Do fundo do mar... Sea bottom

THE slaughterhouse could become one of the finest maritime museums in Europe.

The island’s two major marine archaeology research projects are entering their second phase and campaigners hope the abattoir at the Castle Emplacement will be key to their future.
Maritime Guernsey held a presentation at Castle Cornet with the aim of showing its invited guests what Guernsey had to offer in terms of marine archaeology.

The Roman wreck from the third century AD recovered from the mouth of St Peter Port Harbour in 1985 has been undergoing conservation at The Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth ahead of its expected return to Guernsey in mid 2009.

The chairman of the Guernsey Museums Historic Wreck Committee Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe said now was the time to plan for its future.

‘The timbers will be brought over by Condor on probably the last voyage the Roman wreck will ever make,’ he said. ‘It’s of such importance it will draw people to see it and the challenge now is, what are you going to do with it?’

He said the slaughterhouse was without doubt the best site for a museum.

Bailiff Geoffrey Rowland told of his work as a trustee of the Guernsey Maritime Trust and of how Richard Keen had discovered the wreck on Christmas Day 1982.

‘He was down there diving for scallops at a time when most people would have been at home sniffing turkey in the oven,’ he said.

‘I still hold firmly to the view that the Slaughterhouse is the ideal site to display Asterix and all that goes with it. I think it would be a marvellous site.’

Museums director Dr Jason Monaghan said the time was right to raise the profile of Guernsey’s maritime past in order to form a public/private partnership that could safeguard its future.

‘The publicity was great when the wreck was raised from the seabed but it all went quiet when 12 tonnes of timber was immersed in preserving wax for the next 20 years,’ he said.

The second piece of research relates to the Guernsey Medieval Wrecks Project, set up by Guernsey Museums in collaboration with the University of Southampton’s Centre for Maritime Archaeology.

Centre director Dr Jon Adams told guests how the St Peter Port seabed was of international importance in terms of marine archaeology. A ‘corridor search’ of it following the discovery of the Roman wreck had uncovered at least eight more boats from medieval times.

Maritime Guernsey wants to raise funds to enable Dr Adams to keep bringing students to Guernsey several times per year to research, record and, in some cases, recover artefacts from the seabed.

But he said time was running out. While propeller wash continued to uncover more timbers, they would not be there for ever.

‘We are realists,’ he said. ‘It makes a wonderful dive and you see history laid out before you on the seabed, but then the biological process takes over and you have seabed but no wrecks.’

DUBLIN - An ancient boat discovered in a riverbed north of Dublin may be the first Viking longship found in the country, Environment and Heritage Minister Dick Roche said.

The wreck in the River Boyne, close to the northeastern port of Drogheda, was described by Roche as potentially an "enormously exciting discovery".

The vessel, nine metres (30 feet) wide by 16 metres long, was discovered accidentally during dredging operations last November but the find was not made public until now.

"It is described as clinker built, a shipbuilding technology dating from the Viking era but also still in use centuries later," Roche said.

"Clearly we have to wait and see what condition the vessel is in and have it dated. Carbon dating analysis of some of the vessel's timbers has been arranged by my department, with the results expected in a number of weeks."

The investigation and excavation operation will be completed by the end of March.

"It is likely to take considerably longer to fully examine and draw complete knowledge from what is being heralded as a potentially unique discovery in Irish maritime archaeological heritage.

"A find like this can tell us much about the technologies, trading patterns and daily lives of our ancestors and can open a window onto how life was in Ireland over a thousand years ago," Roche said.

Archaeologists in the heritage ministry are carrying out an inventory of wrecks in the country's rivers, lakes and around the coastline.

There are thought to be as many as 12,000.

The high number of wrecks is a result of the country being an island that imported many of its needs for centuries, suffered invasions and is close to major international shipping routes.

Usually ancient wrecks are preserved in situ but the newly discovered Boyne wreck is in mid-stream, so it cannot be left there.

"The wreck will be fully excavated and, if recoverable, be preserved and conserved for further investigation and ultimately public display, or reburied at a more suitable location on the river," Roche said.

Between 795, when they first raided Rathlin Island off Northern Ireland, and 1169 when the Normans invaded from Wales, Vikings established themselves in Ireland.

Most of the main coastal cities, including the capital Dublin, began as Viking settlements.

Before setting up trading bases, Viking raiders were attracted by Ireland's early Christian monasteries. Poorly defended, they were not only centres of learning but of wealth.

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Newswise
January 23, 2007

An 8th century shipwreck was discovered off Dor Beach and excavated by researchers from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies of the University of Haifa. It is believed to be the only boat from this period discovered in the entire Mediterranean region. "We do not have any other historical or archaeological evidence of the economic activity and commerce of this period at Dor.

The shipwreck will serve as a source of information about the social and economic activities in this area," said Dr. Ya'acov Kahanov from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies and the Department Of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa.

The wreck itself was found almost a decade ago during a joint survey of the area conducted by an expedition of the Institute for Maritime Archaeology from the University of Texas A & M and the Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa. Using carbon dating techniques, the wreck was dated as from the early 8th century. Only now, after the completion of the latest excavation season, are the details of the1,300 year old shipwreck becoming clearer.

The small boat, 15 meters long and 5 meters wide, was involved in local commerce and sailed along the Lavant coast between the ports on the Mediterranean Sea. It was found in a lagoon off Dor Beach, 0.75 meters beneath the surface of the water. Dr. Kahanov explained that this ship is a rare find given the amount of wood that has remained intact and in a good state of preservation. In addition to the wooden hull of the boat, many of the boat's contents have also been preserved. Among them are 30 vessels of pottery of different sizes and designs containing fish bones, ropes, mats, a bone needle, a wooden spoon, wood carvings and food remains, mainly carobs and olives.

Dr. Kahanov stressed the importance of this find owing to the fact that there are so few archaeological finds from the ancient Islamic Period in this area.

KUSHIMOTO, Wakayama Prefecture--Divers on Tuesday began exploring the wreck of a Turkish frigate that sank off coastal waters here in 1890 after paying a friendship visit to Japan on behalf of the then Turkish Ottoman Empire (1299-1922).

The divers, led by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, will use sonar to look for artifacts through Jan. 25.

After leaving port for its return to Turkey, the wooden frigate Ertugrul foundered on rocks during a storm and was battered by the elements for four days before it came to grief.

It eventually sank near Oshima Island, now part of Kushimoto at the southern tip of Wakayama Prefecture.

Only 69 of the more than 600 sailors aboard survived.

On Tuesday, about 20 experts from four countries began diving to search for artifacts, the first time the wreck has been thoroughly explored.

The group said it plans to spend several years combing the wreck for relics. The researchers are from the United States, Japan, Turkey and Spain.

Japanese team members include employees of a company that makes measuring instruments.

On Tuesday, an Asahi Shimbun photographer diving near the wreck about 150 meters offshore found a metal cauldron about 11 meters below the surface. The cooking pot measures about 60 centimeters in diameter.

Nearby, the diver also found what appeared to be dish fragments and rusted bits of metal.


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Florida Today
By Linda Jump
January 04, 2007


PALM BAY - At first glance, you might think the Polly L is a four-story oil rig when it's perched in the Atlantic, just a few miles off Melbourne Beach.

Like those operations, this ship is involved in digging for treasure. Yet the booty it seeks is not black gold but the shiny, metal variety.

Doug Pope, the 58-year-old who helped design the $2.3 million ship five years ago, has yet another description: "I call it my movable condo on stilts."

There are only 300 like it, and Pope's is believed to be the only one used for "underwater archaeology" -- a fancy term for hunting treasure on submerged wrecks. Pope and his crew are trying to determine what's on a site that Pope thinks contains the remnants of two of the ships from the 1715 Plate Fleet that sank in a storm. The ships were returning to Spain with treasure that included gold bars, gold and silver coins, jewelry, china and other treasures.

Three legs with pads for stabilization stretch down to the ocean floor and lift his boat up as high as 68 feet. That allows him to utilize equipment on the ship that might be affected by the choppy water. And because his boat can stay out in most weather, that theoretically means more diving days per season.

"It's unusual for someone in exploration and salvage to use this type of boat," said Ryan Wheeler, state archAeologist. He
said the Melbourne Beach site where Pope has his ship has been contracted for exploration for years but hasn't actually been explored much until now.

"It can be hard to get there," Wheeler said.

Pope had the ship built in January 2001 by Keith Marine in Palatka, and it's primarily used on an Amelia Island site 27 miles west of the Keys for his company, Amelia Research. But Pope decided to bring the Polly L to Brevard County to work the site he subcontracts with Mel Fisher Treasures.

"We can work in water as shallow as three or four feet deep and stay on a site for three months," he said.

Taffi Fisher-Abt, who runs Mel Fisher Treasures after the death of her famous father, calls the Polly L "really neat." "My father would have loved it," she said.

"I'm hoping he'll find tons of treasure," Fisher-Abt said.

Ship's mechanics
The boat's main hull is 2,100 square feet. It boasts a reverse osmosis system that creates 1,200 gallons of potable water a day. It also has satellite television, a flush toilet, a washer and dryer and a shower. There are eight bedrooms that can sleep 14. A circular staircase leads to each level. On the work floor, the staircase is painted as a map showing the world circa 1720.

An excavator with two 36-inch propellers blows sand under the ocean's floor to, Pope hopes, expose treasures. A former Army helicopter pilot, he came up with that design to move sand "efficiently and carefully."

The boat uses a vegetable-based oil that can't damage wildlife but is costly. A global positioning system on the top story pinpoints the boat's location. Computers show the ocean's floor and where magnetometer "hits" highlight unknown items containing iron. Computer software makes state-required reports of the exploration simple to generate.

An electrical system generates 260 kilowatts of power. Sword Marine of Ormond Beach is building Pope what Bill Lawson calls the first large outboard diesel propulsion unit. Lawson, who designed the units, said a customized auto engine is placed on a boat transom above a 10-inch water jet. "It uses the jet instead of a propeller, so it's safe for wildlife and divers," he said.

Pope's unit will be a 200 diesel adapted with a nozzle so it can be used to move sand from the ocean floor. "It should double my fuel economy, eliminate the potential of explosion from gasoline and provide a power source for an 8-inch mobile dredge. No one else in the industry has one of these," Pope said.

With divers, it costs $32,000 per month to maintain the boat. Docked, the price drops to $22,000 a month.

Searching awaits
From November through mid-December, the 200-ton boat, powered by six diesel engines, has been home to a team of divers. Up to six divers with hoses can search beneath the ship at a time, and more can do so if they use air tanks. And while the ship generally allows for nearly year-round searching, turbulent waters are making it hard for divers to do their thing.

"Even with the boat, we've only had a day and a half of diving in five weeks," Pope said. He added, "We stayed stable, but divers couldn't dive because of the swells."

So for the Christmas holiday, the ship was moved to safe harbor in Titusville, where it will get a once-over. Moving the ship from the site four miles south of 192 off Melbourne Beach to a temporary stop at McFarland Park took nine hours. Speeds were under 5 miles an hour, followed by a trip through the locks at Cape Canaveral.

Pope hopes to be back to search off Melbourne Beach within the next two weeks.

So far, the site off Melbourne Beach hasn't turned up anything. But over the years, Pope has found coins, bombs, emeralds, even a sewing machine.

He and his 180 investors hope a calmer ocean will allow better searching through March.

"It's a lot of fun and a good life. It's where the land ends and the adventure begins," he said.

January 03, 2007


HUTCHINSON ISLAND — The search for historical treasures off Martin County's coast could soon resume with some financial help from the state.

The Historical Society of Martin County has applied for a $50,000 grant to further survey the area's shipwrecks and restart the search for Quaker pioneer Jonathan Dickinson's ship Reformation. The grant requires the historical society and the Institute for International Maritime Research to contribute a matching $50,000 for the project.

The grant would fund a "search and identify" operation that would more closely inspect the most promising of the almost 800 shipwreck sites found off the southern Martin County coastline in May by the North Carolina-based institute.

Divers from the institute would have at least four weeks to search the sites for historically significant shipwrecks, including the Reformation.

Little likely remains of Dickinson's ship, which was burned in 1696 by Ais Indians after wrecking in what is now southern Martin County, said Robin Hicks-Connors, historical society president. But the pieces of the ship that are left would have regional and even national historical significance if they could be found, she said.

"Those artifacts help tell the story and help create a visual for people who might be interested in learning more about the history of the area," Hicks-Connors said.

The historical society could know more about whether the grant will come through when it appears before the Division of Historical Resources in March. The state agency ranked the grant that funded the May expedition as a high priority the year it was approved, Hicks-Connors said.

State Rep. William Snyder, R-Martin County, has written a letter to the agency supporting the grant and plans to push for it during the Legislature's budgeting process.

If found, the Reformation would provide an important connection back to the Treasure Coast's early history, Snyder said.

"Finding that shipwreck puts the finishing touches on the chapter," he said. "We know that boat's out there, and I would just love to see us find it."



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January 02, 2007


WASHINGTON — For 65 years, the wreck of the USS Arizona has been leaking oil from its grave at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, staining the water, visitors often say, as if it were the ship's blood.

The leaks come from about 500,000 gallons of thick, bunker C fuel oil that remain trapped in the deteriorating hulk — oil whose "catastrophic" release experts now think is inevitable.

Even as the nation recently observed the 65th anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II, scientists at a federal research center in Gaithersburg, Md., are trying to predict when the release might happen. In five years? Or 50? And to do that, they are building a model of the ship: not of plastic and glue, but of data.

The experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology think it is the first mathematical model to simulate the deterioration of a sunken ship and could be used to predict the deterioration of hundreds of wrecks around the country.

Similar models, which are run with ultra-powerful computers, are used to forecast the weather, design cars and simulate crashes.

"To my knowledge, nobody has published or spoken of modeling the deterioration of sunken ships," said Timothy Foecke, a metallurgist at the institute who is supervising the work.

"What we're trying to do is ... predict stability of shipwrecks," Foecke said. "In particular, we're working on the Arizona, but it also has application to hazardous wrecks ... all around the coast, dating back to World War I. There's ships with munitions, with hazardous cargoes, with all kinds of different things."

The work is part of the USS Arizona Preservation Project, headed by the National Park Service and the USS Arizona Memorial.

"The overall project goal is to model and characterize the deterioration processes ... to predict when we may have potential structural collapse," said Matthew Russell, project director. It is impossible to remove the oil from the ship because that would disturb what he said is "an enormous tomb."

READY TO SAIL
On Dec. 6, 1941, the Arizona took on 1.2 million gallons of heavy fuel oil at its berth in Pearl Harbor. The ship was scheduled to make a Christmas trip back to the West Coast the next weekend. The fuel, which was so heavy it had to be atomized for use in the engines, weighed 4,000 tons and was stored in more than 200 tanks, or bunkers, spread across four deck levels throughout the vessel.

In the Japanese attack the next morning, a 1,700-pound bomb plunged through the ship's deck, detonating in an ammunition compartment. The explosion obliterated a section of the Arizona's bow, blasted backward toward the stern and vented out the smokestack. It also set much of the oil on fire, burning for three days.

The battleship — three times the size of the Statue of Liberty — settled to the bottom in 34 feet of water, along with the bodies of more than 1,100 sailors and Marines.

The Arizona, which was launched in 1915, is 91 and has been submerged for six decades.

Science is not sure how the metal in old ships fares for long periods under water.

The Civil War submarine CSS H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864, was surprisingly intact when it was raised from the protective mud off the harbor of Charleston, S.C., in 2000.

The turret of the USS Monitor — which sank in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras in 1862 — was in worse shape when it was recovered in 2002.

COMPUTER MODEL
Sooner or later, though, submerged metal wrecks are reduced to "an iron ore deposit," Foecke said.

To assess that process on the Arizona, he and guest institute scientist Li Ma have built a "finite element model." They took the ship's blueprints, carved out an 80-foot section from the middle and entered its dimensions into a computer.

They then used special software to break the section into about 200,000 data blocks, or elements, and entered what they knew about the properties of the metal, corrosion and damage.

Scientists also entered into the model what they knew about external forces on the vessel: such things as pressure from the water, the bottom, gravity and waves.

The result is like a single frame from a movie, Foecke said, and it then becomes possible to play the movie, by adjusting the data, and see how it might turn out.

Foecke, who keeps pieces of the Arizona's steel hull in an office safe, says the model is not perfect.

It "will give us a time frame within which we can expect (the ship's) failure and the general type of failure — upper decks breaking down, lower decks erupting up, hull tipping in or out — but not exactly where," he wrote in a recent e-mail.

CORROSIVE INSTABILITY
Foecke said an early version of the model has been run, gradually "corroding" the metal thickness in small increments. When it was thinned 75 percent, parts of the structure grew unstable, but that kind of corrosion is not expected to happen for 10 or 20 years, he said.

"We think that nothing serious is going to happen for about 10 years, plus or minus years," Foecke said.

When the structure collapses, Foecke said, the oil will "erupt" toward the surface.

"It's going to break the wreck up and open," he said. "The oil does have buoyancy, and it's trying to find a way out, and there's quite a lot of it."

Even though Pearl Harbor is fairly industrialized, Foecke said, a big leak would create "a huge mess."

A spill of 100,000 gallons of jet fuel in 1987 fouled a mangrove swamp and a wildlife refuge, and took two months to clean up, according to news reports of the time.

Douglas Lentz, National Park Service superintendent of the Arizona Memorial, said extensive plans are in place should a large leak occur.

But Russell, the project director, thinks any Arizona collapse would take place gradually. "There won't be any single, serious collapse that releases all the oil," he said. "But we're trying to get an indication of when the first wave of releases may occur."