Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

Arqueólogo marinho australiano Michael Flecker afirma tê-la encontrado no ano passado.

Um arqueólogo marinho australiano julga ter descoberto uma nau portuguesa afundada em 1583 no estreito durante uma batalha naval, que seria a mais antiga embarcação europeia encontrada até agora naquelas águas. Em declarações ao diário "The Star" de Kuala Lumpur, Michael Flecker, muito conhecido pela suas explorações arqueológicas na região, afirma ter feito a descoberta no ano passado mas não revelou a sua localização para evitar que fosse alvo de pilhagens. Flecker garante que o navio se encontra entre Pulau Upeh e Pulau Panjang, uma faixa marítima pertencente à Malásia onde diz ter encontrado outras duas embarcações cuja antiguidade está ainda por estabelecer. Quanto à nau portuguesa, o arqueólogo presume que possa ter sido comandada por Luís Monteiro Coutinho e afundada durante um combate naval com navios de Achém (Aceh, Indonésia).

O arqueólogo, que detectou os navios afundados com tecnologia sonar e confirmou a descoberta com mergulhos, documenta o achado com uma série de fotografias de canhões, balas, ossos de animais e várias peças quebradas de porcelana da dinastia Ming. Flecker, que planeia recomeçar em breve as suas prospecções, admite que a zona seja uma espécie de "cemitério" que contenha mais naves. Espera que, a partir delas, se possa conhecer melhor o papel desempenhado no passado pelo estreito de Malaca - que liga o oceano Índico ao Mar da China meridional e é partilhado pela Malásia, Indonésia e Singapura - e por Portugal, que conquistou o território em 1511.

Luís Monteiro Coutinho (1527-1588) era capitão-mor no mar de Malaca. Feito prisioneiro pelos achéns (indígenas de Achém, reino situado na extremidade noroeste de Samatra), terá sido morto por um tiro de canhão às ordens do rei local por se ter recusado a renegar a fé cristã.

Cabe ao governo da Malásia aprovar a continuação das explorações dentro das suas águas territoriais e Frecker disse ter apresentado relatórios das suas descobertas ao governo de Kuala Lumpur. Na capital da Malásia, o ministro da Cultura, Artes e patrimómio, Datuk Seri Rais Yatim, confirmou ter conhecimento da descoberta e do progresso das prospecções.


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GDANSK, Poland -- POLISH divers have discovered the rusting wreckage of Nazi Germany's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, solving one of the most enduring maritime riddles of the Second World War.

For more than half a century the location of the huge vessel was kept secret by the Soviet authorities. Even the opening of the Moscow archives in the 1990s failed to produce a precise bearing. The once-proud ship was simply one of dozens of wrecks that littered the bed of the Baltic Sea near the Bay of Gdansk.

"We were carrying out soundings for possible oil exploration," Krzysztof Grabowski, of the Petrobaltic exploration group, said. "Then we stumbled across a vessel that was over 260 metres (850ft) long at a depth of 250 metres."

Divers confirmed this week that it was the German ship, though who owns her and what — if anything — will happen to her remains unclear.

When the Graf Zeppelin was launched in 1938, Adolf Hitler raised his right arm in salute to a warship that was supposed to help Germany to become master of the northern seas. But, when fleeing German troops scuttled her in April 1945, she had never seen service — a casualty of infighting within the Nazi elite and the changing tide of war.

The Graf Zeppelin was scuttled in shallow water near Szczecin and it proved easy for the Red Army to recover her after marching into the Polish port. According to an agreement with the Allies, German and Japanese warships should have been sunk in deep water or destroyed. The Russians repaired the ship, then used her to carry looted factory equipment back to the Soviet Union. In August 1947 Allied spies observed her being towed back to the Polish Baltic coast and then used for target practice at Leba by Soviet dive bombers. It appeared that the Russians were preparing for possible action against US aircraft carriers.

The Graf Zeppelin sank a second time, and remained undetected until now.

Lukasz Orlicki, a Polish maritime historian, said: "It is difficult to say why the Russians have always been so stubbornly reluctant to talk about the location of the wreck. Perhaps it was the usual obsession with secrecy, or perhaps there was some kind of suspect cargo."

At 262 metres, the Graf Zeppelin was comparable to the biggest of the US carriers that played such a significant role in the Pacific. She had a range of 8,000 nautical miles, meaning that she could easily have reached the North Sea.


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Portsmouth Today
July 27, 2006


Plans to build a world-class museum for Henry VIII's flagship have been left in disarray after a £13.5m lottery bid was thrown out.

Bosses at the Heritage Lottery Fund decided not to stump up over half the cost of the new Mary Rose museum.

The rest of the cash was being raised by the Trust.

They claim the proposed £23m building in Portsmouth's historic dockyard won't live up to high expectations.

It is a hammer blow to enthusiasts at the Mary Rose Trust, who were quietly confident of securing the handout, and a slap in the face for Prince Charles, the trust's president.

It is also a major blow for the city's hopes of increasing the historic dockyard's pull as a major tourist attraction.

Now the charity faces a race against time to draw up fresh plans if it is to stand any chance of getting the museum open by 2011, the 500th anniversary of the ship's first sea-trip.

Chief executive John Lippiett will seek an urgent meeting with lottery officials to pinpoint exactly where the ambitious museum project went wrong.

He said: 'The Mary Rose project has only got this far with the enthusiastic support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Liz Forgan, who chairs the HLF, said: 'The Mary Rose is one of the most important pieces of our nation's heritage. The trust rightly considers that such a treasure deserves a truly world-class museum. Unfortunately the project as it currently stands is not yet considered capable of delivering that vision.'


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24 Hour museum

By Caroline Lewis
July 27, 2006

The loss of Shovel's fleet, depicted here, spurred on the search for longitude. Courtesy University of Bristol

Researchers and students from the University of Bristol are investigating a fireship that sank off the Isles of Scilly nearly 300 years ago in one of the worst maritime disasters in British Naval history.

The dive will be the first archaeological survey of HMS Firebrand and the first physical study of this type of British Royal Navy ship. It sank along with a fleet led by Sir Cloudesly Shovell returning from Gibraltar in October 1707, when navigational error took them on to rocks.

Firebrand was launched at Limehouse in 1694, serving in the Caribbean and Mediterranean until her disastrous final voyage. Fireships were loaded with incendiaries with the potential to cause a huge amount of damage sailed against enemy fleets at anchor, but they were most often used as a threatening patrol or to escort sloops in convoy.

“This survey will contribute to a new chapter on the significance of small warships to the British Royal Navy,” said Kimberley Monk, leading the team. “The English were considered to be the very ‘Devils with their Fire’ since, under certain conditions, fireships could inflict more devastation than any weapon at the navy’s disposal.”

Firebrand could carry 45 men and was fitted with an arsenal of eight cannon, and had a tonnage of 268. The tragedy took the lives of more than 1,500 Royal Navy seamen in all, along with ships HMS Association, HMS Eagle and HMS Romney, and highlighted the pressing need for an accurate method of calculating longitude.

Following the disaster, the British Longitude Act created the Longitude Prize for anyone who could devise a practical method of determining longitude at sea (achieved by John Harrison).

Leading the field school with Kimberley Monk are freelance maritime archaeologist Kevin Camidge and Martin Read, a conservator from the Isles of Scilly. It will run until August 7 2006.


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One of the oldest boats discovered in Scotland is being excavated and raised from its site in the Tay Estuary.

The Carpow log boat, as it is known, situated near Abernethy, was discovered in 2000. Identifying it as a log boat, used for fishing and wildfowling, Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust radiocarbon dated it to 1000BC - the late Bronze Age.

Archaeologist David Strachan of the Trust explained: “It was discovered in 2000 by a metal detectorist – half of it was sticking out of the mud.”

“The buried portion of it was very well preserved with intact transom boards [stern timbers], but the exposed part is deteriorating.”

There are records of 150 log boats from Scotland, yet only 30 survive in museums or in situ and these are often distorted by shrinkage or warping. Records show seven log boats found in the Tay estuary, but only one survives, in Dundee Museum. Found in 1860, it has been dated to about 500AD.

The Carpow log boat is not only one of the best preserved, but also the second oldest dated log boat from Scotland.

Courtesy Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust

The Trust decided that although the half under the mud was in good condition, the boat needed to be excavated to save the upper half. When tides are at their lowest it is revealed, but the moving waters and fluctuating conditions are also eroding the wood. Until a strategy for its long-term preservation was devised, the vessel had to be sandbagged to protect it.

The log boat, which measures 9.25 metres (30ft) long and is made from a single piece of oak, is being lifted in two stages, with work due to be completed by August 12 2006. A specially constructed floating cradle is being used.

“It’s progressing well,” said David of the project. “We’re looking to lift the boat in three sections – it’s going to have to be cut into three parts anyway for conservation and as the lower part is buried at a very steep angle it would be extremely difficult to raise it otherwise.”

Excavations are taking place during the short low-tide windows, while the actual lifting on the cradle will happen at high tide. It will then be transported to the National Museum of Scotland.

“It will go through drip-drying conservation processes,” said David, “during which time it will go through further analysis that will continue for possibly two or three years.”

It is hoped that the boat will then be stable enough to go on show in Edinburgh and Perth, where visitors can admire the prehistoric workmanship.

The project is a partnership between Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust and Historic Scotland.


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July 27, 2006


As luck would have it, time ran short, and the silt and mud in La Isabela Bay on the north coast of the Dominican Republic ran deep.

Despite these setbacks, Indiana University archaeologists are confident they are closer to discovering some of Christopher Columbus' lost ships -- and the answer to a 500-year-old mystery, "What was on those ships?"

"The discovery of a Columbus shipwreck, let alone the finding of the flagship Mariagalante, would be a tremendous contribution to maritime archaeology," said Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. "Perhaps more important would be the cargo. Were the ships laden with native Taino Indian artifacts heading to Spain? Such a find would shed new light on the nature of the contact period between the Old and the New Worlds."

Earlier this summer, Beeker and Geoffrey Conrad, director of IUB's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, took a team of faculty and graduate students to the Dominican Republic to explore intriguing magnetometer anomalies the IU researchers had discovered 10 years ago. The readings suggest large objects buried under silt and mud, and within coral colonies. The readings indicate also that the objects are scattered -- similar to how a shipwreck, or several for that matter, would appear -- in a 75-square-meter area.

In the years since the anomalies were discovered and mapped, Beeker, Conrad and their graduate students have returned yearly to the Dominican Republic to complete a variety of projects related to tourism, conservation and the archaeological exploration of village sites and ceremonial wells related to the Taino Indians.

La Isabela Bay was the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement established by Columbus, and the Taino were the first indigenous people to interact with Europeans. Beeker said much of the history of this period is based on speculation, something he and Conrad are trying to change.

Their research teams are multinational and multidisciplinary, tapping such resources as the Anglo~Danish Maritime Archaeological Team (ADMAT) -- a nonprofit educational organization -- and the Genetic Anthropology Laboratory in IUB's Department of Anthropology. The latest research team included ADMAT as well as four professors and 10 graduate students from HPER, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the IU departments of anthropology, biology and mathematics.

Among their latest efforts, they retrieved a 300-pound kedge anchor that could be from the Columbus era. The anchor, which is being conserved at the laboratory of the Oficina Nacional De Patrimonio Cultural Subacuàtico (ONPCS), was encrusted with dead as well as live coral within the area of interesting magnetometer anomalies. The live coral was removed from the anchor and cemented onto nearby coral colonies.

"We're strong advocates that you need to respect the biology when you excavate," Beeker said.

Beeker and Conrad's team used a water dredge to dig down to the most prominent magnetometer anomaly pinpointed. The pump, which acted like a vacuum cleaner, was able to dig an 8-foot hole through the silt and mud, with the magnetometer reading getting stronger as they went deeper. The team ran out of time, however, and had to postpone the search until later this summer. They are optimistic. When they return, they plan to determine which shipwreck they found, not whether one actually is buried in the bay.

Beeker said that several ships sank in La Isabela Bay during a hurricane in 1495. Researchers estimate that eight or nine vessels were lost in the bay, including smaller caravels and one or two larger store ships, or naos. One of the lost naos is believed to be the Mariagalante, Columbus' flagship on his second voyage to the New World. Documents indicate some of the ships carried cargo when they left for Spain, but Beeker said the contents are unknown.

Conrad and Beeker described the La Isabela Bay research project as a long-term investment by IU, which has funded much of the research. They also believe it is a project for which the land excavations and exploration of Taino village sites are as important as the underwater explorations.

"Everyone knows the name 'Columbus,'" Beeker said. "We want people to know Taino, too."

Michael Krivor and Jason Burns' two-week expedition to the Caribbean didn't yield a definitive answer to whether the shipwreck off the Turks and Caicos Islands is the remains of the Trouvadore, a slave ship that crashed there in the 1800s.

The Jonesville marine archaeologists did find a previously undiscovered section of the shipwreck, artifacts that could help date the ship and adventure in the form of barracuda attacks.

"There were no eurekas - no shackles, no stern with the name 'Trouvadore' on it - so we still don't have a positive identification on the vessel," Krivor said. "But that's to be expected on project of this sort. We really accomplished a lot. We have a much better understanding of the wreck site itself, and I think we're all pretty happy with the end results."

Krivor, 38, and Burns, 34, both of Jonesville's Southeastern Archaeological Research Inc., were part of a team of researchers, divers and documentary filmmakers from across the country to spend the past two weeks in the Turks and Caicos Islands, located south of the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea. It's the second trip the team has made to the islands to try to identify the remains of a shipwreck as being the Trouvadore, a slave ship from Africa that wrecked offshore in 1841, freeing the slaves and essentially creating the population of the islands.

Identifying the ship as being the Trouvadore could provide the islands' residents a material link to their past, and could fill in a gap in the historical record.

On the first trip in 2004, the team worked in wide strokes, looking for the wreck itself. This time, Krivor and Burns spent their time combing the area meticulously with sensitive equipment made to detect metal.

Krivor and Burns spent about 10 hours a day in a 12-foot inflatable boat with a small outboard motor, dragging a magnetometer through the water behind them. The magnetometer detects ferrous metal, and was essential in finding some of the trip's most major accomplishments.

It helped them find the cathead of the vessel, or the piece of the boat that supported the anchor, and led them to the discovery of the previously undiscovered section of the shipwreck.

They had to endure blistering sunburn and barracuda attacks to get it.

The magnetometer is shaped like a long, thin rod, and Krivor and Burns encased it in something like a floating noodle to keep it from dragging on the bottom.

"We started seeing lacerations in the foam protector," Krivor said. "We assumed it was from hitting it on the reef. When we pulled the noodle off at the end of the day, there were two barracuda teeth left in there. We never saw them attack, which is pretty amazing. Those cuts were razor sharp, so the attacks must have been pretty ferocious."

The team discovered iron artifacts and ceramics that may help researchers date the shipwreck, and took wood samples from the wreck to help indicate where the ship was built, Krivor said.

The artifacts will go to the Turks and Caicos National Museum for analysis and later, display.

Krivor and Burns said they're not disappointed to come back to Alachua County without knowing for sure whether the shipwreck is the remains of the Trouvadore - it means they could get to make another trip in the future.

"It's absolutely beautiful down here," Krivor said. "Where we were working, it was on a completely deserted side of the islands. There were no other passing vessels, and nobody else even around. I'd love to say we'll be back next year, but I think next year will have to be devoted to fundraising."

JAMESTOWN, Va. -- Underwater archaeologists have discovered a trove of history in the waters around Jamestown.

Among their finds: 26 shipwrecks, including numerous barges approaching 100 feet in length as well as a 72-foot-long skipjack; and landings, wharves and piers, including one that may be linked to early 17th-century Virginia Gov. George Yeardley.

Stephen Bilicki has studied the Chesapeake Bay shoreline for nearly 20 years, and he's still amazed at what the waters cloak. In just 10 days of work, for instance, Bilicki and his research team uncovered 70 potential archaeological sites around the 7.8-mile perimeter of the island.

"That's the most shocking thing about this kind of work," Bilicki says. "So many times we look around and think our past is gone. But a lot of it is preserved underwater."

Based in Wachapreague on the Eastern Shore, the BSR Cultural Resource Specialists team began surveying along the water's edge July 5. They worked with archaeologist Andrew Veech of Colonial National Historical Park and used a side-scan sonar device.

Then, for more than one week, they trolled back and forth along the shore searching for the distinctive acoustical signatures produced by manmade features.

This was the first comprehensive look at all the waterways adjacent to the 1,500-acre island, Veech told the Daily Press of Newport News.

Unlike some stretches of coastline Bilicki has surveyed in the past, the waters off the island were loaded with an unusual number of secrets.

"This is always fun work," Bilicki says. "But usually it's hours and hours of boredom followed by the excitement of--'What's this!"'

Only Bilicki's practiced eye enables him to decode the sometimes squiggly patterns of lines so quickly when they pop up on the computer screens.

"I've been looking at these things for years," he says, describing the discovery of the skipjack a few days after the survey started. "So in most cases I can tell what something is just by looking at its acoustical signature."

Still, even Bilicki's keenly honed gaze can't provide more than an estimate of the size of the wrecks on the bottom. That requires Veech and maritime studies graduate student Jodi Carpenter to don scuba gear, plunge over the side and take hands-on measurements in murky water.

"You can see light--but you can't see anything. So you have to go slow, very slow--to avoid any spikes or entanglements," Carpenter said. "It's diving by feel, really--diving by Braille. But I've done so much of this kind of bad diving and so little of the other that I'd probably freak out if I ever saw something."

One find emerges: a ferryboat hull 14 feet wide and 53 feet long.

The whole bottom of the boat seems to be intact. We've actually got some of the gunwales," Bilicki says. "To us, that's pretty exciting."

By the time the study ended, the team intended to have taken basic measurements on every target.

"There are all kinds of visible and submerged things out here. Most of them are 150 years old or younger. But some of them are much, much older," Veech says. "This will give us the baseline we need to start understanding what we've got."


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New Zealand Herald
By Nick Squires
July 22, 2006


AUSTRALIA - A 92-former Nazi sailor living in South America may hold the key to solving one of Australia's greatest wartime mysteries, the sinking and disappearance of the battleship HMAS Sydney.

Shipwreck hunters have tracked him down in Chile and believe he holds vital clues about exactly where HMAS Sydney sank after being torpedoed by a German raider, the Kormoran, off Western Australia in November, 1941.

The ship went down with its entire crew of 645, none of whom survived, in what remains Australia's worst maritime disaster.

Its fate is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of World War II and repeated calls have been made over the years for Australian governments to mount a search for the wreck.

A non-profit trust has now taken up the challenge and believes it may be getting tantalisingly close to the Sydney's last resting place on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

The latest clues to the puzzle come from Reinhold Von Malapert, one of the last-known survivors of the Kormoran, who now lives in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

He has been interviewed by David Mearns, an experienced American shipwreck hunter who is leading the search for the Sydney, and Peter Hore, a former Royal Navy officer.

Von Malapert, who was the German raider's chief communications officer, was put in charge of a lifeboat full of survivors after the Kormoran, badly damaged in its encounter with the Sydney, began to sink. Of the Kormoran's crew of nearly 400 men, 80 drowned.

By an extraordinary act of seamanship he managed to steer the lifeboat and its 56 sailors for several days to Red Bluff, on a remote stretch of the coast of Western Australia.

Von Malapert was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp and repatriated to Germany in 1946.

His recollection of the Kormoran's position corroborates statements taken from the raider's navigator and wireless operator when they were interrogated by Australian military authorities.

The discussions with Von Malapert, conducted in Santiago over five days, point to an area 240km southwest of Shark Bay in Western Australia as being the most likely site of the battle.

"What we hope to do now is find the Kormoran and use that as our starting point," said Bob Trotter, 60, a former Royal Australian Navy submarine officer and a member of the non-profit HMAS Sydney Search group, involved in the venture.

"The Kormoran didn't move very far from where the engagement was, so the Sydney should be close by.

"We're talking about depths of up to 4000m. It's only recently that the technology has been developed to operate that far down."

The federal government and the state governments of Western Australia and New South Wales have pledged A$2 million ($2.4 million) to fund the search, which could begin in October.

A further A$1.5 million is expected to be donated by Queensland and Victoria - the Sydney's crew came from every Australian state.

Using state-of-the-art search sonar, Mearns has discovered more than 20 shipwrecks, including HMS Hood, the flagship of the Royal Navy, which was sunk in the North Atlantic in 1941 by the German battleship the Bismarck.

"The bullet is ready to be fired," Mearns, who is based in West Sussex, in England, told The Australian this week. "Once all the money is in, the search can happen very quickly."

Still, he faces a formidable task - previous searches for HMAS Sydney have ended in failure, with wildly differing estimates of where the vessel might lie.

Some experts believe it sank in shallow water west of the town of Geraldton, 300km to the south.

The fact that the loss of the cruiser was only announced by the Australian government 10 days after it went down has long fuelled rumours of a cover-up.

It has been suggested that the survivors were machine-gunned by the Kormoran's crew - a theory vehemently denied by the Germans.

Another theory is that the survivors were picked off by sharks. Some researchers even believe the battleship was sunk by a Japanese submarine.

There was incredulity that so many Australian men could simply disappear without trace - the only item to be salvaged from the Sydney was a life raft which was pock-marked by bullet holes.

Today it is on display in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, with the lifejacket worn by the Kormoran's commander.

The researchers at HMAS Sydney Search believe the most likely explanation is that the cruiser sank so quickly that few sailors escaped into life rafts, and that those who did succumbed to thirst, exposure or shark attack.

A 1999 inquiry by the Australian Senate, or upper house, recommended an official search, but the federal government and the Navy decided they could not justify the effort because there was no consensus about where the wreck might lie.

In the words of one expert, it was like trying to find a needle without any certainty of where the haystack was.

Since then, however, new evidence has come to light including, intriguingly, an encoded account of the engagement by the Kormoran's captain, Theodor Detmers.

While interned as a prisoner of war, Detmers recorded an account of the engagement by placing faint dots under scattered letters in a German-English dictionary.

Mearns' team went to Germany, found the dictionary in the possession of Detmers' nephew and managed to decode it, providing further pointers to where the ship may have gone down.

Even if HMAS Sydney is found, there are no plans to raise it to the surface. It is an official war grave, and will remain in the ocean depths.

Its discovery, however, would bring closure to thousands of relatives who for 65 years have had to live with not knowing what happened to their brothers, sons and husbands.

"It would be strictly a policy of look, don't touch," said Bob Trotter of HMAS Sydney Search. "The main aim is to commemorate the crew and bring comfort to their families."


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South Wales Argus
By Jenny Brentnall
July 20, 2006



Archaeologists working on the
ship's timbers in 2002.


NEWPORT'S ancient ship will be too big for the Riverfront theatre display area, claim experts.

The theatre basement's surface area is 280 metres square and four metres deep.

But internationally renowned marine archaeologist Owain Roberts, who has worked with the Newport ship recovery and restoration team from the start, estimated the completed ship could be 30 metres long by 10 metres wide (300 sq metres), 20 sq metres more than the basement area.

He believes the theatre basement will not do the ship justice even if it does fit.

"It would be like looking at a mosaic from two inches away," he said.

The ship's exact size isn't yet known because restoration isn't complete and because much of the ship was sunken when discovered in 2002 in mudbanks. Some expect its size to be comparable to the Mary Rose, which is 39 metres long at waterline and 12 metres across.

Mr Roberts believes a dedicated maritime centre should house the ship, along with other local discoveries, like the Barland Farm Romano-Celtic boat discovered in Magor.

Maritime archaeologist Professor Sean McGrail agreed with Mr Roberts.

He said: "You'd need a space at least double and possibly three times the ship's length and breadth, not only for people to see it but so it can be constructed."

Friends of the Newport Ship (FoNS) are also critical of the plans to house the ship in the arts centre.

Charles Ferris, 54, a patron of FoNS, said: "The arts centre area would never give people the chance to walk round and see it from different angles.

"My biggest fear is because of the size constraints, the council will decide to only display part of the ship."

He suggests the old Maindee Baths could be used to house the ship, or wants a new maritime centre for South Wales.

Newport council says it is not considering alternative plans to house it, sparking fears the whole of the medieval ship may not be displayed.

The restoration of the ship was expected to take 15 years from 2002. But that timescale could double if a new place to house the reconstruction needs to be found, say FoNS.


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BBC
July 20, 2006

in the archives in Wick.


A policeman's handwritten note from 85 years ago may hold a vital clue to a mysterious wreck off Caithness.

Archaeologists hope to confirm the sunken vessel in Sinclair's Bay is that of the German destroyer V81, which was at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.

The team from Nottingham University came across the officer's log by chance in archives held in Wick.

A PC Innes reported a German warship getting into difficulty on Friday, 13 February, 1920.

Members of Caithness Diving Club are convinced the wreck is the V81, part of Germany's World War I High Seas Fleet.

Marine archaeologists hope to verify this by comparing the remains with the V81's sister vessel, V83, which lies beneath Scapa Flow in Orkney.

They have made the first in a series of dives to the kelp-covered wreck and taken photographs and made drawings of brass fittings, a turbine and what appears to be a gear box.

The V81 was understood to have been salvaged from Scapa Flow in 1921 and was under tow to a breakers yard in Rosyth when strong winds caused it to founder off Caithness.

It was believed the warship was raised again in 1937.

Simon Davidson, of Nottingham University, said bad weather on a day they were meant to be diving to the ship forced them to stay ashore.

They visited the North Highland Archive in Wick where an archivist found them a note in the Caithness Constabulary Shore Occurrence Book.

Media blackout

An entry for 13 February 1920 told of a German warship under tow coming ashore in the area where the wreck lies.

Mr Davidson said: "We then went through copies of the local newspaper from around that date to see if we could find any reports.

"There wasn't, but that may have been because of a media blackout to prevent illegal salvage.

"But we went back through the papers and found some corroborating evidence.

"There was a report of the navy wanting to get rid of all the Scapa Flow destroyers the week the ship came ashore on Friday 13."

He added: "We are coming close to confirming the identity of the wreck."

The team are still diving the wreck and also plan to return in winter when the kelp dies back to reveal more of it.

Nottingham University's underwater research is one of seven archaeology projects running across Caithness this summer to investigate its Neolithic, Iron Age and war-time history.

The projects are being led by Caithness Archaeology Trust.

The trust said excavations of Iron Age brochs at Whitegate and Keiss Harbour has revealed the stone towers may have been used as stores during World War II.


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By Laura Girresch
July 20, 2006

NORFOLK - The public watched researchers explore the underwater wreck of the USS Monitor on Wednesday.

An expedition to the site of the wreck of the Civil War ironclad off North Carolina's Cape Hatteras was broadcast live from a University of Rhode Island research vessel, Endeavor. It could be seen on the Internet, at www.oceanslive.org, and at the theater inside Nauticus.

Just months after its historic battle with the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads, the Monitor sank in 1862 in a storm off Hatteras, with the loss of 16 lives. The wreck was discovered in the 1970s. It's a marine sanctuary now, and recovery work is ongoing.

This expedition's goal is to shoot thousands of images with cameras on remotely operated vehicles and then assemble them into a photo mosaic of the site.

Brent Rudmann, a NOAA at Nauticus educator who is overseeing the broadcast at the Norfolk attraction, said the mosaic involves " taking a lot of pictures, then putting them together like a puzzle, so that they have one big, really high-quality photograph of the wreck."

But the expedition had other research to carry out, too - checking the condition of the wreckage and the marine life surrounding it.

"There have been concerns over the past four years that it's not as stable as it used to be," Rudmann said.

He said the iron and wood are slowly degrading.

The warship's revolving turret was brought to the surface in 2002 and is being preserved at the Mariner's Museum in Newport News.

The audience watched live feeds as the remotely operated vehicles - the same craft used to explore the Titanic's wreckage - did the work.

Viewers of the broadcast heard taped and live interviews with technicians, scientists and crew members, then listened to questions sent via e-mail.

Paul Clancy, a former reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and author of "Ironclad," had a different perspective.

He has been underwater to see the wreck before.

"With the live footage of these guys down there, it was like doing it all over again," he said.

Clayton Hogge, 12, came with a Middlesex Family YMCA camp.

He loves shipwrecks and said it was "awesome when they went right through the hole of the captain's quarters."

But his favorite shipwreck still is the Titanic.

"I've researched it for a long, long time - since second grade," the fifth-grader said.


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An underwater explorer searching for the Griffon -- the "Holy Grail of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes" -- says tests of a wreck in northern Lake Michigan show it could be the same age as the French ship, which disappeared in 1679.

Based on tests of the wood "there is evidence down there that suggests it's an extremely old vessel the age period of the Griffon," Steve Libert, the 52-year-old who discovered the wreck, said this week after a news conference in Michigan.

If it is the Griffon, it would be an amazing discovery with international interest.

The Griffon was built by French explorer and fur trader Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. Essex County's LaSalle was named after him. He sailed much of the Great Lakes, discovered the mouth of the Mississippi and named its basin area Louisiana for King Louis XIV.

The Griffon was lost with its load of furs in the fall of 1679 as it left the Green Bay area on a return voyage to Niagara. LaSalle wasn't on the ship and later searched for it without success.
Libert, an amateur marine archeologist from Virginia, said it became the first decked European vessel to sink in the Great Lakes.

He's guarded in what he says about his 2001 find but says he has a preliminary scientific report that shows the site is worth more investigation. He doesn't want the location known because the wreck is at the centre of a legal dispute.

Libert, who said he looked for the Griffon for 28 years before literally bumping into what he believes is the ship's bowsprit, said he has salvage rights. He's been involved in a legal battle with the State of Michigan for years. He said Michigan is claiming it owns the land and the wreck but Libert says France would own the wreck.

So far, he said tests have shown the wreck isn't modern, but to prove it's the Griffon he needs something more, such as a carved Griffon -- a mythical creature with the head and wings of an eagle on a lion's body -- or a cannon with a King Louis XIV insignia.

But more searching and testing could be held up by the legal battle.

John Karry, a Kingsville diver and chairman of Leamington's ErieQuest committee that promotes diving at local shipwrecks, searched for the Griffon himself about a decade ago near Manitoulin Island. He said if the latest claim can be confirmed by an independent expert, it would be a tremendous discovery for Canada, France and the United States.

"That's the Holy Grail of shipwrecks in the Great Lakes."

But Karry has his doubts, noting three other wrecks that people thought were the Griffon.

While some people think the wreck is near Manitoulin Island, Libert said the ship may not have made it that far. He said his research leads him to believe the Griffon anchored and sank in a storm around what used to be called the Huron Islands.

He said he thinks a reference to the Huron Islands point to ones called that are included in old charts of Lake Michigan, not islands in Lake Huron.

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KRT Wire
By Alfred Lubrano
July 19, 2006

PHILADELPHIA - Scattered like marbles on a wax-shined dance floor, passengers aboard the 29,000-ton luxury ocean liner Andrea Doria panicked and prayed, some of them screaming "Titanic!" and "iceberg!"

The SS Stockholm, a smaller passenger liner, had rammed and cracked open the Andrea Doria in open ocean 45 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass., at 11:10 p.m., July 25, 1956.

At the time, passengers didn't know what had caused the thunderous noise and fireworks-like explosions that would sink the vessel. Forty-six people aboard the Andrea Doria were lost at sea, and five from the Stockholm.

Fifty years later, survivors still gather to speak of the night and toast their luck. This anniversary finds the wreck, known as the "Mount Everest of diving," commemorated with a book and a new PBS television documentary.

Unlike the Titanic 44 years earlier, the Andrea Doria is remembered as more of a success story than a tragedy, because enough ships were in the area of the collision to rescue survivors.

"Every year around this time, I feel everything all over again, and remember the details," says Michael Moscatiello, 65, a retired factory worker from Troy, N.Y. "I see the people drowning and crying hard. A lot of things you see, and never forget."

Though the Atlantic Ocean claimed its victims, 97 percent of the Andrea Doria's passengers and crew - 1,660 people - lived through the ordeal. In fact, everyone who had not been killed in the initial impact was taken off the boat (though three initial survivors would later die), historians say.

Booked with upper-crust travelers such as Philadelphia Mayor Richardson Dilworth and his wife, Ann (both of whom survived), the Andrea Doria was also filled with Italian immigrants coming to New York. The ship was due to dock in lower Manhattan on July 26.

"There was music, dancing and celebrating the night of the collision," says survivor Pierette Domenica Simpson, 59, an elementary-school language teacher in Michigan and author of "Alive on the Andrea Doria!"

"All of a sudden, a jolt stopped the ship, bottles from the bar fell, and it was pandemonium. My grandfather's piercing blue eyes looked like they'd seen ghosts flying. Water started filling compartments, and I was dangled by rope off the side of the boat, to lifeboats, 40 feet down."

The movie "The Poseidon Adventure," rather than "Titanic," was closer to the real thing, Simpson recalls. "In Poseidon, all the water was gushing in and everything was like a tsunami," she says. "That's how I remember it."

Enshrouded in fog, the Andrea Doria was not visible to the Stockholm, which had a young navigator on duty who may have misread the ship's radar and believed the luxury liner to be farther away than it was, historians say.

Despite the catastrophe, rescuers were mostly efficient, and calmly saved scores of lives, says survivor Dante Gallinari, 60, a real estate agent in Yonkers, N.Y.

"I was put on a rescue ship, the Ile de France," he says. "The Andrea Doria officers had said everything would be fine. It was. And we went on with our lives."

The ship has remained a draw to divers, who were already exploring the remains the day after it sank. Considered treacherous because of its depth, as well as the presence of strong currents and heavy sediment, the site has claimed numerous lives in subsequent years, including that of deep-sea diver David Bright, who died last week from decompression sickness after diving at the wreck.

Bright had been instrumental in preparing for activities surrounding the 50th anniversary, including a reunion for survivors in Kings Point, N.Y. Footage from his Andrea Doria dives - he had made more than 100, according to the Associated Press - is also included in a PBS documentary, "Secrets of the Dead: The Sinking of Andrea Doria," which airs on July 26.

Evelyn Bartram Dudas, of West Chester, Pa., who in 1967 was the first woman to dive to the wreck, says Bright was a friend who shared her love of the Andrea Doria site.

"I dived there 10 times, and each was one of the most thrilling things I've ever done," she says. "It was so huge, so white, and a special challenge because it was so deep."

Dudas' late husband, John, who dove with her, recovered the ship's main compass, now at Dudas' West Chester dive shop.

For Dudas, Bright and other divers, the Andrea Doria is buried treasure. For survivors like Moscatiello, though, the sunken boat means something else.

"You go on from that day, trying to survive," he says. "America is a beautiful country. But, oh, the problems we had getting here."


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Star News Online
July 17, 2006


Elizabeth City State underwater archaeologists have found the remains of several boats in the Currituck Sound, including two they believe sank more than 100 years ago.

Divers discovered last week what they believe was the steam freighter Undine, which struck a log and sank off Mackay Island in March 1912 while en route from Norfolk, Va., to Coinjock, said Richard Lawrence, director of the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

"We feel pretty confident that is what it is," Lawrence said.

Lawrence believes the freighter was carrying passengers when it sank.

His team discovered the bottom section of the Undine, measuring about 93 feet from bow to stern, he said.

Part of the boat was still intact.

The engine and other parts of the boat appeared to have been salvaged years ago, perhaps by the ship's crew, he said.

Divers last week also discovered wooden planks and other debris from a 25-foot wooden sailing vessel in about 6 feet of water near Monkey Island. Lawrence said it dates back to the 1800s, possibly before the Civil War.

However, the Underwater Archaeology Branch, which tracks the state's shipwrecks, has no records of a ship sinking in the vicinity of Monkey Island, he said.

Divers also found the remains of what was believed to have been a schooner in a body of water known as Little Narrows.

"The local story was it was a schooner that was sunk during the Civil War to try to block the channel," he said.

Information from the shipwrecks will be recorded at the Underwater Archaeology Branch's headquarters at Fort Fisher.


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Pilot online
By Jack Dorsey
July 17, 2006


NORFOLK - Archaeologists, looking for the sailing ship that carried the oldest English cannon ever found in the United States, have returned from offshore waters with new surveys of the ocean floor that they hope will help locate the 400-year-old vessel.

"There's no eureka moment yet," said Rod Mather, a maritime history professor at the University of Rhode Island who led the recent survey.

"But we've got a lot of possibilities," he said, referring to about 200 "targets," or areas of interest, found in a five-by-five-mile box on the ocean bottom.

What led Mather, two graduate students - James Moore and Alicia Caporaso from the graduate School of Oceanography at URI - and technicians aboard the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's survey ship Thomas Jefferson to the area was a barnacle-encrusted cannon hauled up in a fishing trawler's net in 1980 off the Virginia-North Carolina coasts.

The gun, found fully loaded, its black power packed so tightly it remained dry, was ready to fire a 2 1/2-inch iron ball and a dozen grape shot, also found inside, according to news accounts at the time.

Restored at East Carolina University, it is on loan to the Roanoke Island Festival Park's Adventure Museum in Manteo, N.C.

If hydrographic and magnetometer sketches that Mather and his party returned with from their 10-day effort last month can confirm the existence of the 16th-century ship that carried the cannon, the find may help solve long-held mysteries.

Or, it's also possible no answers will come, said the veteran archaeologist, a specialist in the Anglo-Atlantic world, with a reputation in the maritime community as being among the best at finding and interpreting ancient wrecks.

"It's possible it could be associated with the Lost Colony," Mather said, referring to the Roanoke Island, N.C., settlement founded by English colonists who disappeared without a trace between 1587 and 1590.

The cannon could have been aboard their ship, which was attempting to return the disillusioned colonists to England, when it sank in a storm. "It's possible it's associated with early Virginia, " he added. "It's possible it is associated with (Sir Francis) Drake's fleet that was damaged by a hurricane in 1586-87.

"It's possible that the cannon is an isolated find that was lost overboard by a vessel passing by."


In a big ocean, the chances for success are not good, Mather conceded.

"But they are about as good as we could hope for, especially because of who we have involved," he said, referring to the NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson and its crew, based in Norfolk.

Side scanning sonar, which gives images of the ocean's floor in color and in three dimensions, has improved greatly over the years, as have other techniques, Mather said.

"Plus, the folks on the Jefferson are about as good as anybody there is. That's why we are particularly excited about working with them."

Mather, who was interviewed by phone, said his expedition traced over the 25-square-mile section of the ocean floor twice.

Because of concern that treasurer hunters could loot the site, the exact location of the surveys will not be disclosed, said Fred Gorell, a NOAA spokesman.

"This is a remote sensing phase that probably is not going to identify any particular ship, but it may find some targets that potentially, further down the line, could result in something more definitive," Gorell said.

"So we are really at the very early exploratory phase."

The trip was made possible by a $58,000 grant from NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration.

Until he studies the images more closely, Mather said, he is reluctant to release the sonar images.

Mather was a graduate student in the mid-1980s when he first studied the 4-1/2 -foot long, 300-pound cannon after it was restored.

Called a "field piece," or English falcon, it was used for self-defense and was of the type that would have been used by the colonists settling in the New World, according to a story in The Virginian-Pilot on Nov. 19, 1989.


Now that Mather and his graduate students have returned from their expedition, they plan to spend months studying what the sonar and other electronics found.

Mather brought a magnetometer on the survey; it detects distortions in the Earth's magnetic field. It also will detect geological features, including those created by ferrous objects, he said.

For example, if the magnetometer was towed close enough, it could detect an iron cannon, even the iron fastenings of a shipwreck.

Of the 200 targets found, they identified 50 that had the most promise of being ship remains and "we narrowed that down to about 20 that we think are our best shot," Mather said.

The magnetometer was towed above some of those and about three sites indicated there was ferrous metal in them, he said.

"We did, in addition, find three shipwreck sites, but they were definitely not what we were looking for because they are much more modern, much larger and recognizable as shipwrecks."

The remains of a ship from the Colonial era would bear little resemblance to a more contemporary ship, leaving at most piles of rock that were used for ballast, perhaps another cannon, or some metal.

Several months of studying the sonar images lie ahead, Mather said.

"We don't know for certain what any of them are and we won't know until, or unless, we send robots down, or send divers down," he said.

"The problem with these types of things is they often take a long, long time. We are only 20 years into it, so it will likely take us some time to get through the data and make a decision about what we would like to try and do next.

"We've got to work our way through all this data, and it is a matter of several months to crunch our way."


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MSNBC
July 15, 2006


Confederate crew may have opened hatch on historic Hunley

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Scientists say they may have found an important clue in the mystery of why the Confederate submarine Hunley sank 140 years ago after making history by sinking an enemy warship in battle.

Archaeologists and others working to restore the submarine recovered six years ago from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Sullivans Island have found evidence the forward hatch may have been opened intentionally on the night the sub sank.

The forward hatch was one of two ways crew members got in and out of the sub. It is covered in a thick layer of sand and other ocean debris, but X-rays show the hatch is open about half an inch (1 centimeter), according to a news release Friday from the Friends of the Hunley.

Earlier reports said rods that could have been part of the hatch's watertight locking mechanism were found at the feet of the sub's commander, Lt. George Dixon.

That evidence leads those working on the sub to think the hatch may have been opened intentionally.

"The position of the lock could prove to be the most important clue we have uncovered yet and offers important insight into the possibilities surrounding the final moments before the submarine vanished that night," said Hunley Commission chairman state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.

Why open the hatch?
If the hatch was intentionally unlocked, there are several possible explanations.

Dixon could have opened it to see if the 40-foot (12-meter), hand-cranked vessel was damaged when it rammed a spar with a black powder charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic on Feb. 17, 1864, becoming the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship. Or Dixon could have opened the hatch to refresh the air supply in the eight-man crew compartment or to signal that it had completed its mission.

An emergency also could have led the crew to open the hatch to get out. But because the second escape hatch was found in the locked position, that theory seems less likely.

"If the Hunley crew opened the hatch, it must have been for a critical reason," said archaeologist Michael Scafuri. "Even on a calm day, three-foot swells can occur out of nowhere on the waters off Charleston. Every time the hatch was opened, the crew ran the deadly risk of getting swamped."

Mystery remains
The Hunley sank three times, killing a total of 21 crew members.

But the reason it sank on the night of its successful mission remains a mystery.

Although scientists said the new discovery could help determine the cause of the sinking, it also is possible that the lock was damaged after the sub sank and the hatch opened while it sat on the ocean floor.

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Middle East Times
July 03, 2006


NICOSIA -- The remains of a Turkish ship believed to have taken part in the 1570 to 1571 Ottoman siege of Famagusta have been located off the Cyprus coast, it was reported on Sunday.

Three cannons, 25.4 centimeters (10 inches) in diameter, and an anchor were found by amateur divers 40 meters down in the Mediterranean off the city on the island's southeast coast, Politis newspaper said.

The find is believed to be the first of its kind.

Politis said that the ship had probably been part of the fleet of general Lala Mustafa, who lost 80,000 men before the walled city finally fell in July 1571 after a 10-month siege.

Some 200,000 soldiers laid siege to Famagusta that was defended by around 10,000 men led by Venetian Marc Antony Bragodino.

The two Greek Cypriot divers reportedly found the wreck by chance.

Photos and video footage of their discovery were posted on the Politis Website on Sunday.

The Cypriot authorities have been alerted to the find in the hope that parts of the ship can be raised and housed in a museum.

The fall of Famagusta signaled the end of Venetian rule in Cyprus and the start of more than 300 years of Ottoman dominance.

When the Ottomans invaded Cyprus in 1570 most towns were easily captured, but Famagusta held out until its food supplies were exhausted, earning itself a special place in Cypriot history.


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