defeat of France at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, is being honored today, on the 200th anniversary of his death, in a Thames River flotilla re-enacting his funeral.

About 40 period ships, including cutters, shallops and barges, are sailing up the river from Greenwich to Westminster in central London. The procession is carrying descendents of those who fought in the battle, including Nelson's family, as well as the Royal Navy's first sea lord, Admiral Sir Alan West.

``My dream to commemorate the bicentenary of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson with a symbolic re-enactment of his amazing funeral procession has come true after eight years of planning,'' said Peter Warwick, an organizer of today's events, in a statement.

Nelson, who joined the navy at age 12, led a fleet of 27 ships that defeated a larger combined French and Spanish naval force at Trafalgar, in southwestern Spain. The victory gave Britain command of the seas for the next 100 years and ended the threat of invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces. Nelson was killed during the battle, and his funeral in January 1806 drew thousands of people to London.

Today's flotilla left Greenwich at 11:15 a.m. local time under gray skies, and with heavy winds and choppy waters, and was scheduled to arrive at Westminster at 2 p.m. It was led by the Jubilant, a wooden boat draped in black.

There will be a 22-mile (35-kilometer) race along the Thames tomorrow for 250 traditional rowing boats, starting at Ham House in Richmond at 2:30 p.m.

Nelson is buried in London's St. Paul's Cathedral and his statue towers over Trafalgar Square in the city's West End.


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Kathimerini
By Christos Ligouridis
September 17, 2005


The research vessels: the Elizabeth,
a beautiful 20-meter-long boat, and
the smaller Orion together with an
inflatable IENAE boat.

In Pagasitic Gulf, team studies doomed ships to learn about ancient sea trade
It all began about 30 years ago, when archaeologist Nikos Tsouchlos was fishing under the western waters of the Pagasitic Gulf near Volos in northeastern Greece.

That’s when Tsouchlos, director of the Institute of Underwater Archaeological Research (IENAE), discovered an old shipwreck. In 2000, the institute had undertaken an initial research trip into the waters, but didn’t find the specific shipwreck they had in mind. They did, however, find another eight.

That’s how interest stirred in “Shipwreck 7,” a project close to Telegraphos Bay some five nautical miles south of the village of Amaliapolis. The shipwrecks and their treasures are dated to the end of the fourth century AD, in the later Roman period.

Preliminary studies
The IENAE research team arrived at the Pagasitic Gulf in September 2003. Initially, underwater research was focused on the topographical location of the shipwreck and the hoisting up of four amphorae from submerged ships.

Preliminary studies showed that this first shipwreck was likely an important one. It was well preserved, and it illuminated the history of the time’s nautical activity and economy.

As a result, communities near the site got very interested in the IENAE group. The Municipality of Sourpis, the regional cultural association, the prefecture of Magnesia, the villagers of Amaliapolis and others expressed their support in various ways. So, in 2004, after much bureaucracy and repeated postponements and delays, the institute’s research unit arrived in Amaliapolis at the beginning of October.

A 20-meter-long ship called Elizabeth was donated to support the IENAE group’s research. Sourpis offered to pay to power the ship.

After this was settled, machines and diving equipment were loaded onto the Elizabeth. Orion, an inflatable boat measuring 6.5 meters in length, was donated. Another, smaller inflatable boat owned by IENAE was also added, completing the catalog of boats for the research.

Final preparations
The work begins. The team has placed a suction conveyor over the excavation to keep it clear of sand and now tests the suction’s operational capacity.

The first week of the research has been devoted to measuring. Architects and topographers working together to assemble a topographical plotting of the shipwreck need more precise figures. Already, it has taken several dives and hundreds of measurements to place white markers on the ocean floor. The data are then logged into computer files.

A great deal of effort, time and money was needed for projects such as setting up the location of the shipwreck, finding stable points, incorporating the shipwreck into the geodesic system (which measures the size and shape of the earth), and the site’s photogrammetry, or the process of making scale drawings and maps from photographs.

A boon helped the preparations go smoothly. The archaeologists may joke that the shipwreck excavation may be a controlled disaster, but it is also a very delicate undertaking: Researchers must methodically record and document everything that has collected on the seabed over time.

Several details must be recorded analytically, since they hold valuable information: the placement and orientation of each artifact, the type of material (mud, sand, etc) used, the stratigraphic layering and the homogeneity of the artifacts in the various layers.

At sunrise, the group is on their toes. There’s only time for a quick breakfast. The equipment is loaded onto the boat, which leaves at about 8 a.m. The journey to the cape lasts about 45 minutes. This is used to finalize the program of the day and pick diving pairs to go to the excavation.

The boat gets closer to the cape and turns. Under the guidance of Michalis the captain, the group removes the buoy from the mooring. The group arrives at the shipwreck and lowers a metallic basket, which is tied to the outside of the suction conveyor, into the water. The basket is used to sift the artifacts from the dig. Small artifacts which have escaped from the suction conveyor are also occasionally collected from the basket.

The first day
The first group that dives into the water connects the air supply to the suction conveyor, which is anchored near the excavation site. The air compressor continues to operate. A flexible tube juts from the surface.

The excavation begins. The group had initially discovered a series of packed vessels, found just as they were when they sunk to the ocean floor. Now, numerous measurements are taken and then photographed and filmed. The new information is recorded in a diary and logged into a computer.

In the evening, the team processes the information and shapes future plans for the various stages of the excavation.

Above on the ship, however, there is pandemonium.

A team member above the water’s surface observes the excavation below via a camera situated on the seabed. On the stern, another person is busy with air pressurization, which has dropped.

Another person fills flasks. Inside the boat’s cabin area, the team watching over the investigation is working on the diary and plans.

The diver responsible for the air has the oxygen, and he’s waiting for the divers to arrive at their stations. Work lasts until late in the afternoon, until the last divers arrive and the air is disconnected from the suction conveyor. The basket is released from the tub of the suction and pulled onto the research boat. The cables are untied and fall into the water. One of the inflatables is fastened to the stern, while another follows with a handler.

The Elizabeth heads north to Amaliapolis. Even though the sun reddens the horizon, dolphins appear and begin to play. It’s a good omen.

Everyone is exhausted, but everyone is also still standing — some on the stern, others on the bulwark. They guide the Elizabeth until they reach the little island of St George at the entrance of the gulf in front of Amaliapolis. At the port, materials are transferred from boats to cars.

In the evening, there will be discussions about the day’s results and the program for the next day. Everyone is very tired, but the anxiety about the investigation is greater. Anticipation about tomorrow’s discoveries keeps everyone vigilant.

The 2004 research period lasted until the end of October. Everyone is satisfied with the results of the excavation until now. The exploratory division of the research team found portions of the amphorae and their contents, scattered on the ocean floor. Seven different types of amphorae were raised to the surface.

These are important discoveries, giving hope the research will continue.


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Delaware Online
By Molly Murray
September 15, 2005

Delaware archaeologists think that ship may be the wreck struck last fall by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredge scooping up sand for a beach replenishment job at Roosevelt Inlet.

That ship is one of five or six that are being studied as the possible source of shipwreck artifacts that landed on Lewes beach last fall.

"The date's right," said Daniel R. Griffith, project director of the Lewes Maritime Archaeology Project. Griffith said the Bristol ship has promise because maps of the Delaware Bay prepared in the 18th century identify a series of sandbars just off what is now Roosevelt Inlet as "the Sheers."

At the moment, the identity of the ship is just a theory, one of many that state historians are starting to formulate as they sift through thousands of artifacts found on Lewes beach or during dives to the site of the wreckage several hundred yards offshore.

The search also has led them to plow through old shipping journals, newspaper accounts and insurance records that might refer to a ship and cargo that would match what has been found hundreds of years later.

A consultant's report on the shipwreck site is expected to be completed later this month, but enough evidence has been found to alter some of the initial thinking the emerged soon after beachcombers began finding shards of glass, pottery and other items 10 months ago.

Initially, historians thought the relics could have come from a land settlement dating to the earliest colonization of Delaware -- possibly with some link to the state's earliest European settlers, the Dutch.

Research dispels initial thoughts But state archaeologists in recent months have focused on the theory the artifacts came from the wreck of a ship. First they thought the wreck was a coastal boat, perhaps moving on the Delaware River from Lewes to Philadelphia.

Further findings suggest the wreck was an oceangoing vessel. Divers found that the wreck's keel was at least 71 feet long, and may have been as long as 80 feet, indicating the vessel was an oceangoing ship.

The keel from another famous Delaware wreck -- the late 18th century British brig the DeBraak -- was 72 feet long. "This is trans-Atlantic size," Griffith said.

A clearer picture also has emerged from what hasn't been found. There is no anchor, no bell, no rigging, no bits and pieces from a ship (like blocks and shives) that an archaeologist would expect to find, he said.

That leads fellow state archaeologist Charles Fithian to believe the wreck was probably salvaged sometime after it foundered.

Thousands of tiny clues The search for clues is painstaking work as members try to piece together a puzzle from shards of the mystery ship's past. In all, some 11,000 to 12,000 items have been recovered, and each must be marked, sorted and, if possible, fit with other pieces.

Much of the investigative work is taking place in an old World War II bunker at Cape Henlopen State Park. Artifacts are soaked in fresh water to help remove more than two centuries of accumulated salt and mineral deposits. Then they are sorted by style and type. Most of the pieces are just that -- pieces.

The wreck was discovered by accident after the Army Corps pumped 165,000 cubic yards of sand onto Lewes beach as part of a replenishment project that began shortly after Labor Day weekend of last year. Beachcombers started to find artifacts in November.

Since then, state and federal officials have surveyed the offshore sand site, discovered similar intact pottery and glass and found -- buried beneath the sand -- the remains of the foot keel.

They have concluded that the sand-pumping dredge hit a wreck probably dating from between 1760 and 1775. That makes it one of the earliest known shipwrecks discovered in Delaware.

And they now know that the dredge did not actually hit the remains of the ship. Much of the bow was already gone, and the dredge hit the scatter trail from the wreck. Much of the stern end of the ship is intact in the sand, Griffith said.

Some of the key findings so far are a collection of millstones and about a dozen softball-size ingots that show the wooden marks from a mold. They are heavy, so heavy that they appear to be lead. "Antimony," Griffith said.

Antimony would have been mixed with tin and copper to make pewter. It also was sometimes mixed with lead to make letters used in printing presses.

Dutch influence in goods As the sorting has progressed, state researchers have run into a language barrier. No one on the team speaks Dutch, and many of the items and fragments are Dutch and German.

"More and more, as we look at this stuff, it's a very northern European collection," Griffith said.

In recent weeks, researchers ran across fragments of wine bottles that say "Constantia Wyn," a company that was bottling in South Africa during the period.

Griffith said South Africa would have been under the control of the Dutch. "All of the references are written in Dutch," he said. "We've got to get a Dutch-English dictionary." The research continues to paint a story of Colonial trade. "Part of the whole English system was to carefully control trade to the colony," he said.

Once the size of the keel was discovered, the researchers redirected their records search from small coastal vessels to larger ships, such as collier brigs, brigs and sloops.

One of the places they are looking is in the pages of the Pennsylvania Gazette, the newspaper started by Benjamin Franklin.

The paper recorded stories of murders, accidents, shipwrecks, even unusual events such as rainbows and parhelion. It covered news events from Philadelphia and its trading cities, such as Cape Briton, London, Barbados and Lewes.

"Sunday, Oct. 31, 1731," one entry about another shipwreck reads. "In a violent storm, the ship Bristol Merchant, Capt. Maynard was drove ashore near our Capes near Lewes. She was a new ship, outward bound.

Tis said the vessel is lost but most of the cargo will be saved." It is pre-Revolutionary War period, during Lewes' trading heyday, that state officials believe the ship ran into trouble.

Griffith said the vessel probably foundered during a storm, but was close enough to shore to make it easy to salvage.

"It's a very interesting story," he said. More answers lay buried So far, federal officials have spent $98,000 for the first two phases of study of the shipwreck. Griffith said state officials are awaiting the consultant's report before they decide what to do next.

There are many remaining questions, he said, such as: "What type of vessel was it, why did it sink, its origin and destination, any lives lost, how was the cargo hold loaded?" Griffith would like to see the underwater site stabilized and additional survey work to find out more about what is there.

"There are a lot of questions that are still offshore," he said.


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PRWeb
September 15, 2005



Philadelphia, PA -- In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck in November, 2005, the Sault Symphony Orchestra will premiere “The Edmund Fitzgerald” piano concerto written by composer Geoffrey Peterson. The concert, entitled “A Musical Seascape”, will be presented on Saturday, November 5th, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. at the Kiwanis Community Theatre Centre* in Sault Ste. Marie, ON, Canada. The concert is a co-production of the Algoma Fall Festival and the Sault Symphony Orchestra and will feature Stephen Mallinger as piano soloist.

Completed in 2002, “The Edmund Fitzgerald” concerto for piano and string orchestra chronicles the tragic final voyage of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. The 729 foot iron-ore carrier was lost with her entire crew of 29 men on Lake Superior November 10th, 1975. Composed in four movements, Embarkment, The Gales, Six-Fathom Shoal (“We’re holding our own.”) and Entombment-Dirge, the concerto paints a vivid and haunting portrait of the legendary and mysterious shipwreck. The concerto incorporates several musical quotes. The first is Spanish Ladies, an English sea chantey, the other, the funeral march from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”. These familiar melodies are woven into a lush tapestry of sound, color and emotion, which take the listener on a moving journey into the eye of a catastrophic storm.


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CDNN
By Eric Litke
September 15, 2005

PORT WASHINGTON, Wisconsin -- Until a fuzzy, black blotch showed up on Paul Ehorn's sonar, the 420-foot steamer Senator was the largest undiscovered wreck in Lake Michigan.

Using research he had put together over several years, Ehorn, 60, of Elgin, Ill., located the Senator about 20 miles off Port Washington on June 10.

The Senator, which went down in 1929 with a hull loaded with about 250 brand new automobiles, sits in nearly 500 feet of water, Ehorn said, rising 40 feet from the lake bottom.

"It's hopefully pretty well-preserved," he said, explaining that the decreased oxygen and current at that depth should have kept the ship intact.

The low-resolution image from Ehorn's Klein side-scanning sonar shows the stern of the ship has separated, but reveals little else.

At that depth, Ehorn said, it is foolish to attempt a dive, but a camera can be lowered to better examine the wreck.

"There's a few kooks out there that talk about diving it, but that's like driving a car 500 mph. Could you do it? Well, theoretically, yeah. But what's the chance of killing yourself? Pretty … great," he said.

The Senator sunk on Oct. 31, 1929—Halloween evening—after being rammed by another ship in dense fog.

The steamer, which was en route from Milwaukee to Mackinaw City, Mich., was going too fast for conditions, according to Brendon Baillod, Great Lakes marine historian.

"These ships were probably going close to 15 knots, probably, and they shouldn't have been going over 10," he said.

The Marquette plowed into the port side of the Senator, burying its bow 10 feet into the side of the Senator, about one-quarter of the way through.

The Marquette then reversed and pulled out of the crippled ship, not only leaving, but failing to drop any lifeboats before doing so.

Some sailors jumped onto the Marquette after the collision, but the rest were left to fend for themselves. Eight men died in the icy waters before a fishing tug, which heard the collision from about five miles away, could pick up survivors.

SOURCE - Sheboygan-Press


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CDNN
September 14, 2005



HASTINGS, UK -- Divers fighting to have a wreck off the Sussex coast recognised as an official war grave believe they have found evidence to strengthen their case.

The SS Storaa was torpedoed 10 miles off Hastings in November 1943, carrying steel to a weapons factory in Cardiff.

The Ministry of Defence said it cannot be recognised as such because it was not in military service when it sank.

But on a recent dive, caterpillar tracks were found which divers insisted must have come from military vehicles.

The MoD ruled that the SS Storaa was incapable of designation as a war grave under the 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act.

But campaign leader, Dr Peter Marsden, said: "This is about whether or not this vehicle was in military service and whether she was carrying military cargo.

"Here we've got caterpillar tracks which surely must be from a military vehicle."

The two daughters of James Varndell, one of 21 men who died on the ship, started the campaign for a judicial review.

Rosemary Fogg, 73, and Valerie Ledgard, 65, were aged 12 and four when their father died.
The sisters, from Worthing, West Sussex, claimed it was wrong of the MoD to take the decision.

But John Short, from Hastings Sub Aqua Association who was sold the wreck for £150 in 1985, said the MoD has no right to turn it into a war grave because he now has legal ownership.

The evidence found by the divers will be heard at a two-day judicial review, starting on 26 October.

Source-BBC


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Diário de Notícias
September 16, 2005


O navio tem 114, 5 metros de comprimento
e 14 de largura.

Kruzenshtern. A pronúncia não é propriamente simples. Mas é quase certo que a palavra russa vai ficar retida na memória das pessoas que, até segunda-feira, visitarem aquele que é tido como um dos mais famosos e maiores barco do mundo.

De casco predominantemente negro, o Kruzenshtern impressiona pela sua beleza, que reside, sobretudo, na magnitude - 114,5 metros de comprimento, mais de 14 de largura e mastros com altura de 56 metros com 31 velas, e cuja superfície é de 3631 metros quadrados - mas também pela sua história que está "escrita" em todos os compartimentos do navio, nomeadamente através dos objectos que se encontram no museu existente no interior do barco.

Construído em 1926, na Alemanha, o veleiro foi entregue à URSS em 1946, encontrando-se agora a dar a volta ao mundo, no âmbito da comemoração de dois grandes feitos, como disse aos jornalistas o comandante do navio, Oleg Sedov "Estamos a comemorar os 60 anos da grande guerra patriótica (há fotos no convés relativas à II Grande Guerra Mundial) e também os 200 anos passados desde a primeira viagem dos marinheiros russos à volta do mundo, sobe a orientação do comandante Kruzenshtern, que deu o nome a este navio-escola."

O veleiro, que saiu de Sampetersburgo a 24 de Junho, deverá completar a viagem a 7 de Agosto de 2006.

"Quando planeámos esta viagem não poderíamos esquecer a passagem por Lisboa, já que o que pretendemos é descobrir destinos que têm significado no âmbito marítimo", refere o comandante, adiantando que o navio transporta mais de 200 pessoas, entre tripulação, alunos (15 mil cadetes já fizeram estágio no veleiro), representantes ministeriais e jornalistas.


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The Sheboygan Press
By Eric Litke
September 13, 2005


The Pere Marquette 18.

The largest undiscovered shipwreck in Lake Michigan—the Pere Marquette 18—is waiting about 20 miles off Sheboygan where it has been since 1910, according to experts.

But it may not stay undiscovered for long.

Two sought-after shipwrecks were found this summer off the coast of Port Washington—one of which had been the lake’s largest undiscovered wreck—and some divers may now be setting their sights on Sheboygan.

“I’m confident that the wreck will be found in the next few years,” said Brendon Baillod, Great Lakes marine historian. “There’s a lot of people that are interested in finding this wreck.”
One of the interested people is Steve Radovan, 59, of Sheboygan.

“We thought about that one,” he said. “(But) it’s pretty far off shore … It’s a pretty iffy proposition.”

He said the jagged bottom in the area and the likely depth of the Pere Marquette 18—more than 300 feet—made it an intriguing but unrealistic target for him.

Baillod said he knows of only two people on Lake Michigan who have the equipment needed to find a wreck at that depth: a long-range, side-scanning sonar.

“It’s a pretty small, exclusive group of people that can look for a ship in that deep of water,” he said.

One of those men is Harry Zych, 59, of Chicago.

“It’s an interesting old shipwreck that caught my fancy,” he said. “It’s been on everyone’s shipwreck list for a long time.”

But like many divers, Zych won’t reveal anything about his present pursuits, whether it be methodology, location or which ships he is looking for.

Is Zych going to pursue the Pere Marquette 18?

“I’m not going to answer that one,” he said.

While no one has claimed discovery of the Pere Marquette 18, it is possible a diver has found it and kept silent, as Paul Ehorn of Elgin, Ill. — the other man with the necessary equipment — did when he found the Mahoning in 1999.

The Mahoning was “rediscovered” and publicized Aug. 27 by Brad Ingersoll of Belgium.
Legend has it that Dick Race, a Lake Michigan hydrographic surveyor and salvor in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, found the ship while surveying an underwater geographic fault as part of a site study for the Alliant Energy power plant, according to Baillod.

He said if the legend is true, though, Race took the location with him to his grave.

Ehorn said he is not actively pursuing the Pere Marquette 18.

Butch Klopp, a veteran Port Washington diver, said he has heard stories of fishermen who have snagged nets in the approximate area of the Pere Marquette 18 and have had possible hits on depth finders, but no one has confirmed a location.

A fateful journey
The Pere Marquette 18 is a 338-foot train-car ferry that foundered while attempting an emergency detour to Sheboygan after mysteriously beginning to take on water.

The ship was making its first run of the year as a ferry, having been outfitted with a dance floor, palm garden and other amenities over the summer for use as an excursion boat in Chicago.

The shipwreck, according to Baillod and The Sheboygan Press archives, happened as follows:
The ship left Ludington, Mich., just before midnight on Sept. 9, 1910, bound for Milwaukee with a near-capacity load of 29 railroad cars.

About three hours into her journey, sailors below deck made a distressing discovery: The stern was filled with seven feet of water, and with no apparent cause.

Captain Peter Kilty was worried by the news, but not panicked, as ships the size of the Pere Marquette 18 could handle that much water.

“He felt that it was in danger, but not imminent danger, I imagine,” Baillod said.

Shortly after 4 a.m., the captain realized he was not going to make it to Milwaukee and made a critical decision. Instead of heading east to Little Sable Point on the Michigan shore, where the rocky coastline could have damaged or destroyed the ship, Kilty headed west to Sheboygan.

“Nobody thought this ship was going to sink,” Baillod said, “and there was no reason it should, with watertight bulkheads underneath.”

28 perish with the ship
Only 30 minutes after bearing west, however, Kilty and his crew realized the ship would not make it, and over the next two hours a total of 13 railroad cars were jettisoned into the unforgiving waters while engineers stoked the boilers in hopes of making Sheboygan.

At 5 a.m. the Pere Marquette 18 began sending out distress calls: “No. 18 is sinking in mid-lake, for God’s sake help us,” was the call that went out at 5:20 a.m.

The Pere Marquette 17 out of Milwaukee intersected the foundering ship around 7:30 a.m., just in time to witness the disaster.

“We had just reached No. 18 when it went down,” Capt. Milligan of the Pere Marquette 17 told The Sheboygan Press the next day. “It went down stern first, and just as the waters closed over it there seemed to be an explosion, either of steam or by the compression of air, which blew the cabin entirely off the boat in fragments, and these pieces of wreckage undoubtedly saved the lives of a number of the crew.”

Milligan said the wreckage and survivors were scattered for five miles in all directions.

Baillod said that most likely one of the internal bulkheads collapsed, filling the ship and plunging it beneath the waves, its suction pulling the crew downward as the Pere Marquette 17 hastily launched lifeboats.

As the steel ship sunk rapidly to the lake bottom, the buoyant masts tore free from their rigging, shooting to the surface as and flying as much as a 100 feet in the air and killing several men.

In the end, 28 died, including every officer, the entire engine crew and two rescuers from the Pere Marquette 17. Twenty bodies were never recovered.

A perplexing demise
Now nearly 100 years after she sank, divers and historians are as baffled about why the Pere Marquette 18 sank as they are about where the ship is.

“The big mystery surrounding this ship still is why she sank. Nobody really knows,” Baillod said.
Possible explanations for the leak that sunk the ship have included open deadlights (skylight equivalents), a leaking propeller shaft or a collapsed bulkhead (internal vertical supporting wall), but Baillod believes the answer could be much simpler.

“One of the sailors who was on the ship claimed, and it was printed in a number of papers of the day, that when they were leaving Ludington the stern struck a bridge abutment—hard enough that it knocked the second mate off,” he said. “I think that’s probably correct. The crewman would have no reason to make that up.”

But it will likely never be known why exactly the Pere Marquette 18 sank—even if the ship is found, it will likely be at a depth that makes close study extremely difficult.

Her secret remains with 20 of her crew, hundreds of feet beneath the surface of Lake Michigan.


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The Hawk Eye
By Shawna Richter
September 12, 2005


The USS Lagarto.

It has been 60 years since the World War II submarine USS Lagarto was sunk by a Japanese minelayer in the Gulf of Thailand, taking its 86 crew members to their deaths.

Cmdr. Frank Latta, a native of Burlington and a 1928 Burlington High School graduate, was one of those considered missing in action, but presumed dead since May 24, 1945.

This May, a team of deep–sea divers discovered the wreckage 200 feet below sea level, 93 miles from the southeast coast of Thailand.

Since its discovery, Navy officials and the diving team have had some disagreement over the ship. The Navy considers all sunken U.S. ships gravesites, off–limits to people in general.

However, the divers who found it would like to document the submarine, which is intact and sitting upright on the ocean floor. According to Karen Duvalle of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wis., the crew was given the OK to photograph the ship from the outside in mid–July, mostly to confirm that the submarine is, in fact, the USS Lagarto.

Two family members visited the wreckage with the divers, armed with letters, pictures and other mementos Lagarto families have sent them to be read or placed at the site as a goodbye to their loved ones.

"I know Michael is very thrilled to have some closure," said Carol Latta, sister–in–law to Michael Latta, son of Cmdr. Frank Latta. Carol was married to Patrick Latta, another son, who died 12 years ago. "Mike always wanted to go by the last known site and drop a wreath. He was never able to do that. But now he'll have some conclusion before he dies."

Currently, Mike Latta is sailing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with no way to be contacted. Carol and the other remaining Latta family members live in California, where they heard the news of the submarine's discovery shortly after it was found.

"Mike knows his father had a motorcycle the crew snuck onto the submarine," Carol Latta said, a hint of laughter in her voice.

Latta explained that her father–in–law had a passion for motorcycles. Although it was against Navy policy to bring motorcycles on board, Frank Latta would disassemble the bike, put it in a crate and sneak it on the ship. Once the ship had landed, he would put it back together again and ride it up and down the streets wherever they were.

"It's probably still on board (the submarine)," Latta said.

Frank Latta was more than mechanically inclined though. He was artistic, too, Latta said.

"I have a lot of his artwork in my home," she said. Frank Latta was into woodwork and woodcarving and the intricate pieces are still appreciated in the Latta home.

Both Mike and Pat Latta were young when the submarine was sunk, but they do remember being on board.

"Mike's talked to a woman who is (compiling current submarine information). Her father is probably one of the crew members who chastised Mike for playing around on deck," Latta said.

"They remember their dad was a big deal. They always missed their dad."

Neither of the brothers talked about their father much, nor did Frank Latta's wife, Holly, a Burlington native who eventually remarried. But Carol knows Pat had reoccurring underwater dreams throughout his life.

"He would be happy to know the gravesite was found," she said.

Pat and Mike's children were a little surprised to find out their grandfather was such an important figure in history.

"It's very important they found the submarine," Latta said. "But it's like another era. (My daughter) Robin was sent all the information and she said, 'You know, I never even talked to Dad about this.' She was surprised at the history in it.

"It's like ... you live with them and you know them, but you don't talk about the past," Carol said as a way of explanation.


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Las Vegas Sun
By David Henley
September 14, 2005


The HMT Rohna.

FALLON, Nev. - Louis R. Phelps vividly recalls that terrible day 62 years ago.
He still hears his shipmates' screams and cries for help as their troop ship, hit by a guided missile fired from a German bomber, sank in 30 minutes, killing 1,015 American soldiers, 120 ship's officers and crew, and three Red Cross workers.

At 1,138 deaths, the sinking of the British Navy's HMT Rohna on Nov. 26, 1943, in the Mediterranean Sea off North Africa caused the greatest loss at sea of American military personnel in U.S. history.

Because the U.S. government didn't want the Germans to know how effective the early-generation guided bomb had been, details of the sinking did not surface until the late 1960s.

Congress recognized the Rohna disaster in 2000. Even today, few Americans know about the second-worst U.S. naval disaster of World War II, after the sinking of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.

But Phelps, who will be 84 on Dec. 6, still suffers nightmares and sleepless nights.

He was a military parts inspector at Oakland Army Base after leaving the service in 1948, and worked at Alameda Naval Air Station near San Francisco where he led a team of civilians inspecting aircraft parts and engines bound for Naval Air Station Fallon.

"My closest ties are to the state of Nevada," he said in an interview at the Las Vegas home he shares with his daughter, Carolyn, and her teenage son.

A native of Enid, Okla., Phelps joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 at age 18. He was trained as a radio operator and repairman and in 1942 was shipped to French North Africa where he was assigned to a U.S. air base.

On Thanksgiving Day 1943, Phelps and approximately 2,000 other U.S. soldiers boarded the British Navy's 46l-foot long, l7-year-old Rohna at Algiers. They were bound for Bombay, India to take up combat against the Japanese in China, Burma and India.

"The Rohna was a filthy, rusting bucket, full of lice and rats. The skipper was an Australian Navy officer and the crew were Indians," Phelps recalled.

On Nov. 26, he was serving as corporal of the ship' s guard, a position similar to the U.S. Navy's master-at-arms.

"I was on deck, near the ship's stern, when I saw a large plane coming closer and closer to us. It was a German Air Force Heinkel bomber. It circled our ship and then dropped a radio-controlled bomb on us. Most of our men were below deck, getting ready for the evening meal."

Phelps said the bomb hit the center of the ship, knocking him to the deck.

"It continued down into the engine room and there was a huge explosion. The ship began listing and smoke and flames were all over the place," he said.

Men were trapped below deck, while Phelps was able to crawl to the high side of the deck, find a rope and lower himself into the water.

"The men who managed to reach the lifeboats found them rusted and full of holes," he said. "I think that only one lifeboat got away from the Rohna, and most of its passengers were the ship's crew."

Phelps remembered hundreds of men in the water. Many were wounded and burned. He had three broken ribs and cuts on his legs and arms, but had a lifebelt on and managed to stay afloat.
After seven or eight hours, those in the water were rescued by the Clan Campbell, a British cargo ship converted into a Red Cross ship.

"There were about 900 of us rescued by the Campbell and other ships in our convoy. Those men told me stories about fighting their way to the deck through flames and burning debris. It is impossible to tell to what a horrible day that was."

Phelps said he stays in touch some survivors. They tell stories of heroism by shipmates who tried to release lifeboats that were rusted to the Rohna's side, and of men who took off lifebelts and gave them to others.

"When we got back to dry land, the Army leadership in North Africa told us not to mention the sinking to anyone under penalty of court-martial," Phelps said. "There was nothing printed about the sinking in the newspapers. It was if it had never happened."

In the 1970s, word began leaking out of the disaster, and reporters using the Freedom of Information Act discovered hidden-away accounts of the sinking. Congress recognized the disaster, relatives of the victims were notified why they died, and survivors such as Phelps received commendations and medals.

Following his rescue, Staff Sgt. Phelps served in India and China as a radioman until war's end in 1945. When the Air Force became a separate service in 1948, he transferred from the Army, retiring as a master sergeant after seeing service at U.S. air bases including Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

A widower, Phelps has suffered two strokes in recent years which caused blindness in one eye and reduced the vision in his other eye to about 16 percent.

He said he can still read somewhat, and the Veterans Administration has helped him get special glasses so he can use the computer. He also enjoys fishing at Lake Mead.

About 200 survivors of the Rohna sinking are alive, according to Pat Delude of Coarsegold, Calif., secretary-treasurer of the Rohna Survivors Memorial Association.

Two or three books about the Rohna disaster have been written in the past few years, and a History Channel documentary aired in 2002.

---
On the Net:
Rohna Survivors Memorial Association: http://www.rohna.org


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The Day
By David Collins
September 09, 2005


A buoy marks the spot where the remains
of the “Sugarboat” lie at the bottom of the
sound, where it sank in 1930 near Greenwich
point, seen in the background, in Greenwich, Conn.

Plans for a data base of shipwrecks in Long Island Sound underway

Are the shipwrecks of Long Island Sound endangered? With controversial proposals like a new gas pipeline across the Sound and a floating natural gas terminal, there's a suggestion that development is increasingly going offshore.

And new projects that disturb the underwater environment have the potential to affect the sites of shipwrecks that, in some cases, have been undisturbed and naturally protected for centuries.
This was some of the thinking of Heritage Consultants, a Newington-based archaeological and environmental planning company, in proposing a new public data base that would identify and locate shipwreck sites.

“We think of it as a handy tool for people who are planning projects that are going to impact the waters of Long Island Sound in some way,” says Catherine M. Labadia, president of the consulting company.

This summer, Heritage Consultants got word their grant proposal to the state was accepted, and the project will be funded with $25,000 from the pool of money generated by the sale of Long Island Sound license plates.

Labadia said she hopes a one-year project, to create as thorough a data base as possible, will be followed with later phases that could involve other institutions, like Mystic Seaport Museum and the University of Connecticut campus at Avery Point, with fact-finding dives on wrecks and other research.

“I think at this point underwater archaeological research is in its infant form in the Northeast, compared to other places,” says Labadia, who has a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Connecticut.

The creation of the data base will entail research in a variety of municipal, academic and historical sources, she explains. In some ways it's a daunting task, to look for evidence of every ship that has ever sunk in Long Island Sound.

“The records occur at every level, national, state and at local repositories, like the Mystic Seaport, with barge companies, insurance companies, personal stories, captain's papers,” she says. “It's a monumental task, but our goal here is to make our absolute best attempt at gathering as much as we can for the time and money allowed.”

Labadia said the data base would be similar to one she is familiar with in Louisiana, where she and one of her partners worked before starting the Connecticut consulting company last year.
The information included would also be rated for reliability, so that the certainty of coordinates of a specific wreck that has been dived on, for instance, could be distinguished from reports of a sinking in a general vicinity.

The data base will belong to the state Department of Environmental Protection and be available for public use. Since there are no laws specifically protecting shipwreck sites, use of the list would be largely advisory for anyone planning to do underwater work in the Sound.
The DEP can also use it to assess a proposed project, she says.

“They can pull this up and say they would prefer you would avoid these areas,” she says.


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The Courier
September 12, 2005

UNDERWATER archaeologists in Perthshire have made the incredible discovery of a drowned forest, thought to date from the neolithic period some 5000 years ago.

Stunned divers spotted the ancient wooded area as they worked in Loch Tay.

The eerie find is sure to excite scientists of all disciplines as it could represent the earliest surviving remains of Scotland’s native woodland.

Preliminary surveys in the 14 mile long loch—carried out by the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology (STUA) over the weekend—have identified well preserved fallen oak and elm trees as well as a series of oak upright trunks embedded in layers of gravel and silt.

Many of the fallen trees have survived in odd shapes, creating a spooky landscape protruding from the loch bed.

Timber samples taken by the STUA dive team yesterday produced radiocarbon dates of 3200BC and 2500BC.

The forest may be under two feet of water, but that has not dampened the archaeologists’ enthusiasm.

“Other neolithic forest remains have been located in Scotland eroding out of peat bogs, but there is no sign of peat having been present at the site in Loch Tay,” said a spokesman.

“The inundated woodland is believed to represent the old natural shoreline, now some 10 to 15 metres from the current waterfront.”

Preliminary investigation has uncovered hazelnuts, twigs and moss mixed with other organic material.

Samples of the timbers themselves can help tree-ring studies which, together with analysis of the sediments, plant remains, and pollen, can assist with climate change studies.

The STUA is best known for its crannog research throughout Scotland and the creation of the award-winning Scottish Crannog Centre at Kenmore.

STUA chairman and research fellow at Edinburgh University Dr Nicholas Dixon was delighted to learn of the new discovery.

“Now we hope this discovery will allow us to get the research funding required to launch a multi-disciplinary study into loch level and environmental changes over the last 5000 years,” he said last night.


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DNR
By Donald G. Shomette



Take a boat down the Potomac River, 30 miles south of Washington, D.C., round the bend at Sandy Point, and enter Mallows Bay. Press forward through the shallow waters of the little embayment, surrounded by tall, forested bluffs. As your boat glides slowly ahead, the silence may be interrupted only by a great heron fleeing before you. You are now entering a ghostly, little-known region populated only by ancient, hoary relics of generations past. For here lay the remains of myriad shipwrecks disguised by a thick green blanket of vegetation and lying about in utter profusion. What are these giant, decaying behemoths? How did they come to slumber in this remote and beautiful Potomac backwater?

The story began on April 2, 1917, the day President Woodrow Wilson issued a national call to arms against imperial Germany. Europe had been at war for more than two and a half years, and America's new allies were reeling from the devastating onslaught of GermanyÕs campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. Now the nation would be obliged to move everything required for waging war -- men, arms and supplies of all sorts -- across the submarine-infested Atlantic. The logistics were intimidating. Between 1899 and 1915 the shipyards of America had launched only 540,000 tons of bluewater shipping; now, to maintain an army in Europe and counter the losses imposed by the submarine offensive, the nation would have to build 6 million tons in 18 months. To do so would require the greatest shipbuilding program in history.

In February 1917 engineer Frederic Eustis submitted a scheme to William Denman, chairman of the United States Shipping Board, to address the crisis. In lieu of costly steel vessels, Eustis suggested the establishment of a large wooden shipbuilding program. It would be expeditious, it would not tie up shipyards engaged in naval construction, and it could produce cheap vessels faster than U-boats could sink them. With the blessing of President Wilson, the Shipping Board formed the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) to oversee the construction of the ships by private contractors. George W. Goethals, famed builder of the Panama Canal, was appointed general manager.

Denman's plans called for launching 1,000 wooden steamships, averaging 3,500 tons of cargo capacity each, within 18 months. They would be 240 to 300 feet long, and each would be built from 1.5 million board feet of yellow pine or Douglas fir. A standard design, by the EFC's chief naval architect, Theodore Ferris, would serve as the basic pattern. All wooden components would be precut, numbered, and finished to specifications before shipment to fabrication yards. A nationwide complex of special schools would be established to train construction personnel. It was a tall order, but soon 87 shipyards around the nation were under contract to build wooden steamships.

By July 1917, as massive orders for timber were being placed, a debilitating power struggle between Denman and Goethals delayed approval for the first 433 wooden steamers. Paperwork and bureaucracy proliferated, while political opposition to the very idea of a wooden steamship program blossomed overnight. Somehow the program lurched forward.

On December 1, 1917 the first wooden bottom was launched into the Pacific. Yet, by October 1918 only 134 wooden steamships had been completed; another 263 were less than half finished. When Germany surrendered on November 11, none had crossed the Atlantic.

Congressional charges of ineptitude within the program soon followed. A Senate probe revealed that of the 731 wooden steamships contracted for, only 98 had been delivered. Of these, only 76 had carried cargo in trade. Charges flared that the vessels were badly designed, weakly constructed, poorly caulked, leaked excessively and were too small and expensive for long-distance cargo hauling.

Still, the ships continued to slide down the ways. By September 1919, 264 of them had been placed in operation, and 195 had made an Atlantic passage. But their days were numbered. The dismal postwar economy and the resultant glut of shipping soon resulted in the "great 1920 tie-up." The introduction of the diesel engine, moreover, had made the coal burning plants of the fleet instantly obsolete.

On December 27, 1920, the government moved to dispose of "the grandest white elephant" ever built: 285 leaking wooden and composite ships mothballed in the James River, and kept afloat at a cost of $50,000 a month. This armada, which had cost American taxpayers between $700,000 and $1 million per vessel, was offered for sale "as is and where is."

Finally, in September of 1922, 233 ships of the fleet were sold for $750,000 to the Western Marine and Salvage Company (WM&SC), an Alexandria, Va. firm, for scrapping. WM&SC secured permission from the War Department to haul the fleet from the James to a 1,500-acre government-authorized mooring area on the Potomac, off Widewater, Va. From there each ship would be individually towed to Alexandria to have machinery removed for scrap, and then be turned back to the anchorage, where the hull would be burned down, stripped of fittings released by the fire, dragged into a nearby marsh, and buried beneath dredge spoil.

In October the dismantling process began at Alexandria. Immediately the project suffered its first setback when two vessels accidentally caught fire at dockside. In April 1923 five more accidentally burned and sank off Widewater. Local watermen protested to Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. The Widewater tract, they complained, was the most important shad and herring fishery on the Potomac. Their arguments went unheeded.

By mid-October four vessels had been burned in experimental reductions at Widewater, but only two had been beached. The other two sank at anchor, impairing local navigation. Once more watermen protested, but when the government announced that as many as 218 vessels were slated to be destroyed at Widewater, the barrage of complaints increased to such a pitch that operations were abruptly halted.

It was becoming clear that WM&SC would have to move elsewhere. In April 1924 the company bought 566 acres of farmland girding Mallows Bay, on the Maryland shoreline, opposite Widewater. The acquisition came none too soon, for 123 ships already lay at the Widewater anchorage and at least 80 more were due to soon arrive.

The company streamlined the wrecking process. Four great marine railways, wharves, offices, storage buildings and dormitories were erected at Sandy Point, on the northern lip of the bay, to facilitate the removal and burial of burned-down hulks.

But difficulties proliferated. Maryland watermen began to protest the use of Mallows Bay. WM&SC was forced to move quickly. At 5 a.m., November 7, 1925, just before sunup, with government representatives, salvors and press hovering nearby and a lone biplane flitting about overhead, the greatest peacetime maritime coup de grace up to that time was administered. On a signal, 10 men raced about the decks of 31 ships touching flaming torches to oil-soaked waste. "As the torch was applied," The Washington Post reported, "a horde of squealing rats plunged into the water-" The hulks were hauled into Mallows Bay and the wrecking process began anew.
Soon, however, work again slowed to a crawl.

As the years slipped by, the company's profits from scrap sales failed to keep pace with expenditures. By August 1929 WM&SC had brought a total of 169 ships of the emergency fleet into Mallows Bay to await final reduction. Then, with the great stock market crash in October, the price of scrap plunged. In March of 1931 WM&SC was forced to shut down operations and lapsed into bankruptcy without providing for the disposal of the Mallows Bay hulks. By 1934, a cottage industry in scrap salvage had sprung up along the shoreline, and dozens of independent salvors daily picked over the carcasses of the great fleet. At least five floating brothels and no fewer than 26 illegal stills were reportedly erected nearby.

When World War II began, the price of scrap skyrocketed. The government formed the Metals Reserve Company to stockpile strategic metals. It allocated $200,000 for a project aiming to recover 20,000 tons of iron from 110 hulls still lying in the bay, and hired the Bethlehem Steel Corporation to manage the recovery. Bethlehem excavated a huge enclosed marine basin and sealed it off from the bay with earthen berms and massive floating gates. Ships could be towed into the basin, the gates closed, the creek-fed water pumped out and the hulks burned down completely, leaving only their metal fittings. But the process proved too difficult even for Bethlehem. By the end of 1943 the company had spent $360,000 and salvaged little scrap. On September 22, 1944, Bethlehem ordered the project terminated, leaving behind over 100 hulks in the bay. For the next two decades the ghost fleet would sleep undisturbed.



In 1963, at the instigation of a group of local watermen and a development firm called Idamont Inc., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began a $350,000 removal effort, and in 1968 Congress, acting under a special provision of the landmark Rivers and Harbors Act, ordered the hulks destroyed. Then the project languished while congressional hearings disclosed revelations that would ultimately abort it entirely. It emerged that Idamont was for all intents and purposes a straw corporation for the Potomac Electric Power Company, apparently created to acquire the Sandy Point tract for a generating plant without having to go through public disclosure or reveal its intentions to stockholders. Removal of the hulks (at government expense) would have permitted unimpeded passage of support watercraft.

The company's actions had been a clear violation of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and state disclosure laws. Moreover, during testimony, the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, the National Audubon Society and the Department of the Interior suggested that over the years the wrecks had become integral components of the environment. To remove them would contribute to pollution and severely injure the natural habitats of life forms that had begun to repopulate the area after the trauma wrought by the wrecking operations. The wreck-removal project was quietly shelved.

In March 1993, the first organized effort to evaluate the historical maritime resources existing in Mallows Bay was initiated under a Maryland state grant. For the first time the embayment, the remains of the great EFC fleet, and all else therein would be historically researched, systematically inventoried and archaeologically documented.

The program's first objective was to identify, record and assess the condition of all historical resources lying within Mallows Bay. Over the next two years, a total of 88 wooden EFC ships were identified. Numerous other wrecks were also documented, including a great seagoing car ferry named Accomac, 12 barges, a possible Revolutionary War longboat, several 19th-century log canoes and schooners, a North Carolina menhaden boat, and miscellaneous workboats.

Of 285 wooden EFC steamships built by August 1, 1920, at least 152 ended up in Mallows Bay within nine years. Today the remains of at least 30 percent of the entire EFC wooden steamship fleet still lie in the embayment, surrounded by derelict vessels of all kinds dating from the late 18th century through the 1980s.

The consolidation of such a great population of wrecks within so small an area could not fail to affect the local environment. The shipwrecks of Mallows Bay have created a synthetic environment that, in its slow but certain evolution, has held and enriched the sediments. This environment seemingly counteracts the pollution of the Potomac's water, filtering it and providing habitat and food to a wide range of life forms. In the process, each vessel has become a mini-ecosystem. Just as it was once the last refuge of the Potomac snowy egret and the site of Maryland's last sturgeon fishery, so Mallows Bay has again blossomed with biodiversity. In many ways it is like a giant artificial reef to which the creatures of the sea and air flock to flourish, reclaiming this stretch of the river once and for all from the trauma of the industrial age.

Thus sleeps the largest shipwreck fleet in the Western Hemisphere -- and possibly the world.

Watch more photos here.


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CDNN
September 11, 2005

MALTA -- Lying deep underwater off St Thomas Bay, the wreck SS Polynésien is considered "Malta's best kept secret" according to international wreck diving experts. But what has been happening upon the slick French ship also known as "the little Titanic" for the last decade amounts to omertà – criminal reticence.

Since it was sunk by a UC22 U-boat on 10 August 1918 while sailing in convoy towards Malta, the Polynésien has hidden priceless treasures for almost one hundred years, buried up to 70 metres under the sea, where only experienced scuba divers can reach.

The wreck is no site for amateurs. According to sources in the diving circles, it takes around an hour and a half of decompression, staggered on the way back up to the surface, for around 20 minutes of so-called technical deep diving at those depths.

It takes much more than 20 minutes to explore the entire 157-metre ship, and for the expert divers to reach the thousands of serving platters, ceiling fans and other artefacts inside.

And among these diving experts, groups of ruthless robbers have been looting these artefacts and others even older found in diverse diving sites around Malta, on paper protected by the Cultural Heritage Act as national treasures but effectively vulnerable to human predators armed with goggles and cylinders.

The rampant deep underwater robbery is believed to have been going on totally undeterred for the last six years, according to diving instructors who insisted on remaining anonymous.

Individual divers, mostly unaware of the crime they are committing, just feel "they have to take a souvenir" back with them after almost risking their lives to reach the wreck.

Others, in organised groups, have systematically despoiled the ship of her beautiful, and profitable, treasures.

Now, tipped by sources in the diving circles, the police have investigated some of the most notorious of technical divers on the islands, Maltese and foreigners, and the findings are expected to lead to the first arraignments ever in court of underwater criminal rings.

"It's about time something is done about it," an experienced diver said. "I'm happy the police is clamping down on this rampant illegal activity. It's disgusting how some divers are robbing everything there is under the sea."

The world's biggest museum lies under the sea, cultural heritage experts say, but the possibility of the illicit international trading of a great part of this heritage makes its full recovery next to impossible. Also, with the police force's resources, it is next to impossible to monitor diving sites.
Just the Polynésien is known to have sunk with ceramic jars, plates and cups made by Menun of France, dated 1900 on their inscriptions, together with other splendid ceramics by the prestigious Limoges factory.

The holds of the ship were known to contain a cargo of boots, car tires, fire bricks, brass beds, sealed champagne and wine bottles and a number of glass bottles dated 1900 from the Anglo-Egyptian Aerated Water Co. of Port Said – all vied-for collectibles on the clandestine antiques global market.

The ship is testimony to Malta's vital role during World War One, when the Polynésien was used by the French Navy as an armed troop transport vessel after more than 20 years of civilian service accommodating 172 first, 71 second and 109 third and 234 steerage-class passengers at one go.

Her last, fatal movements on a hot August morning of 1918, are recorded in a Royal Navy inquiry, which found that a clearly negligent chief of staff posted here failed to act on early warning signs given to him by a Royal Navy officer stationed in Malta, who heard 'suspicious engine sounds' through the Delimara listening station.

Just as she was heading inshore, an enemy submarine fired its torpedoes towards the Polynésien, slipping through undetected as the ship started sinking.

All the crew escaped from the sinking ship unharmed, with the captain, in true naval tradition, boarding off the little Titanic as the last man.

Writing on the specialist journal, SportDiver in February 2004, wreck expert Ned Middleton revealed the secrets of the Polynésien for the first time on the British press, possibly exposing it even further to unscrupulous underwater treasure hunters from around the world.

Middleton wrote the ship "is such an outstanding wreck, I am at a loss to know why I have not read about her existence time and again long before now. Maybe I missed something, but I have been unable to find anything published about this shipwreck at all."

After just one single dive "on this most incredible vessel", it was immediately clear to Middleton "that this is one of the world's top wreck dives. Oh yes, I mean it, she is easily that – and yet divers seem oblivious to her existence".

Not the stealing ones, it seems. According to the Cultural Heritage Act, "the right of access to, and benefit from, the cultural heritage does not belong merely to the present generation. Every generation shall have the duty to protect this heritage and to make it accessible for future generations and for all mankind".

But for a generation of ruffian divers, this is just an adventurous, lucrative business.

Source: Malta Today


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Bega District News
September 09, 2005


The chair of the Heritage Council of NSW, Michael
Collins (right), presented awards to divers David Prior,
Keith Appleby and Samir Alhafithy at Tathra Wharf
yesterday.

THE discovery of three historic shipwrecks off the NSW south coast in the past few years has resulted in awards for the divers involved.

David Prior, Keith Appleby and Samir Alhafith (representing The Sydney Project) were presented with awards acknowledging their contribution towards maritime heritage during a meeting of the Heritage Council of NSW at Tathra Wharf yesterday (Thursday.

"We are celebrating the achievements of those divers in mapping, conserving and promoting these new shipwreck sites," the chair of the Heritage Council of NSW, Michael Collins, said.

"We also acknowledge the support provided by individual fishermen at Bermagui whose knowledge of the area has been invaluable in aiding the divers pinpoint where the wrecks are located on the sea bed," Mr Collins said.

"South Coast shipping is rich in history and adventure and the discovery of these sites is testimony to the extent and variety of our underwater heritage in these areas.
"These wrecks are remote in time but not distance.

"Their discovery provide us with a snapshot of the past, a glimpse into long gone era of shipping and of the drama that unfolded as ships sank beneath the waves, to start a new life as rare, fragile and evocative archaeological wreck sites.

"Some recent discoveries include the 'Bega', an iron twin screw steamship lost between Tathra and Bermagui in 1908, the World War Two 'Liberty' ship 'William Dawes', torpedoed off Tathra in 1942 and the 'Cumberland' which sank in August 1917 after striking a German minefield near Gabo Island.

"The South Coast has an astonishing array of historic shipwreck sites, many of which are accessible to recreational divers while land-bound enthusiasts can access these amazing stories through coastal wreck walking trails.

"Information about these wrecks can also be found on the Heritage Office's award winning 'Maritime Heritage Online' website, which offers a range of interactive maps, a searchable database, still images, video clips, archaeological survey reports and activity guides," said Mr Collins.

The Heritage Council's visit is focusing on the district's maritime and Aboriginal heritage as well as tours to the historic property "Oaklands" at Pambula and the Old Bega Hospital.

Last night the Heritage Council hosted a reception at St John's Anglican Church.

A highlight of the visit will be today (Friday) when members of the Heritage Council take a cultural and educational tour of Biamanga (Mumbulla Mountain) followed by a lunch with members of the local Aboriginal community.


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The Independent
By Tim Blake
September 11, 2005

Clay pipes, pilgrims' badges ... fragments of history wash up every day on the banks of the Thames. Tim Blake digs deep

I was seven when I dragged my father down to the river to search for gold. In my young mind it was a natural place to look: the Thames was part of the sea; the sea equalled pirates, and pirates meant treasure. We stopped on Hammersmith Bridge and looked through the railings, and my dad, sensing the inevitable disappointment at the adventure's end, said: "Tim, it's very unlikely we will ever find anything."

He was wrong. Within two hours we had a found a purse. It had probably been stolen - the wallet was missing - but inside was a gold necklace. Sure, it was a tacky 9-carat necklace with a few lucky charms, but it was gold and confirmation of all my childhood beliefs.

I hadn't thought about that adventure till recently when I pulled a white gold wedding ring from the mud down by Tower Bridge: 18-carat this time. That day I also found 15 polished garnets (semi-precious gemstones), a few medieval pins and possibly a pilgrim's pewter badge.

Mudlarking is archaeology for everyone. It's your history, and you get to keep it. Pick a low tide and a good spot and you will find treasure - maybe not gold and gems, but certainly pieces of our capital's past for you to take home. There are two types of mudlarker, the professional and the amateur. The pros tend to work the shore on the low tides on weekdays. You'll see them with metal detectors and spades digging frantically before an incoming tide. They have special licences from the Port of London Authority which let them dig the foreshore (you're not allowed to dig otherwise). They sell their finds to professional dealers.

The amateurs tend to comb the shore on the weekends looking for surface finds. The two groups do not to mix much. I'm in the latter group, on the look-out for something interesting, as opposed to valuable. I don't dig because I believe that the river churns up the mud enough to keep new finds surfacing. My equipment is a good pair of boots, warm clothing and a few matchboxes and small tins to put my finds in. I own a tide table, but most papers have the high and low water times in the weather sections.

The trick to mudlarking is "getting your eye in". Get down to the shore when the tide is on the ebb and the light is good and start poking around. The first thing you might notice is all the bones and shells. This is the archaeology of our capital's appetites. Lots of sheep bones from mutton, ox bones sawn in half for their marrow and oyster shells from when they were London's fast food and fit only for the poor to eat. Among this, because of the way the river deposits its light and heavy loads, you will find pottery and, best of all, clay pipes. These have very individual styles and can be easily dated with the right guide to hand. You might also find pieces of worked bone: a needle or a knife handle or maybe even bone dice or a child's toy.

Lower down the shore, you'll find the heavier pieces and the metal finds. Here your imagination is important. Pick up everything and guess its use. Ask yourself if the pattern is manmade: is that writing you see, a face, a bit of fleur-de-lis? Nothing from the past is as it seems; few objects reveal themselves at first glance, and early coins rarely look like today's loose change. Last month I found an Edward IV silver penny which looked like a grubby wafer of junk, as small as a fingernail, till I got it home and cleaned it up.

Even the most mundane-looking items can be treasure: that little twist of lead wiring in your hand might be part of a pilgrim's badge. These are my favourite. In the medieval period, when we cared a little more for our souls, our ancestors were drawn to wander to shrines across the land. "Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," as Chaucer wrote. Each shrine would have a badge, some plain, others intricate, which were simple proofs of devotions: their hopes for cure or thanksgiving or penitence. One of my best places to mudlark, by London Bridge, is a stone's throw from the site of The Tabard Inn in Southwark where The Canterbury Tales begins.

If I find something and don't know what it is, I go along to the Museum of London, which offers a free identification service. This is important. If it's really worth something and sheds light on our history, then the discovery must be shared. Amateurs like us have a huge part to play in piecing together our past. There's something else I have gained from these trips: a more intimate knowledge of the river. Over the years, I have seen the river in a thousand different moods: it never shows the same face twice. Down on an ancient shore, proper terra firma, unadorned by concrete or landscaping, you are dwarfed by the buildings that rise out of the embankments. And as you pick up the (literal) flotsam and jetsam of history, the tools our ancestors used to fashion this city, the bone and shell that fed them, you cannot help but be humbled by what they achieved.

Tips for the river bank
Always keep an eye on the tide and stay close to exit points.

Walk on the shingle; avoid the mud itself.

Report interesting finds. Contact Fay Simpson, Portable Antiquities Officer, at the Museum of London (0870-444 3852).

The Museum of London offers guided walks along the shore of the Thames, useful for your first foray.

Don't dig unless you have a licence. You won't need to dig, but licences can be obtained from the Port of London Authority (020-7743 7900).

If you don't find anything interesting, cheat. Jane Stewart at Grays Antiques (020-7629 3868), has great mudlarked finds for sale.


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boston.com News
By Helena Smith
September 11, 2005

ATHENS -- On congested, dusty Alexandras Avenue, the secrets of the sea seem a world away. But in Room 625, on the sixth floor of Greece's gargantuan police headquarters, the watery world of ancient shipwrecks and other archeological riches occupies the attention of Giorgos Gligoris.

The veteran officer oversees the Hellenic Police Force's antitrafficking unit, battling smugglers bent on snatching treasures from the seabed.

Traffickers have caught on to the fact that there are more than 12,000 shipwrecks in Greek waters. Many of the submerged gems date back to the Golden Age of the fifth century BC. Armed with archeological service maps acquired on the black market, burgeoning numbers of international smugglers have made it their mission to locate the wrecks, authorities say.

''In the United States and Europe, ancient Greek artifacts are, sadly, very fashionable," Gligoris said. ''Unfortunately, nouveaux riches like them because they're not only pretty and look good in their sitting rooms, but happen also to be a great investment."

Gligoris said some looters are coming to Greece and posing as wealthy tourists on yachts. ''They arrive, supposedly on a cruise, when their real intention is to locate wrecks and whisk gold and bronze antiquities out of the country," he said.

Criminal gangs, emboldened by the explosion of Internet auction houses, have come to see the acquisition of antiquities as a way to launder ill-gotten gains.

Faced by rising threat of piracy, Greece's center-right government has made locating and protecting historic wrecks a top priority. In the past five years, state-employed underwater archeologists have discovered 30 ancient wrecks -- compared with five wrecks in the decade before that -- at depths of up to about 1,970 feet, dispatching coast guard officials to protect the finds.

But the advances of technology, not least the ready availability of powerful search equipment, often mean that the modern pillager gets to the vessels before the country's overworked archeologists.

While high-tech wizardry has helped academics better understand the boundaries of deep-sea archeology, it has also allowed amateur treasure hunters to illicitly tap into Greece's vast underwater heritage. Increasingly, looters can afford to buy the sophisticated sonar equipment needed to locate potential treasure troves on land and sea.

''Technology has no principles," said Katerina Delaporta, who heads the Department of Marine Antiquities at the Greek Ministry of Culture. ''Looting has become a big danger because the development of diving techniques, and equipment is being used very effectively by people to plunder undersea archeological sites."

With shipwrecks scattered around the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, patrolling them is practically impossible, Gligoris said.

Once looters bring the artifacts to the surface, authorities have a difficult time proving that the items have been stolen without previous photographic or archival evidence of their existence, he explained.

''Greece has the longest coastline in Europe. The Mediterranean is a very big place," Gligoris said. ''We would need millions of archeologists and divers to police these waters, and the fact of the matter is there are only 15 of us who work in the country's antitrafficking department."

Thanks to the Romans's penchant for original classical and Hellenistic statues, thousands of sculptures are believed to have been spirited out of Greece by Roman invaders. Specialists also believe the Aegean seabed is littered with masterpieces that went missing in storms.

Many of these priceless pieces are thought to have ended up in the hands of antiquities smugglers after fishermen accidentally netted them. Invariably, the works are whisked out of Greece in fruit and vegetable trucks, according to police who have successfully stopped many such vehicles at frontier checkpoints.

Once trafficked, antiquities can change hands as many as five times before ultimately reaching the display room of an auction house or museum.

''It's not just this new breed of looter. The fisherman's trawler, also, has been the curse of underwater archeology for the past 200 years," said Harry Tzalas, a leading maritime expert and a specialist in the reconstruction of ancient ships. ''Evidently, there is a market out there, and the way we should deal with the problem is not with diver-policemen but by offering rewards that make it attractive for fishermen to hand over their finds as soon as they are discovered."

In the past seven years, four masterpieces, including a statue of the Roman emperor Octavius, have been delivered to authorities by fishermen in return for rewards, Ministry of Culture records show.


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The State
September 09, 2005

NORTH CHARLESTON — Clemson University would pay to restore the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley and develop a 65-acre research campus employing thousands under a plan developed by the Upstate college, the Hunley Commission and North Charleston.

The commission on Wednesday approved the first step, agreeing to turn over the Hunley conservation lab to Clemson in exchange for the school paying for the sub’s restoration.

“We have the opportunity now not only to complete the conservation of the Hunley but to help the academic future of South Carolina with a cutting-edge metallurgy and textiles restoration center,” said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, and chairman of the commission. “This helps get us to the finish line.”

The commission has been paying for the submarine restoration with private donations and some federal funds.

Clemson’s involvement means Friends of the Hunley and the commission will have more time and money to devote to building the museum.

If all goes according to plan, the restored sub, the first in history to sink an enemy warship, could be on display in four years, McConnell said.

Clemson scientists have been working with Hunley conservators on developing the best way to restore the sub.


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The East Carolinian
By Lisa DeVries
September 08, 2005



Students Dive for Shipwreck Conservation
If you think it's hard enough to wake up for school on a Monday morning, try doing it with sand in your underwear and a stingray that's a little too friendly.

A diverse group of 12 students, including three from ECU, traveled to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for two weeks to conduct an underwater class with the guidance and patronage of the Partnering Archaeology with Science and Technology Foundation.

Annalies Corbin, assistant professor of nautical archaeology in Maritime Studies and founder and director of PAST, and Sheli Smith, the PAST Foundation's director of operations, led the team of students to the Sanctuary's Shipwreck Trail. The Shipwreck Trail is a line of nine sunken ships in the Florida Keys that span three generations of shipbuilding: the oldest ship sunk in 1733 and the latest ship was sunk intentionally in 1987 to create a barrier reef.

"We chose the Marine Sanctuary because we like to work in marine protected areas, places where there are shipwrecks that have not yet been studied," said Corbin.

One of the team's goals was to identify and catalog 100 or so artifacts recovered from the Adelaide Baker, a timber carrying ship bound for Savannah that crashed into the Coffins Patches Reef in 1889.

Treasure hunters stole the artifacts in 1992, which has become an increasing problem for marine archaeologists. Fortunately, the items were later won in a court case by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and given to the PAST Foundation to study and identify for conservation. Taking objects from any of the sunken ships within the sanctuary is illegal, but Smith said it happens rather frequently.

When asked why the team didnot dive at the Adelaide Baker site Smith said, "There really isn't anything left. It is a popular dive site and likewise popular for treasure hunters."

The other focus of the class was to dive the Slobodna, a cotton bearing ship that sank in 1887 after colliding with the Molasses Reef. The site had been vastly understudied, so the students' goal was to create a comprehensive site map of the shipwreck and identify the ship parts. No artifacts were taken from the site.

"It was really interesting to see the expanse of sea floor the broken ship parts covered - it was about a mile long," said Stephanie Allen, a graduate student in the Maritime Studies program.
Students were also asked to brainstorm ideas about ways to exhibit their findings to the public. The maps and artifacts will be used for educational purposes, and plans are being made for museum and school exhibits across the country. The greatest importance of their findings is most assuredly its accessibility to the public.

The PAST Foundation is a nonprofit organization that combines history and archaeological research with educational community outreach. The foundation annually offers a number of field school opportunities in archaeological investigation for students and volunteers around the world. For more information on the PAST Foundation, go to pastfoundation.org.


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phillyBurbs.com
By Paul Garwood
September 10, 2005



CAIRO, Egypt - It was a quick end for a Bronze Age-style boat of reeds and tar, sinking just after leaving Oman on a voyage across the Indian Ocean. But its crew vowed Saturday to try again to prove that traders 4,000 years ago could have made the journey to India.

The 40-foot boat, dubbed the Magan after an ancient name for Oman, set sail Wednesday from the Gulf sultanate's port of Sur but several miles offshore it started to take on water and sank within 30 minutes.

Its eight-member crew - two Americans, an Australian sailing master, two Omani seamen, two Italian graduate students and an Indian archaeologist - tried to bail out the water but soon had to escape on a life raft to an Omani ship escorting the Magan, the crew said in a statement.

The boat was made from reeds, date-palm fibers and bitumen tar, with a wool sail and two teak oars. The team was hoping to make the 600 mile voyage across the Indian Ocean to the historic Indian port of Mandvi to follow what archaeologists believe was a Bronze Age trade route.

But high seas gushed through a part of the boat's hull just below the rim that was not covered in the tar used for waterproofing and reinforcement.

"The rim was not waterproof up to the top and the boat's bitumen amalgam coating finished 30 centimeters (12 inches) below the rim," said Maurizio Tosi of the University of Bologna, which was behind the project when it started in 1999.

The boat tilted more than expected, "which contributed to the faster entry of water" into the vessel, Tosi said.

The Magan will not be retrieved from the bottom of the Arabian Sea, said archaeologist Gregory L. Possehl, a co-chairman of the project and curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.

"Everyone was very saddened by the sinking of the boat on the first day," Possehl told The Associated Press by telephone from Oman. "It was a tragedy, especially after it had gotten off to a good start."

Tosi and Possehl were both aboard the Omani vessel that, along with an Indian Navy ship, shadowed the Magan and rescued the crew.

On a positive note, Omani Culture Minister Saeed Haithem told the members of the boat project Saturday that his government will back the rebuilding and testing of another boat, Possehl said.

About $250,000 in funding provided by the Omani government had gone into the project, said Tosi, who believed a greater amount would be spent on rebuilding two more vessels.

The Magan was skippered by Tom Vosmer, the vessel's American director of design and construction who know lives in Western Australia.

The project began after excavations on the easternmost point of the Saudi Arabian peninsula turned up fragments of bitumen with the impressions of bound reeds and rope lashings on one side and barnacles on the other side. The find was evidence, researchers said, of construction of vessels in the Arabian Sea during the Bronze Age.

The boat was built based on that evidence along with ancient texts and images. Although researchers aren't calling it a replica - there isn't enough evidence for that - it represents their best guess about how such a vessel might have been built 4,500 years ago.

Researchers had hoped the voyage would help them learn about Bronze Age boat construction techniques, plus how well such vessels worked, how to sail them, and what life aboard them might have been like.


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Tampa Bay Business Journal
September 08, 2005

Odyssey Marine Exploration's Shipwreck & Treasure Adventure survived Hurricane Katrina with minimal damage.

Odyssey was able to safely remove all irreplaceable artifacts and valuables including all coins and other high-value items from New Orleans before the storm arrived.

Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration (AMEX:OMR) is a marine exploration company with several shipwreck projects in various stages of development throughout the world.

The Jax Brewery building in which the attraction resides appears structurally sound, there was no flooding in the immediate area and security conditions on the streets of the French Quarter have stabilized with a massive National Guard presence.

Odyssey carries insurance coverage for damage and business interruption due to natural catastrophes and will provide more specific information about its coverage and other financial impact due to Katrina, in its third quarter 2005 earnings release and 10-Q filing.

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Torrevieja
September 07, 2005


152,220 people altogether - 107,141 Spaniards
and 45,970 foreigners - visited the S-61 submarine
from May, 20th, to August, 31st.

Eduardo Dolón has underlined the great appeal that the floating museum S-61 Delfín has for visitors. It has in fact become a great attraction for all those people who visit the city.

Similarly, the Culture councillor reported that the S-61 Delfín Submarine has been visited by the schoolboys and girls of Torrevieja and other cities of the Alicante province.

FIRST SUBMARINE HANDED OVER TO A COUNCIL BY THE SPANISH ARMY
The S-61 Delfín was retired from the active service among the Army ships on December, 10th, 2003, after 29 years of uninterrupted service at sea. The Ministry of Defence - in the person of the then minister Federico Trillo - and the Torrevieja council signed on the 4th of February, 2004, the agreement to hand over the S-61 Delfín .

That was the first time that the Spanish Army handed over one of its ships to a Spanish council.

In this way, Torrevieja has become the first municipality in having an Army submarine.
Converted for use as a 'living museum', the S-61 Delfin , a permanent static exhibition and a first-rate tourist and cultural attraction for the city, is situated in the Torrevieja fishing wharf dock.


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San Francisco Chronicle
September 07, 2005


The "USS Iowa".

There's a new battle plan for bringing the battleship Iowa to San Francisco.

The battleship's supporters now hope to gain the support of city leaders by turning part of the vessel into a museum about the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the contributions of gays, lesbians, ethnic minorities and women to the military.

The Board of Supervisors rejected the ship in July, and two supervisors explained their "no" votes by saying they objected to the military's policies toward gays and lesbians, while others opposed the war in Iraq.

"I think the Iowa could be a very powerful teaching tool regarding recruitment and U.S. defense policy," said Merylin Wong, president of the Historic Ship Memorial at Pacific Square, the San Francisco organization lobbying for the ship.

"There's a tremendous amount of archives documenting the contribution of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) veterans," she said. "It's all part of naval history, and it's all fact."

The ship is moored in Suisun Bay, and if San Francisco decides to bid for the Iowa, the city will face competition from Stockton, where city leaders already support the idea.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, wants the ship to come to Stockton, while Sen. Diane Feinstein, a Democrat, wants it in San Francisco.

A spokesman for the Navy Historical Society, which evaluates exhibits that appear on board donated ships, said an exhibit about a controversial defense policy would need approval from the highest level, the secretary of the Navy.

"That sort of thing would be judged on a case-by-case basis," said Jack Green, the historical society spokesman. "None of the (exhibits) I know of deal with social issues."

Contracts between the Navy and cities or nonprofit organizations that want to manage donated ships typically require that exhibits say nothing unflattering about the navy, government or military, Green said.

After the Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 in July against a resolution that asked local congressional leaders to support bringing the ship to the city, Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty cited the unequal treatment of gays and lesbians by the military.

The ship already figures prominently in the history of gays in the military. An explosion in one of its gun turrets that killed 47 sailors in 1989 initially was blamed on an alleged murder-suicide that Navy officials said was carried out by a male sailor whose romantic advances to a fellow sailor were rebuffed.

After an investigation, the Navy could not determine what caused the explosion but announced that it was "most probably" sabotage, though the evidence was circumstantial and there was no proof that the sailor or his friend -- who was married -- were gay. Both were killed in the incident. Congress ordered its own review and found the most likely cause was a ramming error in the six-story mega gun.

The Navy apologized to the family of the sailor.

"This is an opportunity for San Francisco to be first in displaying the value of acceptance for minorities and others who have sacrificed their lives for this country," said Steve Boeckels, 31. A San Francisco resident, Boeckels graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1997 but was discharged from the Army under "don't ask, don't tell" in 2000.

Boeckels and two other San Francisco gay activists who work to change military policy contacted the historical ship organization with their proposal after the Board of Supervisors voted against bringing the ship to town.

They are now seeking support from other civil rights organizations, said Jim Maloney, director of the Military Education Initiative, an Atlanta-based organization that seeks veterans' support for gays and lesbians in the military.

"If we can have a museum that tells the history of LGBT service, that might be an opportunity to educate (people) and try to change their minds regarding gays and lesbians serving openly," Maloney said.

The group is working up a new resolution for the board to consider, but support for the new plan isn't clear-cut.

Maloney, who lives in San Francisco, has met with members of the mayor's staff and Dufty, whose district includes the largely gay Castro neighborhood.

But their support may depend on the moves of other players.

"I certainly can see how powerful it would be to have a ship containing an exhibit about gays and lesbians in the military ... but part of my position is also that the city of Stockton has put up $16 million, and the city of San Francisco is not putting up any money," said Dufty, who called the support of the mayor and the port "paramount."

Mayor Gavin Newsom's spokesman said the mayor was "open-minded" about bringing the ship to the city but that support from the Board of Supervisors is essential.

Port officials said they will look closer at the proposal for the ship, which is 887 feet long -- just 34 feet more than the Transamerica building -- if the board supports bringing it to town.

Several supervisors have talked with the port's director, Monique Moyer, said Renee Dunn, the port's spokeswoman, though the board has not formally asked for any recommendation.

Wong said the cost of bringing the Iowa to San Francisco would be covered by private donors. She said it will take 400,000 visitors annually to break even, and she expects it to surpass that goal.

Maloney and the other activists hope telling the stories of gays and lesbians in the military could lead to a reversal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and public opinion already is on the side of those seeking a policy change. A survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 58 percent of Americans believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military and 32 percent oppose such a change.

Gary Gates, a researcher with the Williams Project at the UCLA School of Law, estimates that if the military lifted its ban on gays serving openly, 41,000 additional male recruits would join the armed forces. More than 14,500 men now serving in the military are gay, he said. The Williams Project is a think tank specializing in sexual orientation law and public policy.

Last week, the California Legislature became the country's first legislature to ask the federal government to change its policy so gays and lesbians could serve openly.


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Golf News
September 08, 2005

Jakarta: Wooden ships laden with ceramic pots, golden necklaces and valuable spices have for centuries navigated Indonesian waters, a key trade route linking Asia with Europe and the Middle East. And for just as many years, they have been sinking.

No one knows that better than Adi Agung, who later this month will wrap up salvage operations on a Chinese ship that went down in the crystal blue Java Sea more than 1,000 years ago.

So far, 422,000 artefacts have been recovered from the wreckage 54 metres below the surface in what could be the largest cargo of ceramics ever found.

Christie's, which is expected to auction the items in 2006 and 2007, says it's worth millions of dollars.

Most of the goods are fine white or green wares from northern and southern China dating to the early 10th century. But the vessel also contains Egyptian artefacts and Lebanese glassware, and experts say the rarity and variety of the items could shed new light on inter-Asian trade.

Agung, who started the PT Paradigma Putra Sejahtera salvage company four years ago, explored 30 already looted wrecks before receiving word that fisherman had found pieces of ceramics while trawling for snails about 220 km northwest of Jakarta.

"It was unbelievable, amazing," said the 37-year-old Agung, among the first divers to take a look at the wreckage in mid-2003. "There was no coral at all, just a mound of ceramics" 100 metres long, 45 metres wide and 30 metres high.

Thirty per cent of the pieces were in pristine condition, many of them green ceramic dishes from China's Five Dynasties period (907-960 A.D.)

Among the most prized possessions are a white vase with a long slender neck and sloping shoulders believed to be from the Liao dynasty (907-1125 AD) and a flask made of a brilliant emerald green translucent glass tentatively attributed to 10th century Egypt. There are also thousands of rubies, bronze coins, silver mirrors, ceremonial tools and shipping equipment.

"Discoveries like this show how important the sea floor is," said Thijs Maarleveld, a founding member of the International Committee on the Underwater Cultural Heritage and a lecturer on maritime archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.


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CDNN
By Martin DeAngelis
September 06, 2005

USA -- Tom Maddox has gone exploring on hundreds of shipwrecks - or is it thousands? - in his decades as a scuba diver and teacher. But he'd never been more than 210 feet below the surface until a few weeks ago, after an old friend offered him the chance to see the world's most famous wreck with his own two eyes.

The only problem is that the Titanic is about 12,500 feet, or almost 2 1/2 miles, under the cold, crashing waters of the North Atlantic. But Maddox, an owner of East Coast Diving Supply here, had an expert guide taking him and another member of his expedition with him for the long trip down in a tiny, high-tech Russian submarine that's so used to alien environments, it's named Mir - just like the space station.

Still, 2 1/2 miles of water isn't just one problem, it's a world of problems. There's the water temperature, which was just 36 degrees at the Titanic's depth that August day, so cold that the temperature inside the sub dropped to about 50 degrees as the frigid water pressed on the walls after they were down there a while.

And they were down there a long while, because Maddox was part of a documentary team put together by David Concannon, a lawyer who splits his time between Ocean City and Wayne, Pa. The expedition mission was to film a History Channel special on previously unexplored parts of the wreck site from the ship's April 15, 1912, sinking. It takes a Mir 21/2 hours to drop down to the ocean floor and the about the same to climb back up, so to get any meaningful time at the bottom doing his job - Maddox was there to scout out and shoot television-quality video - he ended up being in the sub for 12 hours.

There are two Mir submersibles, approximately 26 feet long and whale-shaped, with a three-passenger compartment that's about 5 feet in diameter. These twin vessels are built for lots of things, like safety, utility and research, so they're outfitted with plenty of battery power, high-intensity lights - the ocean floor near the Titanic is "as black as space," Maddox says -computers and, on this trip, high-definition cameras. What they're definitely not built for is luxury.
"I spent 12 hours in a fetal position," Maddox says.

Maddox and Concannon have known each other for 20 years, ever since Concannon came to Maddox's shop for diving lessons and got Maddox as his teacher. Now Concannon is Maddox's corporate lawyer - Maddox bought out a dive business and equipment supplier in Pennsauken a few years ago, and MAR-VEL International has since won a series of U.S. government contracts for underwater equipment, particularly military gear. These days, Tom mainly runs MAR-VEL, and his wife and partner, Joan, is in charge of East Coast Diving. The Maddoxes live in Estell Manor.

Concannon has helped put together several expeditions to the Titanic and has also represented James Cameron - the man who made the blockbuster movie about the doomed ship a few years ago. Last month's project was Concannon's fourth time diving down to the Titanic himself, but his first time as the leader of the expedition, and he says he wanted Maddox along because he knew he could count on his underwater experience and his overall temperament.

"One of the problems on the Titanic is that it's really hard to know what you're looking at," Concannon says. "You have to have real expertise eyeballing shipwrecks, and Tom does. You don't want somebody in the submersible who has no idea what they're looking at down there, especially when you're exploring new areas of the wreck site."

Maddox took hours of video, and his boss on the project, Concannon, calls what he got "the best footage shot" - including the work of professional videographers. So Concannon is sure some of Maddox's stuff will make it into the History Channel special when it airs in January. He doesn't know the title yet but says it features John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, the stars of the network's "Deep Sea Detectives" series and subjects of last year's hit book, "Shadow Divers."

Maddox says he was interested in but not obsessed with the Titanic before he started the expedition. He'd seen the movie and watched some television programs about it, but mainly, he says, "I'm an equipment kind of guy."

So he can go on and on about the wonders of the Mir - "There are only three subs in the world that can go this deep, and these are two of them." And after all his years of scuba diving, with its emphasis on the pressure that the underwater environment exerts on human bodies and the slow returns to the surface it requires to avoid those bodies getting the divers' disease called the bends, he's amazed at the flexibility these completely pressurized vessels offer.

"The pressure on the bottom is 6,000 (pounds per square inch)," he marvels, "but in the sub, you have no idea of the pressure."

Still, when he got down there, and saw the wreck, and saw evidence of the human costs of the Titanic - simple items, like womens' shoes - "It becomes a very personal thing. You realize you're in a place where 1,500 souls were lost, in a hell-fire and brimstone kind of way."

To avoid being the next lost souls, the Mir captain keeps a bit of distance between his craft and the wreck. If it gets caught on something, the only hope for saving the sub is if its twin, which always dives with it, can come along and free it. The day before Maddox's dive, he says a strong current pushed one of the vessels into the wreck and hung it up briefly, but the captain got it out of the jam and back to the surface safely.

And just a few weeks before his expedition, the world - and the Maddox family - watched while foreign crews rushed in to free a Russian submarine that got hung up on the bottom of the sea. And that sub was in 600 feet of water, not 12,500.

Maddox went down and made it back fine, though, and he knows everybody else on his expedition did the same. But now that he's back to work and everyday life, Maddox also knows something else.

By seeing the bones of the Titanic in their own environment, 2 1/2 miles down, Tom Maddox has just become part of a very exclusive club. In the 93 years since the ship sunk, and the 20 years since explorers finally found it 400 miles south of Newfoundland, Concannon says fewer than 150 people have ever taken that deep, deep dive down to where its remains - metal, human and otherwise - came to rest after its tragic first, and last, voyage.


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Centre Daily
By Ashok Shama
September 09, 2005

NEW DELHI - International researchers attempting to sail 600 miles in a Bronze Age-style reed boat had to be rescued from the Arabian Sea after the vessel started to capsize, an Indian navy official said Friday.

The eight-member crew, including two Americans, left Sur, Oman, on Wednesday aboard the 40-foot boat made from reeds, date-palm fibers and tar, with a wool sail and two teak oars. Their goal: to follow what archaeologists believe was a Bronze Age trade route, ending in the historic Indian port of Mandvi.

Shadowing the reed boat for its protection were vessels from the Sultanate of Oman and the Indian navy. About seven miles into the trip, the reed boat met with "an accident" and started to take on water, said Cmdr. B.K. Garg, an Indian navy spokesman.

The sultanate's boat rescued the crew and returned them unharmed to Oman, Garg said. He had no further details about what caused the accident or the condition of the vessel.

"The sail has been terminated for the time being," Garg said.

The project was funded by Oman and some private organizations. Participants included archaeologist Gregory L. Possehl, a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia; Maurizio Tosi of the University of Bologna; and Serge Cleuziou of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.

Plans for the trip started after excavations in eastern Saudi Arabia turned up fragments of bitumen, or tar, bearing impressions of bound reeds, rope lashings and barnacles.

Researchers hailed the find as direct evidence of boat construction in the Arabian Sea during the Bronze Age and built their vessel based on that evidence, along with ancient texts and images.

Two days before the sail, Tom Vosmer, the vessel's director of design and construction, acknowledged that the boat - dubbed the Magan after an ancient name for Oman - provided little protection.

Vosmer said Monday that although weather forecasts were favorable, there was always the danger of a large wave swamping the vessel. He was also concerned about an early leak that needed re-tarring.

"The boat seems good, but it's completely untried," Vosmer said. "We don't know what it's going to do when we get into the big seas in the Indian Ocean."

Just in case, the vessel was equipped with an emergency life raft and life jackets, an emergency beacon, the navigation equipment and lights, a radar reflector and a bilge pump.

The eight-member crew consisted of Vosmer and the navigator, both Americans; a sailing master from Australia; two Omani seamen; two Italian graduate students; and an Indian archaeologist.

Researchers had hoped the voyage would help them learn about Bronze age boat construction techniques, as well as how well such boats worked, how to sail them, and what life aboard such a vessel might have been like.


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IRNA
September 07, 2005

Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) announced here Tuesday that once Sivand Dam is filled with water, part of Tanghe-Bolaghi containing historical relics of various eras will be submerged, except Pasargad and the Mausoleum of Cyrus.

The report released by ICHTO Public Relations Department on Wednesday said that Sivand Dam is currently under construction at Tanghe-Bolaghi 95 kms to the north of Shiraz, 50 kms from Persepolis and 17 kms from Pasargad.

Polvar river flows into Tanghe-Bolaghi. The significance of the area is associated with the fact that it is frequented by nomads and quite rich with major prehistoric monuments dating back to pre-Islamic era. Besides, it is covered with vegetation and plantations.

Some 130 historical and prehistoric relics have been identified by Parseh-Pasargad Research Foundation and the Archaeological Research Center.

The relevant survey was launched two years ago to rescue some of the unearthed objects. This was materialized in two years by conducting preliminary assessment of the site, collecting the relevant information as well as taking aerial and satellite photos and documenting them.
Besides, based on a precise program, the relevant sites were classified in accordance with various periods and the call for an international conference was released.

Following the call, seven research groups from universities of various countries including the Italian University of Bologna, the Polish University of Warsaw, the Japanese University of Kyoto, the French Lumiere Research Center, the German Iranology Center, the German Archaeological Center and Tehran University Archaeological Department jointly embarked on their first excavation season on February 20, 2004.

During this first season, in addition to documentation of palaeolithic caves and sites as well as those of other ancient ages, architectural structures of villages constructed between the rule of Achaemenid and Sassanid dynasties and the industrial-productive complex of Sassanid era were identified.

The unearthed ceramics and artifacts were transferred to Mazveh and the discovered sites were registered.

The excavation of a significant ancient metal mine is predicted to get underway by a joint Iranian-German team in 20 days, while the second season of excavation will start on a broader scale in a month.

The ICHTO hopes that through cooperation with the Ministry of Energy it will not only manage to preserve the historical sites at Tanghe-Bolaghi, but that this important project will set an exemplary nationwide model.


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BBC
September 06, 2005


Amateur divers had investigated
the waters in the early 1990s.

Specialist archaeological divers have failed to uncover any treasures during a survey of a water tank in Kent.

They examined a giant cistern underneath a paved courtyard at Knole, a National Trust property in Sevenoaks, on Tuesday.

The owners said the survey had enabled them to see how the underground network of tunnels and arches was constructed.

Knole was built in 1456 and was used as a hunting home by Henry VIII during the 16th Century.

In 2003, part of Stone Court started sinking so a structural radar survey was carried out.
It revealed that the cistern resembled a huge underwater church-like building more than 30ft long, with interlinking tunnels and arches built of carved stone.

The water is 12ft deep and used to be the main source for the house.

Before the divers went in on Tuesday a remote video camera was used to record footage of the structure.

Afterwards, property manager Steven Dedman said: "We haven't found any crowns or jewels which is a shame I suppose.

"But we have found such a lot of really interesting and useful information for us as the keepers of this property.

"This is just water storage 4m below the ground, never to be seen by anyone, and yet you've got these beautifully carved arches and wonderful brickwork.

"It's just so special to have that and to be able to see it now after 500 years."

The dive allowed the property's owners to see if the structure's current condition would support their planned re-paving of Stone Court.


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The Age
September 08, 2005



A bid by an Australian archaeologist and other sailors to recreate an ancient voyage in a traditional reed boat has struck trouble in the Arabian Sea.

Nautical archaeologist Dr Tom Vosmer and seven other sailors had set off from Oman for a two-week voyage in the Magan, a 12-metre-long sailing boat made of reeds, rope and wood, but capsized within hours.

"Water leaked into the Magan causing it to capsize, but a support ship from the Omani royal navy accompanying the boat intervened and rescued the sailors," a source from Oman's culture and national heritage ministry which organised the trip told AFP.

Experts on board the ship are now trying to repair the Magan to enable it to resume its 500-nautical-mile journey, the source said.

The voyage was aimed at reliving a voyage not made for about 5,000 years, when such boats plied the waters between Mesopotamia, the Arabian Peninsula and India.

Magan, named after a civilisation about 5,000 years old believed to have emerged in what is now Oman, sailed from Sur, 300 kilometres south of Muscat, to cross the Arabian Sea to India carrying fish, pottery filled with Omani honey, incense, copper and other traditional foodstuffs and wares.

The sailors, from Australia, Oman, India, Italy and France, were hoping to rely on stars, waves and the colour of the sky and sea to find their way to Mandvi in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

While carrying no engine, Magan is fitted with some radars and safety equipment and was being trailed by a support ship from the Omani royal navy.

Dr Vosmer, formerly of the WA Maritime Museum but who has been living in Oman for several years, was at the forefront of designing and constructing the boat.

He told the Indian Express newspaper last month that the boat was constructed using the same materials employed in the Bronze Age.

These included reeds, bound with rope handmade from date palm fibre. Bitumen, imported from Iraq, was used for water-proofing.

Wooden parts were made from teak, sails were hand-woven from sheep wool and the ropes made from goat hair.

The project began after an Omani-Italian-French archaeological mission discovered about 300 fragments of bitumen during excavations in the early 1990s.

Dr Vosmer was the first to understand the significance of the bitumen fragments, said a report in the Oman Observer.


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Herald online
By Ron Harris
September 06, 2005


Two workmen stand near the remains of an old shipwreck
dating back to the early 1800s that has been discovered at
the site of a large construction project in downtown San
Francisco, Tuesday Sept. 6, 2005. A dig crew unearthed the
first portions of the ship last week as they carved away dirt
to lay the foundation for a 650-unit condominium development.

SAN FRANCISCO - The remains of a massive Gold Rush-era sailing ship dating to the early 1800s have been discovered at the site of a large construction project in downtown San Francisco, archaeologists at the scene confirmed Tuesday.
The ship's decaying bow peeked through mounds of earth as workers under the direction of an archaeologist brushed away generations of dirt from its aging timbers. A dig crew unearthed the first portions of the ship last week as they carved away dirt to lay the foundation for a 650-unit condominium development.

"This is awesome. Everybody gets excited about this. It makes digging in all that mud worthwhile," said James Allan, an archaeologist with Williams Self Associates overseeing the removal and cataloging of the ship's remains.

The city of San Francisco, the site developer and Allan's firm have a standing agreement to record the historical value of any submerged cultural resources they come across at such sites, Allan said. It's not the first such find; the city's financial district rests atop a nautical morgue, of sorts, with hundreds of ships forming a portion of the landfill that used to be prime waterfront.
Allan said the ship remains do not have anything of value in it, other than history.


Angela Cook, an archaeologist,
works on sketching a Gold Rush
-era shipwreck unearthed at a
San Francisco construction site.

The ship was likely abandoned as Gold Rush fever overtook the region in the mid-1800s. In the 1850s, as many as 600 ships were abandoned in San Francisco's harbor, burned or simply junked by owners who switched their focus to mining the rich gold veins in the state's interior, according to Wolfgang Schubert, who gives historical walking tours of the San Francisco's waterfront for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

What's left of the ship would be removed, up to the Folsom Street property line. The rest of the ship, likely most of the stern, would remain buried, Allan said.

In a warehouse across the street from the construction site, Angela Cook, 28, also an archaeologist for WSA, worked on sketches of large timber pieces already removed from the site. Many of the thick wooden beams bore numbers carved into them, while others were held together by decaying iron bands.

The waters of the San Francisco Bay and the nearby coastline are a graveyard for shipwrecks from centuries past, as schooners, steamers and clippers failed to properly navigate the region's rugged sea floor. But this relic is two large blocks inland, just a stone's throw from the headquarters of Gap Inc.

Other now-inland shipwrecks serve as interesting obstacles for public works projects. The new Municipal Railway tunnel extension that takes baseball fans out to SBC park goes right through the hull of The Rome, a ship's remains underground at the intersection of Market Street and the Embarcadero along the waterfront.


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BBC
September 06, 2005


Knole House was built in 1456 by
the then-Archbishop of Canterbury.

Specialist archaeological divers hope to uncover treasures dating back more than 400 years when they carry out a survey of a water tank in Kent.

The divers will examine a giant cistern at Knole, a National Trust Property in Sevenoaks, on Tuesday.

Divers first entered the waters in the early 1990s but centuries-old silt was disturbed, making it impossible to see anything properly.

Radar surveys have revealed the tank to have a network of arches and tunnels.

Knole was built in 1456 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier.

'Particularly special'
The cistern is beneath the property's Stone Court, a flagged courtyard.

The complicated radar survey in 2003 found the cistern resembled a huge underwater church-like building more than 30ft long, with the interlinking tunnels and arches built of carved stone.

Remnants of the walkways created to enable the initial construction work seem to still exist.

The water is 12ft deep and used to be the main source of water for the house.

During the dive beginning on Tuesday, a remote video camera will be placed into the water to record comprehensive footage of the whole structure before divers take part.

It is hoped this will limit the chances of silt being disturbed and darkening the water again.

Steven Dedman, property manager, said: "This is an extraordinary achievement, a real architectural treasure trove.

"Not only is there very little information about cisterns of this type, it seems that the one at Knole is particularly special - how strange to construct something so ornate and impressive that so few people were ever expected to see.

"Having said that, you only have to look at the quite wonderful carved lead water hoppers, with their turrets and spires, that link the guttering which serves the cistern in this courtyard, to realise that the previous owners of Knole never did things by halves."


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The New York Times
September 05, 2005

CAIRO, Ga. - Along with regular lumber, Ryan Lee's sawmill supplies wood from cypress and pine logs that sank while being transported to ports and sawmills during the heyday of Southern logging in the 1800's and early 1900's.

Retrieving the valuable logs has been illegal in Georgia since 1998 because of legal and environmental concerns, forcing suppliers like Mr. Lee to buy them in other states.
But that is about to change.

This year, Georgia lawmakers approved legislation authorizing underwater logging for two years on parts of the Flint and Altamaha Rivers, mostly in southern Georgia. If no problems develop, the law may be extended.

Environmentalists oppose the work, citing concerns about spawning fish, water quality and getting less than market value for the logs, which are technically state property.

"This is the nursery grounds of the river," said Deborah Sheppard, executive director of Altamaha Riverkeeper, a watchdog group based in Darien, Ga. "To create a business that benefits a few," she said, "certainly is not in the public interest."

But State Senator Tommie Williams, a Republican from Lyons, said the law had been patterned after a Florida program, which he called a "safe way to do this."

"I didn't see a reason, as long as we could protect the environment, that we shouldn't do it," Mr. Williams said.

An estimated 3 percent to 5 percent of the millions of logs sent down the rivers in the 19th and 20th centuries sank to the bottom short of their destinations. These logs, known as deadheads or sinkers, remain well preserved on river bottoms.

The wood that comes from the logs is prized for its color and tight grain. It is up to 10 times as valuable as conventional wood.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources plans to begin accepting applications from loggers in early January. Applicants will have to post a $50,000 bond and will need a $10,000 license. A proposal, not yet approved by the department's board, would also require loggers to pay the state 20 percent of the logs' value.

Each license will cover a two-mile stretch of river. Deadhead logging will still be prohibited in areas where it could cause contamination, endanger fish or conflict with recreation.

Mr. Lee said his Cairo company, Riverwood Flooring and Paneling, had been pushing the idea for nearly three years and already had a small barge with a winch to lift logs to the surface. To attach the cables, Mr. Lee would dive down to the logs in the Flint River, which is infested with alligators, cottonmouth snakes and snapping turtles.

"This is not a job for the faint of heart," he said. "It's physically hard and demanding. Not everybody wants to do a job where every time you go to work, you could die. You're playing pixie sticks with 20-foot logs weighing 3,000 to 5,000 pounds."

Mr. Williams sees underwater logging as a way to pay tribute to the old loggers, including four generations of his family, who felled trees with axes or crosscut saws and hauled them to the river with mules or oxen.

"It's really a treasure," Mr. Williams said. "The quality of the wood and the uniqueness of the wood is something we can't duplicate. There really aren't any virgin forests left."


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Chosun
September 06,2005



An unprecedented excavation was made in the southern part of the peninsula, where archaeologists unearthed a fishing boat believed to be the world's oldest, dating back to 6,000 B.C.

A fishing boat, presumed to be 8000 years old, has been dug out of the ground at Changnyeong County in South Gyeongsang Province. Archaeologists believe the boat, made of pine trees, is the oldest of its kind ever discovered in the world. The Gimhae National Museum has been digging in this area since November last year.

Archaeologists were pleasantly surprised this June to discover a large quantity of earthenware decorated with animal drawings at the excavation site. Three more months into the digging and they unearthed the New Stone Age fishing boat from layers of sediment two meters below the current sea-level.

What remains of the boat is 3 meters long and 60 centimeters wide, whereas the original ship is thought to have been at least 4 meters long.

Until now, only boats built during the united Shilla or Koryo era have been found, meaning they were less than 1000 years old. The boat found today is likely to be more than 8000 years old.

Officials at the state museum said it was a miracle for a boat to be so carefully built during the New Stone Age, an era in which ironware did not exist.


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inq7.net
By Juan Escandor Jr.
September 02, 2005

CARAMOAN, Camarines Sur—A 19th century Spanish gunboat wreck was discovered last week off the coast of this town when a team of divers assessing the coastal environment here accidentally stumbled on it.

Gov. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said the wreckage, believed to be that of the Spanish gunboat Elcano, was detected submerged through a sound-tracking device at 8 to 44 meters deep.

Villafuerte said the team of divers lead by marine biologist Dr. Antonio Mines were scouring the waters off the coast of Cabacogan, Caramoan when the shipwreck appeared on the radar screen.

“It was an amazing find. Its historical value could be enormous, (it) might lead to the discovery of several unknown details of what a Spanish gunboat was and the war materiel of that period,” he said.

Villafuerte said follow-up exploration shall be conducted to further authenticate, assess, protect and preserve artifacts that could still be salvaged from the wreckage.

He said some locals have told them that unidentified persons have dived in the area and may have taken some artifacts before his team of divers discovered it on Aug. 24.

Citing historical records, Bicol historian Prof. Danilo Gerona revealed that the gunboat Elcano had been around the Bicol area in the late 1898.

Gerona said the gunboat was sent to Bicol by the Spanish colonial government to thwart the advance of the revolution here.

He said that on Nov. 7, 1898, the gunboats Elcano and Paragua entered Sorsogon Bay in search of ships flying insurgent flags.

When the two ships entered Sorsogon Bay, Gerona said, an English subject and a resident of Sorsogon town only identified as a Mr. Gibson inquired about the intention of the two Spanish gunboats.

The Bicol historian said Gibson sent a messenger boat bearing a white flag and was told by Spanish officers that they came to capture the insurgent ships reported anchored by the bay.

He said that when they were told that the insurgent ships have left, the Spaniards fired seven cannon shots toward the town of Sorsogon.

Gerona said that the gunboats Elcano and Paragua then veered toward the adjoining town of Casiguran and fired three more shots.

But he said no damage was recorded either in Sorsogon or Casiguran.

Citing historical records, Gerona said the two Spanish gunboats then headed to Burias Pass.

Mines said the shipwreck measures 15 meters wide and six meters high. It seems to have been cannibalized.

He said it settled some 750 meters off the Lingatin Peak near a sharp drop in the ocean floor.


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Mobile Register
By George Werneth
September 06, 2005


The USS Alabama in 1942.

A Battleship Memorial Park official said damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina on the park is worse than first believed and will likely reach at least $3 million.

Initial estimates had put the damage at park on the Causeway at between $1.5 million and $2 million. And the park -- one of the state's top tourist attractions -- could be closed for more than two months.

"We're hoping to reopen the park by Veterans Day," said Bill Tunnell, the park's executive director. Veterans Day is Nov. 11.

Tunnell added that the Veterans Day events normally held in the park's aircraft pavilion "will have to be held somewhere else this year" because the pavilion is "a total loss." He said the 36,000-square-foot building valued at $1.5 million is unlikely to be ready for reopening before next spring.

The Veterans Day events annually held in the pavilion include the Friends of Freedom Celebration and a patriotic concert.

One factor involved in the increased cost of Katrina's harm, Tunnell said, is that damage to about a dozen vintage military aircraft inside the pavilion is worse than originally believed. He estimated that it would cost between $250,000 and $500,000 to restore them.

Battleship park normally attracts about 300,000 visitors annually, but attendance was already well below normal this year when Katrina struck, Tunnell said. He attributed the drop-off to high gas prices as well as to tourists shying away from nearby Alabama beach resorts, which are still recovering from Hurricane Ivan. He said a lot of the park's summer visitors usually stay at such places as Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.

A major factor in reopening the park will be the length of time needed to straighten up the World War II battleship USS Alabama, which was left listing at about 8 degrees toward the shore by the storm surge, Tunnell said.

"Just the sheer size of the ship makes the project difficult," Tunnell said. He estimated that the storm surge at the park site on Mobile Bay was 12 feet.

The warship, which is 680 feet long and weighs 80 million pounds, is anchored in 20 feet of bay mud. Tunnell said Navy experts, as well as engineers employed by the park, were working to find the best way to move the Alabama back into its proper position. He said the cost could range from $50,000 to as much as $750,000. He said one possibility being considered was the use of heavy-lift-capacity cranes.

The park spent some $15 million in recent years to restore the battleship and its corroding hull, as well as restore and preserve the park's 311-foot-long World War II submarine USS Drum.

Tunnell said the two warships apparently sustained no structural damage from Katrina. He said, however, that the lights on a permanent cofferdam built around the battleship as part of the project were "blown away by the hurricane." Further, he said there was some damage to the cathodic protection system that inhibits corrosion to the underwater metal parts of the battleship and the cofferdam.

About 20 people, including park employees and their families, rode out Katrina inside the battleship, as has been a tradition going back some 40 years. Tunnell said those people who ride storms in the battleship volunteer to do so. He has said, "It's the safest place in the area to be during a hurricane."


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BBC
September 06, 2005


Alex Price, Roma Richards and
Mayor Grewal with the plaque.

News of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar has come again to Hounslow in west London, nearly 200 years after the bearer changed horses in the town.

Lt John Lapenotiere reached Hounslow near midnight on 5 November, 1805, to begin the last leg of his journey.

On Tuesday actor Alex Price, dressed as Lapenotiere, rode into Hounslow in a fast carriage like the one he used.

It comes near the end of a series of events marking the route the dispatch took from Falmouth to Whitehall.

Shoppers
Shoppers gathered at Trinity Church to watch Alex Price hand Hounslow's mayor Darshan Grewal a copy of the New Trafalgar Dispatch created to mark the re-enactment.

They cheered the "news" of the victory, booed at the mention of Napoleon - and fell silent at the remembrance that Nelson himself died in the midst of his greatest victory.

Hounslow's vicar, the Rev Oliver Ross, reminded the crowd that the defeat of Napoleon's navy at Trafalgar was "as important and powerful as D-Day," when Hitler's plans to dominate Europe, like Napoleon's before, were scattered.

He added: "Maybe we need to build again that sense of brotherhood" like that which famously existed between Nelson and his captains.

Unveiled
The New Trafalgar Dispatch honours the memory of Nelson; all the heroes of Trafalgar (including the defeated French and Spanish) and the "brotherhood of the sea".

Afterwards a plaque, recording the dispatch's last stop - a rushed change of horses at a cost of £1-14s-6d - was unveiled by the Mayor, assisted by Roma Richards of Cornwall, the great-great-great-great-niece of Lt John Lapenotiere.

Mayor Grewal said it was a "great occasion" for the town - "We should all be proud of that."
In 1805 there were 200 inns in Hounslow, for centuries a coaching town. Nothing of the High Street Lapenotiere saw remains. It is not certain which one he used.

But as the post-chaise set off along the High Street between Nationwide and Ann Summers on its way to a civic reception, vicar Oliver Ross commented: "We can't let such a bit of history slip through our fingers."


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Sun Journal
By Patricia Smith
September 05, 2005

MOREHEAD CITY - The threat of a fuel shortage has siphoned activities by state agencies on the coast.

A diving expedition planned to start this week on the shipwreck believed to be that of the pirate Blackbeard's flagship has been postponed indefinitely.

"We're just waiting until the fuel crisis resolves itself," said Chris Southerly, archaeologist and field supervisor with the Queen Anne's Revenge Project.

The divers had planned to use the Division of Marine Fisheries motorized barge Shellpoint for a two-week dive to recover more artifacts from the site, but got word that the vessel was docked under orders from Gov. Mike Easley, Southerly said.

The Governor's Office of State Budget and Management put out a directive to state agencies last week limiting all non-essential state government travel until Sept. 15.

For Marine Fisheries, that means no vessels leave the dock except for Marine Patrol boats, said division Director Preston Pate.

"Everything else, we're on hold," Pate said.

All sampling programs and other routine field work has been delayed, Pate said. And a Sea Turtle Advisory Committee meeting scheduled for Tuesday in Washington, N.C., was canceled.

Routine activities at the Division of Coastal Management have also been curtailed, said division Director Charles Jones.

"We're basically not traveling," Jones said.

That means anyone seeking a minor Coastal Area Management Act permit to build something like a dock will have to wait for an on-site inspection, he said.

The agency's policy-making arm, the Coastal Resources Commission, is also looking at fuel-saving modifications to its meeting that was scheduled for Sept. 14-16 in Kill Devil Hills.

The board had planned a joint field trip with its advisory council.

"The CRC is considering compressing the meeting to a one-day meeting which would be relocated from the northern part of the state to a more central location," Jones said.

The shortened agenda would eliminate the necessity for the advisory council to attend, but still allow the commission to hear variance requests within a strict timeframe under CAMA rules.

"The variances, of course, are something that they are required to hear," Jones said.

As for the Blackbeard dive, Southerly said the QAR Project hopes to reschedule the event for later in the month, or possibly in October.

Dive Down, an educational program to allow recreational divers to see the QAR site, is still scheduled to begin Sept. 18, Southerly said. The program is independently funded outside of state government.


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Centre Daily
By Ron Todt
September 07, 2005

PHILADELPHIA - Researchers have built a reed boat modeled on vessels that plied the seas more than four millennia ago and will try to sail 600 miles across the Arabian Sea from Oman to India, following what they believe was a Bronze Age trade route.

The 40-foot Magan, named after an ancient name for Oman, is made of reeds formed into bundles, lashed together with rope made from date palm fibers and covered with a woven mat coated with black bitumen or tar to make it waterproof. The vessel will be powered by a square-rigged sail made of tightly woven wool and maneuvered using two teak steering oars.

The plan is to leave Sur in Oman on Wednesday, taking advantage of the last of the southwest monsoon winds and favorable currents, and sail east 590 miles to the historic port of Mandvi in Gujarat, India, a journey that could take up to three weeks.

But it will not be a restful voyage, said archaeologist Gregory L. Possehl, co-chairman of the project and a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.

"There's no sleeping on this boat because the sails have to be adjusted all the time," Possehl said. The crew also will be "manning the rudders, seeing that the bitumen doesn't crack and go out of place," he said.

Crew member Tom Vosmer, the vessel's director of design and construction, noted it's an open boat with little protection from spray and waves.

"That can make living conditions difficult - constantly wet, exposed to the wind and sun," Vosmer said.

The project, funded by Oman and some private organizations, began after excavations on the easternmost point of the Saudi Arabian peninsula turned up fragments of bitumen with the impressions of bound reeds and rope lashings on one side and barnacles on the other side. The find was direct evidence, researchers said, of construction of vessels in the Arabian Sea during the Bronze Age.

The boat was built based on that evidence along with ancient texts and images. Although researchers aren't calling it a replica - there isn't enough evidence for that - it represents their best guess about how such a vessel might have been built 4,500 years ago.

Researchers hope the sea voyage will help them learn which construction techniques worked and which ones didn't, the capabilities of such vessels and the techniques to navigate in them, and even what life aboard such a vessel may have been like.

Possehl, who has excavated ancient sites in India and Pakistan, said part of the reason for the voyage is the spirit of adventure.

"Do we need this to prove the archaeological record? Probably not," he said. "Do we want to do this because it's a great adventure? Sure we do, and we'll learn things that will help us understand what the third millennium sailor had to face."

The eight-member crew will navigate by sun, moon and stars, as well as the wind, waves and colors of the sky and sea. There will be a GPS system on board as a backup, but the navigator "is never allowed to see it," Vosmer said.

Even maneuvering aboard will be hard, since crew members will be walking on cargo piled up in the bottom. The cargo is meant to be representative of trade goods of the period: copper ingots for making the bronze that gave the age its name, blocks of fine black diorite stone for carving, turtle and marine shells, pearls, frankincense, carved soapstone vessels, dates and date products, fish oil and sharkskin - an ancient sandpaper.

The crew consists of Vosmer and the navigator, both Americans; a sailing master from Australia; two Omani seamen; two Italian graduate students; and an Indian archaeologist. They will have a Bronze Age diet of dates, honey, legumes, dried fish, bread and water, but there will also be some modern munchies.

"I think it's a little bit unreasonable to throw us all into a Bronze Age diet suddenly, especially when we have to sail this strange boat across the ocean at the same time," Vosmer said.

Possehl will be shadowing the voyage aboard a ship provided by the Sultan of Oman. The other project directors, Maurizio Tosi of the University of Bologna and Serge Cleuziou of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, will be with Possehl.

An Indian naval vessel is also to accompany the boat, and that boat will have an emergency life raft and life jackets, an emergency beacon, the GPS, navigation lights, a radar reflector and a bilge pump.

Vosmer said early Monday by phone that although wind and weather forecasts were favorable, there was always the danger of a large wave swamping the vessel. He was also concerned also about a leak that forced the crew to haul the boat out of the water for re-tarring, although that seems to have abated.

"The boat seems good, but it's completely untried," Vosmer said. "We don't know what it's going to do when we get into the big seas in the Indian Ocean."


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CBS2.com
By Vince Gerasole
September 04, 2005


Watch the video.

CHICAGO - Tom Palmisano is going back in time, back to an era when hundreds of wooden schooners filled our bustling harbors every day, making Chicago the busiest port in the country.

The shipwreck that Palmisano is diving on is one of the many vessels that sank in fierce Lake Michigan storms. But this wreck, dating back to the late 1800s, is a very rare find.

“Normally our shipwrecks are in bad shape,” Palmisano said. “Fortunately, this ship is very far out, very deep, and well preserved by the freshwater that it's in.”

It's so intact that even after a century, the masts and rigging are still attached“Everything's there. It's a time capsule from 115 years ago,” said Taras Lyssenko with A & T Recovery.

Lyssenko found this shipwreck when he was surveying the lake bottom for old Navy aircraft. There on his sonar, undetectable to the untrained eye, was a distinct schooner-like shape.

“If you look close there's the back end, this is the bow. This stuff is rigging,” Lyssenko said.

While Lyssenko may have found the wreck, he hasn't found conclusive proof of its identity. But he has a hunch.

“We have a pretty educated guess that its length matches, its width matches, its depth matches … a good chance that it's the Thomas Hume,” he said.

The lumber schooner, Thomas Hume, nearly identical to this ship, was last seen leaving Chicago on May 21, 1891, bound for her home port of Muskegon. Newspapers reported her missing in a spring storm, and no trace of the vessel or her crew of seven was ever found until last month.

In order to verify the wreck as the Hume, divers will have to find the ship's registration number carved somewhere on the deck. A difficult task that will involve scraping off thousands of zebra mussels. For history buff and diver Palmissano, it's a labor of love.

“It's always a working project. Every time we go down we learn more about the ship,” Palmisano said.

Lyssenko and his group hope to conclusively identify the mystery ship in the next couple of months.


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The Cincinnati Post
September 05, 2005


The Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

One out of three ain't bad.

Starting on Friday, history buffs will have a chance to explore a life-sized model of the Nina, one of three ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492.

The Nina replica will dock at Mike Fink's restaurant, at the foot of Greenup Street in Covington, until its departure on Sept. 19.

Built completely by hand without power tools, the ship was called "the most historically correct Columbus replica ever built" by Archaeology magazine.

It was used in the film "1492" that starred Gerard Depardieu and was directed by Ridley Scott.
Built by the British Virgin Islands-based Columbus Foundation, the ship has toured since 1992 as a sailing museum to educate the public.

The original Nina was a caravel, a Portuguese ship with a Scandinavian-style bow and combination square and lateen rigging. The Columbus Foundation calls the caravel the best open-water sailing vessel of the Age of Discovery.

The Nina's official name was the Santa Clara, the patron saint of Moguer, the home of her master-owner Juan Nino, from whose name came the nickname Nina.

It was Columbus' favorite of the three he took to the New World, and the only one that survived the entire first voyage.

She logged at least 25,000 miles under Columbus' command, including three trips to the Americas.

A self-guided tour of the ship costs $5 for adults, $4 for senior citizens and $3 for students. Children 4 and under are free. No reservations are needed.

The ship will be open every day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Teachers who want to schedule a 30-minute guided tour with a group of at least 15 may call (787) 421-0402 or e-mail columfnd@surfbvi.com.


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The Star
By Michael Cheang
September 05, 2005


One of the ships of Khubilai Khan’s lost fleet,
in Khubilai Khan: Fall of the Mongol Hordes.

Khubilai Khan was a man who had everything. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan, and had successfully taken over his grandfather’s rule of China seven centuries ago. Nevertheless, there is one country that defied him – Japan.

So it was, that in the year 1281, Khubilai Khan (also known as Kublai Khan) built an armada of 4,400 ships carrying 140,000 men, and set forth to conquer the Land of the Rising Sun.

However, one fateful night in August that year, the massive fleet and all its crew members mysteriously vanished. It was the largest loss of life at sea in history, and a turning point that changed the history of the world, as we know it.

Discovery Channel (Astro Channel 50) will be screening a one-hour documentary, Khubilai Khan: Fall of the Mongol Hordes, that reveals how the legacy left behind by Genghis Khan was destroyed in one night in the greatest naval disaster of all time.

This programme follows diving expert and marine archaeologist Kenzo Hayashida of the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology and his team as they investigate the wreck of a huge Mongol warship in search of valuable evidence of the doomed armada’s final moments.

For nearly 700 years the fleet was lost, and the story behind its demise left to mere speculation, until in 1981 when a Japanese fisherman found a bronze object featuring stylised Mongol writing.

Using the coordinates from the fishing vessel, Hayashida’s team found the wreck of a huge Mongol warship, which helped them discover the truth behind the greatest disaster in military history.


A scene depicting Khubilai Khan as he resolves
to conquer the Land of the Rising Sun.

When Hayashida saw the bronze seal in 1989, he knew that it was a very important artefact.

“It was a written (curved) specimen that was different from the other muted artefacts found at the excavation site,” he explained during a telephone conference from Japan recently.

“The bronze seal belonged to ‘a captain of a thousand soldiers’, and it proves that Kublai Khan’s fleet really was here and that their ships sank here in 1281.”

However, they still could not tell what kind of ship the seal came from until 2001, when they finally excavated some large-sized timbers that belonged to the ship.

Hayashida went to Takashima in 1989 to supervise the search and excavation of Mongol ships that may have sunk there. His hard work was rewarded when, in 1994, the excavation team found a large anchor belonging to one of the ships, which convinced them to concentrate their efforts in that particular area.

Then, in 2001, they had a breakthrough when they discovered a treasure trove of objects that belonged to Khubilai Khan’s fleet.

“We found large amounts of artefacts that might have belonged to the captain’s ship – anchors, bronze mirrors, bronze ornaments, Chinese ceramics and lacquer ware, ink stones and stone figurines. Most of them belonged to Khubilai Khan’s soldiers,” he said.

It is assumed that Khubilai Khan had first sent an envoy to the Shogun of Japan seeking a good relationship between Mongol and Japan. However, from his missive, the Shogun and his clans perceived Khan to be very envious of Japan, and refused to give an answer.

Things then came to a head when Khan’s second batch of envoys completely failed to forge a relationship between the two nations and were killed by the Shogun instead. As a result, Khan decided to send his army to attack Japan.

“Historically, we know that Khubilai Khan attacked Japan twice –once in 1274 when about 900 ships landed in northern Kyushu and the second attack in the same place in 1281.

“However, no evidence has been found about those attacks until now. The discovery at Takashima gave us some concrete archaeological evidence that proved that the ships of Kublai Khan’s fleet sank at Takashima in 1281.”

The theory is that a “kamikaze” (divine wind) destroyed the fleet and saved Japan from invasion. A less supernatural theory derived from the archaeological surveys at Takashima would be that Kublai Khan’s ships were relatively old river boats that were constructed poorly.

Also, iron nails with high sulphur content were used and thus not suitable for ocean voyages.”
According to Hayashida, the program on Discovery Channel will show Khubilai Khan’s attack based on the archaeological evidence taken from the bottom of the Takashima Sea.

“The programme does not attempt to overanalyse or exaggerate the history of what happened at Takashima.

“However, through it, viewers can learn how scholars and specialists deduce the historical incidents that happened at Takashima in 1281.”

Khubilai Khan: Fall of the Mongol Hordes premieres on Discovery Channel (Astro Channel 50) on Sept 11 at 9pm. The repeats are on Sept 12 (1pm), Sept 14 (7pm), Sept 15 (3am, 11am) and Sept 18 (9am).



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St. Petersburg Times
By Mark Albright
September 05, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - The sign in the French Quarter storefront beckons passers-by to peek in a tiny window of the steel tank. Inside is an underwater robot that should be picking up gold coins, and an invitation to come in and drive the remote-controlled rig.

That's the hook that by now was supposed to be reeling in the curious to a new shipwreck attraction that represents a Tampa company's first step into the storefront tourist attraction business.

Instead, Hurricane Katrina abruptly shut the place down two days after the grand opening hoopla. Nobody's guessing when the barricaded attraction might reopen.

Winds and floodwaters did minimal damage in the French Quarter, leaving the new Odyssey Shipwreck & Treasure Adventure with nothing worse than wet carpet from a roof leak. But looters, some of them armed, plagued the streets all week. A tense mass evacuation of tourists and residents is depopulating the city for an untold number of weeks, leaving indelible images in many travelers' memories.

So now, one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history has the Tampa creators of an attraction about a ship sunk by a hurricane 140 years ago pondering what do after this latest storm may have brought down New Orleans.

"It's been a week of 22-hour days," said an exhausted Greg Stemm, co-founder and director of Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. After the National Guard set up a command post by the company's riverfront attraction, colleagues tracked down most of two dozen now-homeless employees in New Orleans, and fellow workers arranged to house them in Tampa.

That's not how it was supposed to be.

Odyssey, which finds and salvages historic, treasure-laden ships, envisioned its 90-minute adventure attraction as a vehicle to turn artifacts, effects and rare coins it exhumes from the ocean bottom into cash.

Inside are hands-on museum-style exhibits of the high-tech equipment that shipwreck salvage companies use to meticulously pluck treasures from the bottom. One-of-a-kind computer games outline the science behind archaeology and how artifacts are used to reassemble history. The story is set against the backdrop of real treasures from the deep told in incredibly sharp high-definition video of the recovery of the SS Republic, which sank 140 years ago destined for New Orleans.

The company is negotiating to open a second of its Adventure attractions within a year.

Odyssey's hometown Tampa Bay area is high on the list of the 10 markets in the running. If the initial $3.7-million development cost in New Orleans ever provides the return, company officials envision up to 50 of them around the world someday.

While a venture into the attractions world appears to be a side trip, it isn't.

"This has been part of our plan since the beginning," Stemm said. "The attraction answers all the questions people ask us about how we do this work and gives them a taste of what it's like to be on one of our expeditions. We are using it to build a community of shipwreck artifact fans around the Odyssey brand."

The common perception of shipwreck salvage is of entrepreneurs living out an adventure that's a mix of Jacques Cousteau, Steve Zissou, Indiana Jones and grave robbers. It's an image Odyssey hopes to redefine with a marketing spin that explains the company's role in researching archaeology, charting history and unraveling the mysteries of the sea.

Making its retail face an education exhibit also takes some of the sting out of the idea of selling artifacts to pay for the high-tech research tools that make the work possible, an idea that offends many purists in the academic world.

As a Confederate and later a Union ship, the Republic claimed New Orleans as its home port. It went down in a hurricane off the coast of Georgia, loaded with cash and other goods intended to resupply the Louisiana city at the start of post-Civil War Reconstruction.

The French Quarter provided the historical atmosphere while the city, which drew about 10-million tourists in 2004, was supposed to provide the traffic. Some of the gold coins on display were hammered just down the street in a building that once housed a U.S. Mint and lost some of its roof to Katrina.

In a shopping complex shared by Ripley's Believe It Or Not, Virgin Megastore and Hooters, the Odyssey attraction is equipped with gift shops front and rear. Patrons could buy effects as pricey as Civil War-period gold coins for $1,100 and up or $12 resin replicas of delicate ceramics they've seen exhumed from the ocean floor.

Of course, there is a full load of themed T-shirts featuring a smiling cartoon logo of Zeus, Odyssey's 8-ton underwater robot that is the workhorse of the company's deep-sea recovery effort.

If it all sounds like a theme park, the resemblance is intentional. Odyssey's entertainment wing is steered by former Sea World, Busch Entertainment Corp. and Walt Disney World executives.

The exhibits are modular, so they can be moved from city to city. The computer graphics, CGI videos and flat-screen displays can be redone within days to tell the story of other vessels Odyssey recovers in the future.

"We packaged the story to educate and energize people of all ages," said George Becker, chief operating officer of Odyssey and a former general manager of Sea Worlds in San Diego and San Antonio. "We designed it for the whole family. This is all about bringing history to life."

The approach is slick, but the idea is hardly a first. Florida treasure hunter Mel Fischer for years has sold shipwreck artifacts from a Key West museum. But after closing a branch in Orlando, he learned the format doesn't travel well. In Charleston, S.C., a new museum displays the wreck of a recovered Confederate submarine. Attractions marketers, however, have been reinvigorated by the popularity of several private exhibitions from the wreckage of the Titanic.

The attraction is only one dimension of Odyssey's broader marketing effort. The company self-published a book about the Republic and the recovery that debuts this week. That follows a National Geographic spread last fall, an MSNBC/National Geographic documentary and a guest tour of the network talk show circuit.

Odyssey, which sold about $24-million in artifacts in the past year mostly through wholesalers, has recovered about a quarter of the artifacts retrieved from the Republic that one hired appraiser estimated could fetch $75-million if sold at retail prices. In addition to being a revenue generator (admission is $13.95), the attraction also is a way to drum up more artifact buyers.

The company, which needs a long sales pitch to romance the history of its artifacts, sold Republic coins on the NBC Shop at Home channel and is filming infomercials. Each Treasure & Shipwreck Adventure patron is offered a free DVD of the retrieval work (the company has 3,500 hours of raw high-definition film). In return their name goes on the list of prospects for getting sales offers online, in the mail or over the phone from a sales force of two dozen at its call center in Tampa.

In its abbreviated run before Katrina, the initial buzz was positive among the few visitors.
"I loved how it tells the story of how this is done so simply," said Shelly Steele, a 52-year-old tourist from Atlanta. "My husband is a big history buff and an engineer. We've been coming to New Orleans for 16 years and every year they had something new like this."

"I'm a big video game player and the technology they used is really cool," said Luke Cashio, a 23-year-old cook at Cafe Beignet.

The attraction got a warm welcome from city tourist industry leaders who mapped plans to market New Orleans as a family destination rather than one known mostly for its adult diversions and overindulgences. In recent years, the city had dramatically bolstered its collection of art and children's museums and sees the success of the 5-year-old D-Day Museum as a catalyst for more. Three more museums are scheduled to open in 2006.

The storm, however, tossed all that as priorities shifted to saving lives, restoring order and pumping several square miles of polluted floodwater out of the devastated city. Water and electricity service are expected to be out for weeks, if not months. Pumping out the floodwaters could take just as long. Some federal officials even kicked off a debate of whether to invest taxpayer money rebuilding a city that's mostly below sea level and needs a beefed-up network of levees and canals to protect against floods.

Odyssey's short-term strategy in New Orleans was knocked for a loop. The company counted on curious locals to carry the attraction for the first few months. But the storm scotched a campaign of local TV spots and print ads. Now it's clear that even residents will be out of town and have more pressing matters on their mind for some time. Odyssey's volatile stock, which dropped from a high of $5.64 in July to a low of $3.47 two days after Katrina hit, closed at $4.05 on Friday.

But it has become clear that fully rebuilding New Orleans' huge tourist industry is going to take years.

"I'm not even thinking about reopening until the city's infrastructure is brought back. That's going to be months," said Bill Sims, owner of the Ripley's Believe or It or Not Museum, who previously owned Silver Springs in Ocala. "New Orleans will be rebuilt. I'm confident of that. But this is the worst disaster in my lifetime."

Other theme park industry experts are dubious.

"These attractions can open in six months, but it's questionable whether there will be any tourists there by then," said Steve Baker, president of Baker Leisure Group, an Orlando theme park consultant. "It's going to be years before the New Orleans tourist industry comes back.

Once engineers get inside a lot of those buildings, they'll discover damage that wasn't visible. A lot of buildings will have to be torn down or completely rebuilt."

Some owners of the city's 40,000 hotel rooms - a few thousand fewer than the Tampa Bay area has - already are calling for reconstruction.

"The long-term outlook for New Orleans is very positive," J.W. Marriott Jr., chairman and chief executive of hotel giant Marriott International, told trade publication Travel Weekly last week. "When this country gets mobilized and decides it is going to do something, it gets done. We are very confident that the city will be rebuilt in a timely fashion and come back better than ever before."

The travel industry recently learned that bargain rates can make reluctant tourists forget disasters. It took five months to get people traveling again after Sept. 11 in New York City, according to surveys by the Yankelovich Travel Monitor. It took four weeks after the start of the Iraq War.

But big-spending business meetings and conventions, which constitute about 40 percent of New Orleans' about 8-million annual overnight guests, will be a much tougher sell.

"Once New Orleans gets its hotel inventory back up, the leisure market will come back pretty quickly," said Peter Yesawich, president of Yesawich, Pepperdine and Brown, an Orlando ad agency that manages the monitor. "The bad news is that meeting planners who book group (meetings and conventions and package tours) business years ahead of time, will steer clear of New Orleans between August and October for years. That will be very hard to overcome."


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Stonepages
September 04, 2005


The Crannog Centre at Kenmore.

Scotland's unique cultural icon, the Crannog Centre at Kenmore (Perthshire), has been awarded the prestigious five-star grading from VisitScotland. The centre is the 55th visitor attraction in Scotland to receive the award out of more than 350 registered attractions.

The Crannog was built by the Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology, based directly on their excavations in Loch Tay and on 20 years of research. The development began as an archaeological experiment, but the team always intended to use the crannog as a living, educational resource. The authenticity of the site is underpinned by the continuing direction and research by the same archaeologists who built it which, together with a hands-on approach to the public, has proved to be a winning combination.

The centre’s creators, archaeologists Dr Nicholas Dixon, research fellow at Edinburgh University and Barrie Andrian, managing director at the Crannog Centre, are delighted with the award. "This is a wonderful tribute to all our team who were particularly commended for their welcoming approach and their well-informed and enthusiastic presentations. We hope that this award will have a positive knock-on effect for the whole community, helping to make the wider Loch Tay and Aberfeldy area a five-star destination,” said Mr Andrian.

Meanwhile, the underwater research on which the Crannog Centre is based continues apace. Following this summer’s activities in Loch Tay and further afield, the team is looking forward to enhancing the exhibition with several new discoveries and an expanded events programme for next year.


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The Decatur Daily
By John Davis
September 04, 2005



Who cannot imagine in his mind's eye that moment when Jules Verne's eternal creation, Captain Nemo, proclaimed, "Adieu Sun! Disappear thou radiant orb! Rest beneath this open sea and let a night of six months spread over my new domains." Who cannot see his submarine Nautilus slip beneath the seas in that immortal fiction? Such are the heart-pounding lines that fill this anthology of submarine fact and fiction, collated by Lamar Underwood, master of the genre.

Underwood, whose credits include editing the "Greatest War, Greatest Adventure" and other such collections, does not fail his readers with these grand stories of undersea heroism, terror, fear, strategy and wonder.

He has sought out 14 of the best submarine stories which, in light of this month's amazing rescue of the Russian micro-submergible by an international team, take on a powerful immediacy. To be sure, extracts of Verne's 1869 "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" are complemented by modern tales of undersea derring-do. There is for example the horrific true story of the loss of the USS Thresher. There is the incredible saga recounted in "The Terrible Hours," where Peter Maas tells of the actual events surrounding the Squalus that went down in 1939.

Each tale is more unbelievable than the last, but each stimulates the imagination by revealing what the mysteries of the deep evoke.

Again, great fiction is not forgotten. Who has not seen the movie "Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy, or been held spellbound by "Das Boot" (the Boat) about the last cruise of a German U-Boat? Each of these novels is extracted here. There is always, however, imminent death lurking in the background, for it is that which captures the reality of such a dangerous life. Robert Moore retells the sinking of the Kursk, the Great Russian nuclear submarine, pride of the North Fleet.

It is, perhaps, the mystery of death itself that plays such a central role in all these tales. One imagines a quiet death inside a metal container, where only technology can save those inside.

There, bereft of human agency close at hand, one is truly alone against the elements. Thus stories such as "A Time to Die," "Torpedo Junction" and "The Enemy Below" each reflect the business of submarines, to destroy enemies by secret attack.

Even a remarkable tale of victory against the elements, as recounted in the cruise of the USS Nautilus, America's first nuclear submarine, as it sailed under the ice caps, is tinged with melancholy. Lingering in the background is always dread, but the dread is paradoxically offset by the element of wonder.

It is, after all, the wonder we seek. Who, sitting quietly in an armchair before a crackling fire, cannot reflect upon these seafarers as one would upon heroes? I recall taking the measure of the recreation of the CSS Hundley, the first submarine of the American Civil War, which rests in front of the Charleston History Museum. Brave men entered that iron frame, there to pursue their dreams, for it is after all not only the conquest of the enemy they sought, but of the elements, and then of themselves.


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CBS
September 02, 2005


U-869's crew assembles on deck.

Only 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, in 230 feet of dark, frigid water, lays the twisted hulk of World War II U-boat — a German submarine that once prowled the American coastline.

Decades after the war, a team of daring divers found the wreck. They didn’t do it in the safety of a mini-sub like the one that found the Titanic.

As 60 Minutes II correspondent Mika Brzezinski learns, they risked their lives to swim down to it with just the air tanks on their backs.

They discovered a mystery at the bottom of the sea: the wreck was in a place where wartime naval records said no German sub had sailed or sank.

Solving that mystery proved deadly for three of the divers who lost their lives exploring the wreck.

But two other divers, John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, just wouldn’t quit. They call themselves deep-wreck divers — extreme adventurers who dive to depths even the most experienced scuba diver would fear to go.

"I identify myself as wreck-diver," Kohler says. "The majority of our friends are wreck-divers, and they understand us. There are people outside that circle, like you, who look at us and think we’re insane."

We met Chatterton and Kohler — the one with the beard — where their story began: on a dock in the small town of Brielle on the New Jersey shore.

The small fraternity of divers who like to risk their lives in their spare time gather here. It’s no place for average scuba divers.

"You know, putting a tank on their back, jumping into 30 feet of water, that’s a hobby," says Chatterton. "What we do is much more of a lifestyle." Writer Robert Kurson told the story of these underwater explorers — and how their obsession led them to solve a 60-year-old mystery — in the best-seller “Shadow Divers.”

To get a first-hand look at the world of those shadow divers, Brzezinski asked Chatterton and Kohler to take her out to sea, back to the place where they spent six years searching for answers.

Chatterton and a few other divers left this same crowded harbor one September morning back in 1991. They were checking out a tip from a fisherman who had found some kind of wreck on his sonar, 60 miles out to sea.

The men didn't know what they were going to find out there. It could have been nothing.

"Oh, sure," says Chatterton. "So our plan was I was gonna go down and take a look." Chatterton took a camera 230 feet down into the dark waters, where the shapes were eerie and unfamiliar.

"That’s when I saw the angled hatch. I went over. I looked into the hatch. I shined my light down and I could see the unmistakable shape of a torpedo. At that moment, I knew this is a submarine," he says.

Not just any submarine, but a World War II German U-boat. But which U-boat? And what was it doing off the Jersey shore?

German war footage shows a forgotten chapter of WWII: the story of German U-boats hunting — and sending to the bottom — dozens of merchant ships up and down the American coast.

American warships sank many of those U-boats. All of them were accounted for. None were missing off New Jersey.

"You know, this is my backyard. I know the local history," Chatterton said. "We know what wrecks are out there, and this thing wasn’t on the radar."

Chatterton and Kohler are local boys.

Kohler makes his living running a glass company in Trenton, N.J. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, where his father introduced him to diving. Chatterton discovered diving after serving as a combat medic in Vietnam. He says the adventure drew him to the sport. While the men call diving an adventure, others would call it danger.

"Well, there certainly is a significant amount of danger relative to my diving activities. But, you know, you have to manage that. And that’s what we do," says Chatterton.

Chatterton's video from the wreck shows just how dangerous. Pipes, wires and pieces of steel hung at crazy angles, ready to snare divers and their bulky gear.

Inside this undersea booby trap, Chatterton, Kohler and the rest of the dive team looked for something that would identify which U-boat it was. They thought it would be easy.

"Every single guy, without exception, that rolled over the side to dive the wreck thought that he was gonna be the guy to solve the mystery," says Chatterton.

They brought up dishes from the ship’s galley and the captain’s chronometer, which was used for navigation.

"In my hand, I’m holding a tangible piece of history," says Kohler.

And a fragile piece of milky glass that was part of the ship’s telegraph, which relayed commands to the engine room.


Wreckage of World War II German submarine U-869.
(Photo: CBS)

But on dive after dive, nothing they found had any kind of markings identifying the U-boat. The divers nicknamed the wreck the "U-Who."

German sailors called U-boats “iron coffins,” because three out of every four were lost at sea with all hands.

"When you go inside this U-boat, the viciousness of WWII is really right there, apparent," says Kohler. "It’s apparent the in the grotesque destruction inside the submarine. It’s apparent in the fact that there are these human remains and skulls, literally at times peeking right at you, peeking through you. And these people, at least to me, wanted me to find out who they were."

Finding out for Brzezinski and crew meant taking a small boat three hours — and 60 miles — out into the Atlantic, to where the wreck sat on the bottom.

Amateurs cannot dive 230 feet, so cameraman D.J. Roller, who specializes in deep-water photography, joined Chatterton and Kohler on the dive. Divers wear about 250 pounds of gear: fish out of water on the boat, but right at home in the sea.

It took the divers only about 5 minutes to follow the anchor line into the dark waters that hid the wreck. Down there, the pressure is nine times what it is at the surface.

The wreckage is strewn all over and the sub’s hull is torn — signs of the powerful explosion that sank the U-boat six decades ago.

That’s what leads Chatterton and Kohler to believe that the U-boat was sunk when one of its own torpedoes — packing 700 pounds of high-explosives — malfunctioned.

Things had changed since their first dives down there. The tides had ripped away parts of the sub's outer skin and pulled out objects like cooking pans, which Kohler found in the ship’s galley.

"There is no environment more intimidating than being inside a shipwreck in deep water by yourself," says Chatterton.

Steve Feldman was part of the team on the earliest dives. He apparently lost consciousness while exploring the "U-Who" and drowned.

"There is a significant amount of risk," says Chatterton. "And if you really want some kind of safe, wholesome family activity, this is definitely not it."

On their return to the wreck, Chatterton and Kohler could spend only about 25 minutes exploring on the bottom. It took more than twice as long to return to the surface, because they had to stop often to decompress.


The proof that was needed. (Photo: CBS)

"Decompressing" doesn't mean relaxing after a tough day. For deep-wreck divers, it’s a life-and-death process.

"One of your options is not coming directly to the surface," says Chatterton. "Chances are very good that you’re going to develop decompression sickness. You could be seriously hurt. You could be permanently injured. And you even could be killed."

Divers call decompression sickness the bends. That’s what happened to Chris Rouse and his son, Chrissy, who joined the dive team in October 1992.

At the bottom, they got disoriented, used up their air, panicked and went straight to the surface. Both father and son died from the bends.

"These were our friends," says Chatterton. "We knew them; we knew their families and that kind of thing."

"There were people that never got back on a dive boat, and a few that quit diving," says Kohler. "I mean, again, that’s something that once you see that, you can’t get rid of it. I can’t. But, you know, I personally could not give up on this U-boat."

"If I died on a wreck, the last thing that I would expect would be for my friends, my peers, to walk away from diving," says Chatterton. "I would expect them to continue on."

Which is just what these wreck-divers did — even though the mystery consumed their lives and broke up their marriages. Many of their fellow divers thought the risks were just too great to carry on.

Kohler and Chatterton narrowed their search to one bit of unexplored territory: the sub’s motor room, which was blocked by a large piece of fallen steel.

So Chatterton came up with a desperate — and dangerous — plan to reach it through a tiny opening. He planned to do something incredibly risky: squeeze through the opening by taking off his air tank.

"Sliding the tank ahead of me, I could get in there. Once I’m in the compartment, I believe that the compartment was largely intact. I could then put the tank back onto my back and retrieve the artifacts that we believed were gonna identify the submarine," he says.

It sounds simple enough, but according to Kohler, Chatterton "had a very finite, limited source of breathing gas. And he had no back-up, whatsoever."

It was a very close call for Chatterton. Tangled in debris, he almost ran out of air. He was able to get out, carrying a wooden box. What was inside wasn’t important, but one of the small tags on the front was the jackpot.

"These tags have the U-boat number here — U-869," says Kohler. It was that number that took the wreck-divers six years to find.

"This is the proof that we needed to conclusively prove that this U-boat was U-869," says Richie.

According to German war-time records, U-869 was ordered to the coast of Africa. But that little tag proved the sub never received those orders, and instead sailed to New Jersey — where she and her crew met their fate. The mystery at 230 feet was solved.

Both men have paid dearly for this mystery. Both nearly died, their marriages failed and three men were lost.

"There were two choices: follow it through to its conclusion or quit. So in many ways, yeah, you know bringing it to a conclusion was difficult," says Chatterton. "But quitting was just unacceptable."

"Never," Richie says.


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The Star
September 03, 2005

KUALA LUMPUR: People were coming in as early as Wednesday to see artefacts salvaged from shipwrecks, even though the Treasures of the Nanhai exhibition only opened yesterday.

“That is how interested Malaysians have become in learning about the country’s heritage,” said organising committee member Mimi Kolandai.

“And the timing (for the exhibition) is just perfect, right after National Day when people are feeling nostalgic.”

The treasures of Nanhai (South China Sea) are artefacts salvaged from nine shipwreck sites off the east coast of peninsula Malaysia which date back to the Song (960-1279), Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

The exhibition-cum-sale of artefacts is being held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre until Sept 11.

In conjunction with this showcase, a symposium on the Nanhai artefacts was held here yesterday, attended by over 70 artefact enthusiasts ranging from young people just starting their collection to those who have travelled the world in search of antiques.

“There is a growing interest in artefacts among Malaysians,” said main symposium speaker Sten Sjostrand from Sweden, who is managing director of Nanhai Marine Archaeology Sdn Bhd, an organisation that researches and recovers artefacts from shipwrecks.

“I’m very encouraged to see people turning up, willing to learn about antiques and buying the ones on sale,” said Sjostrand, a naval architect who has been carrying out research in South-East Asia for 30 years and scouring the South China Sea in the past 15 years for artefacts and shipwreck sites.

Economics major Foo Teen Wyne, 23, who was at the symposium, said: “It’s educational to find out about artefacts that are a part of our country’s heritage.”

Other speakers at the symposium were Dr Valerie Esterhuizen, a retired curator from South Africa; Dr Roxanna Brown, an expert on trade ceramics and shipwrecks from the United States; Prof Cao Jianwen, an expert on ancient ceramics from China; and Shamsul Sahar, curator for the Museums and Antiquities Department in Malaysia.


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Humbul
September 02, 2005

This German website has been designed by some professional divers involved in underwater archaeology.

It offers some introductory texts, both in English and German, about underwater archaeology and shipwrecks.

A few illustrated papers, in German only, are available under the section "Publikationen".

It is possible to access a list of the papers and abstracts. It is possible then to download the full-text papers in PDF format from each abstract page.

Subjects include archaeometric analyses on artefacts found on shipwrecks and concentrate on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Central Europe.

In addition, advice is provided to divers wishing to explore for themselves some of the shipwrecks.


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CDNN
September 02, 2005



NORTH CAROLINA -- The search for the Navy's first submarine, a Civil War vessel dubbed the USS Alligator, will resume soon off the North Carolina coast.

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of Naval Research are planning a weeklong search next week in the Atlantic south of Ocracoke Inlet. Details on the location and times were not released, but federal officials said Friday that they will target possible sites that were identified in a survey this year.

The Alligator, an iron cylinder 47 feet long, sank in a storm in April 1863 while being towed from Virginia to Charleston, S.C. Crew members were not aboard, and the shipwreck was largely overlooked for decades.

Federal agencies launched an initial search last summer and returned with a survey vessel earlier this year. Michael Overfield, an archaeologist with NOAA, said Friday the survey found about 80 sites on the ocean floor that warranted further study. He said that 50 were determined to be geological formations.

Scientists will use a variety of equipment, including sophisticated metal detectors and a remote operating vehicle, to examine the other sites in more detail. Overfield said it is likely that the ship's iron will still be intact after 142 years in the ocean.

He said the ship, which got its nickname because of its green appearance and low shape in the water, is significant because it was the Navy's first submarine and had several technological innovations, including a diver lockout and air purification system.

Researchers will work aboard the Afloat Lab, a 108-foot research vessel operated by the Office of Naval Research.

Shortly after its launch May 1, 1862, the Alligator was towed to Hampton Roads, Va. on a mission to destroy a strategically important bridge across the Appomattox River and to clear obstructions in the James River. But the water was not deep enough for the ship; it was taken to the Washington Navy Yard for modifications that included a hand-cranked screw propeller.
SOURCE - The News & Observer


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The News & Observer
By Jerry Allegood
August 27, 2005



OCRACOKE -- In the battle for submarine fame, the CSS Hunley has far outclassed the USS Alligator.

Consider their Civil War service: The Confederate Hunley was credited with sinking a Union ship. The Union Alligator aborted its first mission because it couldn't dive in shallow river water.

The Hunley was believed to have sunk in combat. The Alligator went down in a storm while being towed to Charleston, S.C. The Hunley sank with nine men aboard. The Alligator was unmanned when it sank.

The Hunley was the object of an extensive search and an eventual recovery in 2000. The Alligator -- until now -- had been largely forgotten.

On Tuesday, a research ship wrapped up its first 24-hour sweep for the USS Alligator, unseen since it sank in 1863.

Over the next week, East Carolina University and federal researchers working aboard a 108-foot Navy research vessel will survey the trackless ocean floor with a metal detector called a magnetometer and a side-scan sonar that depicts an image on monitors.

"It's called mowing the grass," said Tim Runyan, director of the maritime studies program at the Greenville university. "You create grid lines and the ship follows the track."

When the Office of Naval Research ship, called the Afloat Lab, locates promising sites, researchers will send down a remotely operated vehicle to take photos and gather more detailed information. If a site seems particularly promising, divers could be sent.

In its first sweep, the Afloat Lab made nine passes, each five miles long. Runyan said they got two promising hits. One showed up on a monitor as an indistinguishable mass -- it was later ruled out. Another object was apparently buried and will be studied further later.

The research team on Tuesday opened the boat to visitors to discuss the hunt. The wood-hulled, gray-topped vessel was docked alongside sailboats, yachts and trawlers. All day tourists and residents filed through the ship getting explanations of the equipment and the search techniques. On Tuesday evening, about 150 people crowded a nearby tent for a presentation.

The hunt, which also includes National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researchers, is concentrated southeast of Ocracoke, about 25 miles offshore, where the Alligator was believed to have drifted after it was cut loose by a tow ship during a storm in 1863.

Finding the Alligator will be a daunting task because the 47-foot craft disappeared between Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras -- the ECU program has found historical records on more than 2,000 shipwrecks in that area. Most are clustered near Ocracoke.

Even if the sub hunters don't find the Alligator, they say the search will raise a bit of submerged maritime history.

"It's a precursor of the later submarine fleet," said Runyan. "It's like finding a Wright brothers airplane."

Rear Adm. Jay DeLoach, deputy commander of U.S. submarine forces in the Atlantic, acknowledged Tuesday that the Alligator was not well known even to submariners. He said the recent attention was sparked when a rear admiral's wife pointed out a short magazine article to her husband and he suggested to his staff and others it was worth studying.

DeLoach said both the Hunley and the Alligator were important because they pioneered features later used in submarine warfare, including diving chambers and periscopes.

"The Confederate sub Hunley has sort of overshadowed it," he said. "Bringing the Alligator to life is opening a lot of eyes."

Runyan, who has researched and dived on shipwrecks in the Caribbean, in the Great Lakes and off Alaska, likes to speculate what would have happened if the Alligator had not sunk. "You wonder if it would have faced the Hunley," he said.

The tedious process of trolling through the so-called "Graveyard of the Atlantic" was also used in 1973 to find the USS Monitor, the famous Union gunboat. John Broadwater, head of NOAA's maritime history program, said at least four groups, two of them private, were trying to find the Monitor, which sank in a storm in December 1862.

Researchers aboard a Duke University vessel discovered the Monitor about 16 miles off Cape Hatteras.

Broadwater, who was involved with one of the unsuccessful private searchers, later worked on recovering Monitor artifacts and still supervises the preservation of the relics. He said the Alligator search was worthwhile for scientific and historical information.

"It's a little jewel there," he said.


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USS Alabama.com News
August 29, 2005



USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park has suffered immense damage from Hurricane Katrina as the killer storm ripped through the Central Gulf Coast area during the morning hours on Monday, August 29, 2005. A storm surge of at least 10 feet coupled with triple digit winds has dealt the Park a crippling blow. The unofficial surge is the largest ever recorded in Mobile Bay.

Initial damage assessments show that Battleship ALABAMA (BB-60) has shifted position and is listing some 5+/- degrees to the portside or landside. The aft concrete gangway leading up to the ship has been critically damaged. The Aircraft Pavilion has significant damage to all sides and may be a complete loss. Many aircraft and displays inside the Pavilion have been severely damaged. Submarine USS DRUM (SS-228) has apparently suffered little, if any, damage.

Although the Pavilion and Gift Shop were completely boarded for protection, Katrina’s winds, with a 108 mile-per-hour blast recorded at the Park while the Wind Gauge was still operational, ripped the boards from both buildings. Breaches to the Pavilion exterior are numerous. The Gift Shop glass walls were broken, with two feet plus of water in the building, which houses the Ticket Office, Gift Shop, Inventory Stock Room, and Snack Bar.

As this report is being written in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane passing through Mobile, a minimum of five feet of water covers the entire Park as well as Battleship Parkway. Water is lapping at the bottom of the I-10 bridges. Downtown Mobile has severe flooding.

The entire Battleship family, which includes Park employees, Battleship Commission members, and especially her World War II crewmen, are optimistic about the Park's recovery. Park officials have pledged a full restoration to make the Park bigger and better in light of this natural disaster.

A more detailed release will be posted after a more in-depth analysis when water goes down in the Park and Internet access is available.


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Boston.com News
By Michael Dinan
September 1, 2005

It was a cold, pitch-black night on the windswept Long Island Sound 75 years ago.

The captain of the freighter Thames, Roger Sherman, was smoking a pipe on deck and chatting with his pilot, Leonard Hancort. The 560-ton wooden vessel steamed eastward, about two miles off Great Captains Island, carrying a load of sugar destined never to reach New Bedford, Mass.

At 7:50 p.m., the two men saw fumes eddying around the base of the smokestack. Within a minute the deck burst into flame.

"We were driven off like rats in five minutes," Sherman, a Stratford resident, said five days later.

By then -- April 29, 1930 -- 16 of Sherman's 24 men were lost to the Sound, burned and drowned amid swamped lifeboats, screams and white-hot flames. The western edge of Tod's Point lay just 100 yards away, but the first person to see the burning steamer from the mainland -- the Tod family caretaker's wife, Arne Larson -- could do little but alert the Sound Beach Fire Department and watch in horror.

So goes the harrowing story of what Greenwich boaters call the "Sugarboat," named for her hot-burning cargo, in a series of articles published in the Greenwich News & Graphic, the forerunner of the Greenwich Time.

The tale has obtained the status of maritime folklore in Greenwich. Marked today by a buoy that warns boaters at low tide as much as it recalls the tragedy, the vessel itself is eroded by sea water and slowly sinking into the Sound's floor.

"At real low tide, with a full moon, a little bit of it still pops out of the water," said Craig Whitcomb, operations manager for the Greenwich Parks and Recreation Department's marine division.

That ghost has haunted generations of young sailors, says Joe Powers, 74, historian of the Old Greenwich Yacht Club.

"My daughters used to hear the story around the fire at camp," Powers recalled.

A retired chemist and history buff, Powers gathered much of his information for a written account of the Sugarboat by interviewing the late Frank Flower, a member of the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department who was on the scene in 1930.

The Sugarboat, originally called the City of Gloucester, was built in 1884 as a 142-foot passenger ship, Powers said.

"She plied the waters of Boston Harbor for many years," Powers writes in the account. "In 1927, she was sold to the Thames Company, converted to a freighter and renamed the Thames."

On its last voyage, the vessel's cargo included 100 tons of sugar and other bulk items, such as 20 bales of wood shavings and 25 barrels of oil stored several feet from the boiler room.

According to Sugarboat survivor Louis S. Hubbell, the blaze was likely ignited by a cigarette butt tossed into the boiler room. Hubbell clung to an upended lifeboat with several other men, according to the Greenwich News & Graphic.

"The rough seas caused the boat to upset, and other deckhands, (Hubbell) said, clung to the overturned lifeboat until their fingers became numb," the newspaper reports. "He tells of the horror and feeling he experienced, as one by one the deckhands lost their grip on the boat and disappeared out of sight."

Many of the corpses were never found.

"Over the next several days," Powers writes, "bodies washed up along the shore."

Powers says the Sugarboat's original crew consisted of 26, not 24, men: officers, engineers, oilers and "shenangoes," or daily dock workers. He also says the boat was heading for New London, not Massachusetts.

Historians debate the point.

The boat actually may have been running sugar to Byram bootleggers, according to the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich's 1990 book, "Greenwich: An Illustrated History."
According to the book, which was co-published by the historical society and Greenwich Time, Greenwich was said to boast more speakeasies than any town in Connecticut before Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

Former Greenwich Police Chief Thomas M. Gleason disputed that in an interview for Greenwich Library's Oral History Project. However, Gleason did talk about following a trail of congealed mash, disposed through the sewer system, back to a whiskey still in Byram.
"It was usually a sugar trail that led to bootleggers," according to the book.

Whatever its intended destination, even the wrecked Sugarboat could cause further damage.
According to former Norwalk resident Bob Bachand, a retired children's dentist and avid scuba diver, two boats struck the submerged boiler and sank, Bachand writes in his book, "Scuba Northeast, Volume II,". Both boats hit the wreck at night, before a buoy marked the Sugarboat's location, Bachand said.

Richard Taracka, a 21-year veteran of the police department, said he started diving down to the Sugarboat when he was an eighth-grader at Western Middle School. Police divers used the wreck for practice sessions, Taracka said, hiding objects underwater for officers to find during training.

"We really had to dig to find anything because it was pretty well broken up," Taracka said. "Just a pile of beams, really, stacked on top of each other."

Had the Sugarboat's crew been able to swim as well as Taracka, many more may have survived.
Only one crewman wore a lifejacket, Powers said.

"Townspeople in Greenwich could see the glow from the burning hulk from estates at Willowmere and at the end of Indian Head Road," Powers writes. "They could render no assistance because there was no rescue boats or communication equipment available in 1930.

The next day, three Old Greenwich volunteer firemen rowed out in a leaky boat to examine the still smoldering wreck. They found no signs of life."


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A União
August 25, 2005


O Lidador (1878).

O governo regional vai criar o Parque Arqueológico Subaquático da Baía de Angra do Heroísmo dando, também neste caso, forma legal ao objectivo definido no Programa do IX Governo Regional de criar os meios necessários à salvaguarda, gestão e divulgação do património arqueológico subaquático dos Açores.

A criação deste Parque, para além de permitir melhor protecção a uma zona de importantes conjuntos de sítios arqueológicos resultantes de inúmeros naufrágios ocorridos ao longo da história, contempla, também, a existência de dois sítios visitáveis, que correspondem aos locais denominados Cemitério das Âncoras (local de antigo ancoradouro do porto de Angra) e Lidador (local do naufrágio do navio a vapor do mesmo nome que rumava ao Brasil).

O executivo, reunido em conselho, decidiu ainda criar um Decreto Legislativo Regional que introduz alterações ao Regime Jurídico da Gestão do Património Arqueológico, aperfeiçoando o mesmo através da definição legal de novas acções susceptíveis de constituírem contra-ordenações.


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Kesq.com
September 02, 2005

NEWELL, Calif. - A dive team has found a Navy plane that crashed into Clear Lake more than 60 years ago.After a search that lasted for two years, several pieces of the torpedo bomber from World War-Two were pulled from the lake Wednesday.

The T-B-F-One Avenger crashed into Clear Lake during a training mission in December of 1944, killing the pilot and radioman on board.

The cause of the crash was never determined.

During the search, crews combed the area where witnesses to the crash said the plane had sunk and located a debris field that's about two-thousand feet wide.


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Aljazeera
August 31, 2005


The boat will be made of reeds
and have no engine.

An eight-member crew will sail across the Arabian Sea from Oman to India next week in a replica of a reed boat used by ancient mariners relying on only the sun, moon and stars to guide them.

The aim of the voyage, the Indian Express daily reported on Wednesday, is to establish that trade ties existed between India and Oman from the early Bronze Age, some 5000 years ago.

The crew will set sail from Sur in Oman on 7 September and hope to reach Bet Dwarka in India's western state of Gujarat in 15 days, the report said.

The multinational crew will take no modern equipment on board the 12-metre vessel and will instead rely on ancient sailing techniques for the 500 nautical mile journey.

The timing of the $200,000 venture coincides with celebrations to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties between India and Oman.

The boat, named Magan, will have no engine and no modern amenities like cabins and berths. The crew will study how life was lived on board such a craft.

Basic diet
Indian marine archaeologist Alok Tripathi, one of the eight crew members, said they would survive on a diet of dates, dried fish,


Crew to live on dates, dried fish,
pulses, honey, bread and water.

"One has to be mentally tough to undertake such a journey and I am prepared," Tripathi told the Indian Express.

Australian nautical archaeologist Tom Vosmer, part of the crew and the brain behind the expedition, told the paper that the vessel had been constructed using the same materials available in the Bronze Age.

The reeds are bound with rope made by hand from date palm fibre while bitumen from Iraq was used for waterproofing.

Wooden parts were made from teak, sails were hand-woven from sheep's wool and the ropes made from goat hair, he said.

Once the boat reaches Indian shores, its symbolic cargo, which the report did not identify, will be handed over to Indian representatives at a ceremony in Gujarat's Mandvi region.


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South Bend Tribune
By William Mullen
August 30, 2005


The U-505.

CHICAGO -- On a pleasant evening in early June, two former German U-boat crewmen quietly dined together in the new $35 million exhibit hall built by the Museum of Science and Industry for one of its most prized holdings, the captured German submarine the U-505. The occasion was a small dinner for the museum staff and selected guests the night before the exhibit's grand opening.

Karl Springer, 83, and Wolfgang Schiller, 82, were the only two of the seven surviving
U-505 crew members who could attend the ceremonies. Each was still a teenager when he joined the crew, and the mortality rate for submarine duty was so high that both men assumed they would be entombed inside the boat on the ocean bottom by war's end.

"I didn't expect to live," said Schiller, a tall, craggy-faced, white-haired grandfather who joined the U-505 crew in 1942. "None of us did. How could we? As the war went on, more and more boats failed to return from their missions."

Since the Museum of Science and Industry installed the submarine in 1954, it has been the museum's most popular single attraction. More than 24 million people have toured its interior, and for many, it remains one of their primary memories of the museum.

In telling the boat's story, the museum emphasizes the remarkable saga of the U-505's capture two days before D-Day in 1944. It remains one of the most daring acts of seamanship and courage in naval history, a tale even more vividly told in the new exhibit.

What isn't as well-known is the story of the U-505's combat service before its capture. Few who file through its impossibly cramped passageways have an inkling of its dark, violent wartime past, a vessel plagued with bad luck and, for much of the conflict, a hated, tyrannical captain.

Some of that story was relived the night of the dinner as Springer and Schiller reminisced. Two books on the U-505 published last year also detail its wartime service: "Hunt and Kill" (Savas Beatie), a collection of articles edited by military historian Theodore Savas, and "Steel Boat, Iron Hearts" (Savas Beatie), a memoir by crew member Hans Goebeler, published posthumously.

Being selected for duty on the U-boats, the most elite unit in the German navy, was a great honor. Only 10 percent of sailors were selected for training, and only 10 percent of them made it through. Most were bright, working-class teenagers who had proved their proficiency in skills like diesel mechanics or electronics in trade schools.

No uniform in the German military was more respected than that of the U-boatmen, but there was a grim reality behind the honor of serving on the submarines. As the war wore on, the average life expectancy of German subs and those aboard them dropped to just three months.

Early in the war, it appeared that U-boats might carry Germany to victory as they sank fleets of freighters trying to bring food and munitions from the Americas to European armies struggling against the German war machine. German "wolf packs" -- several subs operating in tandem to attack and sink convoys -- were the terror of the high seas.

Had Germany's success against Allied shipping continued for another year, it might have won the war. But by the summer of 1942, the Allies began to gain the upper hand with improved sonar locating devices and a rapid increase in anti-submarine surface ships.

Their "wolf packs" decimated, the Germans turned to a "lone wolf" strategy, using bigger, better-armed subs that could roam widely and hunt enemy ships by themselves. The U-505 was one of these, capable of missions up to 12,000 miles from home.

Home for U-505 was Lorient, one of five French coastal towns the Germans used as heavily protected submarine ports.

"We'd be gone for three or four months at a time, coming back and retrieving all that back pay every time," says Pete Peterson, 84, a mechanic on one of the U-505's sister ships. "We bought the whole town, sometimes."

Commissioned in 1941, the U-505 sailed out of Lorient in early 1942 on its first operational mission off the coast of Africa. It was under the command of Capt. Axel-Olaf Loewe, a skipper who demanded the highest shipboard performance from his men but was otherwise casual about military regimen and things like the dress code. Approachable and sympathetic, he was extremely popular with his crew.

Under his command in the early months of 1942, the U-505 sank seven Allied freighters in the Atlantic. As it returned periodically to Lorient for refitting and restocking, it was met with a hero's welcome, the men standing on deck in formation as brass bands blared and cheering crowds applauded them from the docks.

At sea in September 1942, Loewe suffered a ruptured appendix and was hospitalized in Lorient. By then, Allied units, using sonar and blanketing the skies with aircraft that worked in concert with sub-killing surface ships, were making life hell for U-boats. On the U-505, Loewe's replacement, Capt. Peter Zschech (pronounced "check"), was about to make life even worse for the boat's crew.

Just 25 when he took command of the U-505, Zschech was the youngest cadet ever graduated from the German naval academy, according to "Hunt and Kill." He proved to be an aloof, hot-headed tyrant, his approach rigid and by-the-book. Almost every account paints him as quick to blame others for his own ineptitude and to treat most of his 50-man crew with contempt.

The men decided he drove them hard because he craved personal glory. Wrote Goebeler: "We suspected that Zschech had a bad case of Halsschmerzen, the 'sore throat' common to many young officers that could only be cured by wearing a Knights Cross medal around the neck."

At sea, submarine crews were used to long periods of tedium broken by episodes of breathless excitement and terror. Electricians, mechanics and radiomen worked in shifts, manning their posts for several hours. When the shift changed, the men going off duty jumped into the still-warm bunks vacated by those going on duty.

When the sub captain spotted a vulnerable enemy ship, he might trail it for hours as he maneuvered the boat into position to fire its torpedoes. It was a tricky business that tested a skipper's skill, and most pursuits ended in failure when target ships steamed out of range.

Having sunk seven ships in a few months, Loewe obviously was a skilled captain. And when he sank an enemy ship, he was also a gentleman, surfacing to make sure that the life rafts of the survivors had adequate food, water and medical supplies, according to Goebeler's account.
Zschech, on the other hand, had trouble calculating the direction and speed of his targets. In his 14 months on the U-505, he sank only one ship, the British freighter Ocean Justice, but did it in a way that bothered the crew even more.

After Ocean Justice sank, "Zschech ordered us away from the site without checking on the condition of the survivors," Goebeler wrote. "That unsettled me. Under Loewe, we had done all we could to adhere to the rules of war and common decency." Under Zschech, "I felt that we were acting like the heartless hunters that the enemy propagandists portrayed us to be."

Most German submarines, including the U-505, were not equipped with snorkel tubes that would have allowed them to use diesel engines under water, and they had to rely on electric motors for propulsion. The motors were powered by batteries that ran down within a few hours, forcing the sub to surface and run on diesel power while the batteries recharged. That made them vulnerable to being spotted and hit by Allied sub hunters.

Two days after it sank Ocean Justice on Nov. 7, 1942, the U-505 surfaced in the Caribbean.

A British bomber suddenly roared down and dropped depth charges, one ripping a huge hole in the U-505's hull. The bomber was so close that the blast's concussion exploded the plane in midair, leaving the wounded sub safe but thousands of miles from Lorient. It took 37 agonizing days to return home, but heavy seas and bad weather helped shield it from other Allied encounters.

It was the most severely damaged U-boat ever to return to Lorient for repairs and was out of the war for most of a year. It was May 1943 before the vessel was deemed seaworthy again, but for months it would discover problems and have to return to port. The crew suspected French workers were sabotaging the vessel.

On Oct. 10, 1943, the U-505 pulled out of Lorient on its way to the Caribbean on the last cruise under Zschech's command. The war by then had taken its toll on the young skipper, who had seen all of his close naval academy friends disappear with their boats to the sea bottom.

As his last mission got under way, he rarely spoke and spent most of his time isolated behind the curtained doorway of his personal quarters, ordering the U-505 to travel submerged as much as possible as it traversed the Atlantic.

Midday on Oct. 24, 600 miles west of Lisbon, the crew began to hear distant explosions as Allied ships attacked another German sub. "Over the next several hours, the noise gradually got louder," wrote Goebeler. "It began to sound like the slow, steady drumbeat of a military funeral procession, inching ever closer to our position."

Zschech stayed in his quarters, showing no interest in coming to the control room to order evasive action. At 7:48 p.m., a frightened radioman hurried to rouse Zschech from his quarters. The Allied sub-killers had located the U-505. The captain drew back the curtain and emerged with a blank face while the sonar "pings" from surface ships began to echo off the sub's hull at an accelerating rate. The U-505 had been targeted.

The first explosion sent the men sprawling. The next knocked the lights out. In the eerie glow of fluorescent paint on overhead air ducts, the crew saw Zschech walking, still expressionless, to the radio room.

The next blast was so close that the boat tilted as if it would roll over. Goebeler, who was in the control room, saw Zschech on his knees, leaning over. Another tremendous explosion sent everyone flying. The emergency lights snapped on, revealing Zschech lying in his own blood, a bullet hole in his skull and his pistol nearby.

He was still alive, so the men put him on his bed. He groaned so loudly that the crew worried that the enemy destroyers above them, which had stopped the attack, would hear him and resume their bombing. One of the men put a pillow over Zschech's face until he stopped breathing.

"Everything was silent," said Schiller, who was stationed far back in the sub's torpedo room, "so the news passed through the boat in a whisper, one man to the next, that the skipper had shot himself in the head."

The U-boat's second-in-command ordered bits of debris ejected in hopes that, as it surfaced, the attackers would think their target had sunk. It worked, and the surface ships sailed on.

Schiller was ordered to bring lead weights to Zschech's quarters, where his body had been placed in a canvas hammock. They put the weights between Zschech's legs, and that night, as the vessel surfaced, Zschech's lifeless form was dropped into the sea without ceremony.

Skipperless, the sub had to return to Lorient. There the high command assigned Harald Lange, at 40 the oldest captain in the fleet, to lead the U-505. Lange, experienced and level-headed, bonded immediately with the crew. But hard luck continued to plague the sub, which never came close to sinking another ship. Instead, early in June 1944, it fell prey to a brilliant plan for its capture by Capt. Daniel Gallery, a Chicagoan who led the American anti-sub task force off Africa.

The U-505 and the task force, made up of an aircraft carrier and five destroyer escorts, played cat and mouse for several days until June 4, when Gallery's ships surrounded the sub and dumped a ferocious barrage of depth charges, badly disabling it.

As the U-505 surfaced, Lange realized it would soon sink and ordered his men to abandon the vessel. As they did, planes from the task force raked its conning tower with machine gun and cannon fire to hurry the evacuation along, killing one German and shattering one of Lange's legs so severely it was amputated later.

The Germans piled out of the badly listing sub and leaped into life rafts. That gave an American crew an opportunity to jump aboard the U-505 and halt its sinking. By doing so, they captured a German enigma code machine, top-secret German documents and the latest in German torpedo technology.

The sub was such a prize to the U.S. intelligence community that its capture became top secret. If Germany had learned that one of its submarines was in Allied hands, it would have changed codes and shifted away from the war plans captured on the sub.

Thus the Pentagon chose, in the case of the U-505 crew, to disregard the Geneva Conventions on prisoner treatment. The U.S. did not inform the International Red Cross of their capture, and their families in Germany were told the men were missing and presumed dead.

"Once in a while," said Springer, "the International Red Cross would announce it was coming to inspect the (POW) camp, and the night before, we'd be shipped to a hiding place."

When Germany surrendered in 1945, most of the men were not sent home. Instead, they went to England, where they remained prisoners and were assigned to work details that included putting up housing for returning British veterans. They were all released by late 1947.

Neither Schiller nor Springer is happy that they and their submarine were seized by the Americans, but both credit the capture as the reason they survived to the end of the war. "We were lucky men to get fetched out of the water," Schiller said, "and lucky to still be here, alive."


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Napa News
By David Eyan
August 30, 2005



Dr. Sheli Smith is a Napa marine archaeologist who has spent the last 20 years studying shipwrecks near California and around the world.

Last month Smith led a team off the Florida Keys for a look at a 19th century shipwreck, but the crew was not hunting for treasure.

Instead Smith, a former Napa Valley College professor, is preparing the first map of the 120-year-old Austro-Hungarian merchant ship called the Slobodna for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She was relying on a team of students around the world, ranging in experience from high school to graduate school.

While the map will give sport divers and scientists a better understanding of the wreck, the real purpose of Sheli Smith's expedition is to teach students about marine archaeology as director of the nonprofit PAST Foundation, based in Columbus, Ohio.

"Our main goal is to provide life skills for young adults and for full adults to understand the need for stewardship," she said.

The PAST Foundation mounts archaeological expeditions around the globe, lumping students together from high schools and universities around the world. Students hailing from Tajikistan to Ohio descended into the clear coastal waters off south Florida to check out the Slobodna.

The ship once ran cotton from the deep south to Europe, but in 1887 it got caught in a fierce storm while rounding the Florida Keys. It ran aground along shallow reefs while its hold was laden with cotton.

Since then it's been logged in history books as one of more than 100 wrecks near the Florida Keys known as the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary -- a tourist destination for adventure-seeking divers.

The NOAA doesn't have enough money to map all the wrecks, so the PAST Foundation offered to help it out by mapping the Slobodna.

Smith and more than a dozen students spent two weeks exploring the Slobodna, identifying different parts of the 170 foot-long ship and wreckage they found spread over a mile, about four miles from the Florida Keys.

"This was by far the best conditions I'd worked in," said Stephanie Allen, a graduate student from New Hampshire who helped map the wreck. "The wreck was gorgeous -- you could see about 70 feet underwater compared to one I was on earlier in the summer, where you could see six inches.

"Allen said the wreck is home to all kinds of marine life including coral, angel fish and the occasional black tip shark. A moray eel lives in the mast.

"If you were down there first thing in the morning ... you could kind of look at the hull and he was kind of poking his head out looking at me," she said.

Smith said the map of the wreck led the team to discover the process by which nineteenth-century salvage crews tore apart pieces of the boat they could reach. They also discovered previously unexplored parts of the wreck.

Annalies Corbin, who helped lead the team, said the Slobodna wreck is part of the PAST Foundation's mission to do research that would make otherwise obscure matters more accessible to the public. The foundation writes teaching curriculum based on their project and often has a documentary filmmaker in tow, taping their explorations.

"If you wanted to be Indiana Jones when you were young, we can help you experience some of those things," she said.


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The Star
August 31, 2005

WORLD-renowned experts from China, South Africa, the United States, Sweden and Malaysia will delve into the history of ceramic trade in the South China Sea, shipwrecks and maritime archaeology.

Come and be intrigued by the fascinating history of treasure below the sea and surprises of ceramics development.

Register now for this unique symposium The symposium will be held at Plenary Theatre, Level 3, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, this Friday from 8.30am to 12.30pm. Admission is RM80, and for students, RM40. For details call 03-7980 4889 or 019-3255 203.


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Indystar
August 30, 2005


LST 325.

EVANSVILLE, IND. -- A World War II-era warship that is to be moored in the city this fall rode out a storm surge from Hurricane Katrina in Mobile, Ala., its captain said.

Late Monday afternoon, Capt. Robert Jornlin, who was not on the LST 325, said his second-in-command Bruce Voges and his crew had a tough day of it trying to keep the ship docked. They had to loosen lines to allow the vessel, pushed upward by a 15-foot surge, to remain in its slip on Mobile Bay.

"We're fortunate again that we missed the direct hit," said Jornlin from his home in Earlville, Ill. "I feel for all those people along the Gulf."

Jornlin had just gotten back home after a month in Iceland for filming of a movie "Flags of Our Fathers," based on the famous photograph showing the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

He was there to discuss the possibility of filming some scenes in Evansville using the ship, which he did not want hauled to Iceland.

Now he's trying to decide which route to take to Evansville.

Jornlin said he hopes he can sail the ship to the city, which means reaching the Ohio River near Paducah, Ky., via the Tennessee River.

Otherwise, the ship would have to be towed via the Mississippi River. Downriver current is swift on the Mississippi, and the trip to Evansville would take too long under LST 325's own power, Jornlin said.

The warship will be permanently docked on Evansville's riverfront as part of a World War II museum. The ship is identical to vessels built at the Evansville Shipyard during 1942-45.

"I'd better have it up there Oct. 1," Jornlin said. "Or else, I'd better go back to Iceland and stay there."

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WCM
August 30, 2005

MEMPHIS, Tenn. A nearly 28-(m)-million-dollar riverfront project in Memphis might have to wait while a closer look is done at the city's riverboating past.Workers expected to begin driving piles this fall for the Beale Street Landing project. But when cobblestones were pried up in a 1994 survey, a preservationist who helped conduct it says all kinds of refuse and artifacts were there -- most of them preserved because they were waterlogged.

Guy Weaver heads a cultural resources management firm. He says the site of the new project covers a potential treasure of information about the city's steamboat days.

Among artifacts found during the survey were bottles, ceramics, horseshoes and a lot of shoes. Weaver says before the cobblestones were laid, people who stepped into mud that sucked their shoes off left them there.

Weaver says if an excavation is required, it would only take a month or two. But president Benny Lendermon of nonprofit Riverfront Development Corporation says it could cause the project to miss the low-water season to drive piles and push the job back for a year.


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