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From M&H news

Space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of astronauts launched into space today (16 May) carrying a little piece of English maritime heritage with them on their way to the International Space Station.

A three-inch wooden ball from the 16th century warship, which sank in 1545 in the Battle of the Solent, has joined six astronauts as they sail into the vast ocean of space on Endeavour’s last-ever mission.

The ball, called a "parrel," was part of the mechanism used to raise sails up the masts of the iconic ship. The Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard presented the crew of the Atlantis Space Shuttle with the artefact with a view to sending it up to space on a future mission. And now that mission has launched.

As well as carrying the Mary Rose artefact, crew members Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori also have another mission to complete.

During the 16-day operation, Endeavour will carry the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) to the International Space Station. The AMS is a cutting-edge physics experiment designed to look for anti-matter in the cosmos and, perhaps, unlock the mystery of what makes up most of the mass in the universe.

John Lippiett, chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust, said: “It was really tremendous to have the opportunity to present this little piece of the Mary Rose to the visiting shuttle crew to take back to Houston, and we are thrilled that she will be making history once more on the final mission for Endeavour.

“The Mary Rose was as revolutionary in technological advances 500 years ago as the Space Shuttle was in the early 1980s. Both have helped pioneer exploration and advance the sciences. It is most appropriate to mark their place in history in this manner.”

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Photo Matt Gade

By Eric Gaertner - Muskegon Chronicle

The schooner named after one of Muskegon's best-known lumber barons will be remembered with a commemorative event on the 120th anniversary of the ship's tragic demise.

The Hackley & Hume lumber schooner Thomas Hume is set to have her lumber-shipping career and sinking in southern Lake Michigan honored Saturday with a special program at a recently created museum exhibit, premiere of a documentary film, a concert by Great Lakes folksinger Lee Murdock and the release of a new nonfiction book about the topic.

The exhibit, based on research dives conducted on the shipwreck originally discovered in 2005, is touted for its ability to solve a long-running mystery on how the schooner sank. The dive team's evidence-supported theory is that a storm caused the tragedy, ending more than a century of rumors and other theories concerning the May 21, 1891, disappearance of the three-masted, 132-foot schooner.

The Lakeshore Museum Center in Muskegon and Holland-based Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates partnered on the exhibit, “Unsolved Mysteries: The Shipwreck Thomas Hume,” which opened earlier this month in the City Barn at the Hackley & Hume Historic Site, 484 W. Webster.

The commemorative events begin at 3 p.m. Saturday at the exhibit. Those attending the event then move over to the Muskegon Museum of Art, 296 W. Webster, for the concert at 4:30 p.m., followed by the showing of the documentary film.

Valerie van Heest, a diver and author, was project director for the exhibit. She also co-authored the book with maritime historian William Lafferty and narrated the film with diver Craig Rich.

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From The California Numismatist

According to early Southern California lore and legend, there lies a fortune in gold ore, bars and coins still buried deep in the cold murky mud on the ocean bottom of the San Pedro Bay. Much of that gold ore came from the booming mines located in the eastern Mojave Desert and throughout the San Bernardino mountains.

Written accounts at the time of this early Los Angeles “golden treasure tale” read more like a Hollywood movie script complete with mystery, intrigue, murder and a missing treasure — something which might have been written for an episode of one of those old weekly wild-west TV shows from the 1950’s and 60’s such as “Have Gun Will Travel”, “Death Valley Days”, or that combined history legend- based western classic of classics’ series “Tales of Wells Fargo” starring Dale Robertson — rather than any factual account of the true events which took place in San Pedro Bay nearly 150 years ago, when the legendary wild west was very much alive.

Back in the late 1850’s and early 60’s, most of the Southern California landscape which surrounded Los Angeles was a hot, dry, sage-scrub chaparral surrounded by rugged mountains which gave way to an even harsher, drier and foreboding extensive desert region. This raw, wild and woolly western frontier was hardly suitable for homesteaders, towns, agriculture, cattle ranching, or much of anything.

The tiny, sleepy pueblo of Los Angeles had an approximate population of around 6,000. It’s two, tiny, outlying coastal seaport and commerce towns of Wilmington and San Pedro had a combined population total of about 700.

The large commercial seaport city of modern Long Beach with its massive harbor and freight distribution center was not even as yet on the map.

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ByLona O'Connor - The Palm Beach post

With his dark slacks, pale skin and battered leather briefcase, it is clear that Kyle Kennedy is the office guy of the treasure-hunting company Seafarer Explorations.

Just granted a state permit to explore the area off Juno Beach for the next three years, Seafarer hopes to raise a fortune for its shareholders.

"One of my shareholders says, 'It's like having a lottery ticket with no expiration date,'" said Kennedy, whose company is based in Tampa. The salvaging operation is expected to begin next week.

The crew, including Capt. Rodney Grambo, look much more like the seafarers they are, wearing flip-flops and shorts, their skin tanned the same color as Kennedy's briefcase and their biceps richly tattooed. They also have good seafaring nicknames like Ringo.

Their boat, dwarfed by the luxury yachts and fishing boats around it, has an equally colorful name, Iron Maiden. Her stern is distinguished by two giant blowers that push away tons of sand, speeding the tedious excavation process.

Funny story about those sand blowers: A few years back, when Captain Rodney was looking for a treasure chest full of emeralds from the Atocha, Mel Fisher's $400 million treasure ship, the blowers did their job too well.

"The blowers blew the emeralds everywhere," said Grambo. "Still to this day they call that site the Emerald City."

Here's how the treasure-hunting process works: About 20 years ago Palm Beach County treasure hunter and historian Jud Laird found an anchor off the coast of northern Palm Beach County.

Laird worked the site for a few years, then recently joined forces with Seafarer.

By the positioning of the anchor's fluke, or barbed end, they determined that the ship anchored offshore during a storm.

By the distribution of lead musket balls, lead hull sheathing, cannonballs and serpentine jade from the ship's ballast pile, they estimated how far the ship was dragged by the storm before it sank.

From Khaleej Times

Oman and the Netherlands are to conduct a joint study on a Dutch East India Company ship, the Amstelveen’ that wrecked off the sultanate some 250 years ago.

The incident happened off Ras Madrakah on the Wusta coast on August 7, 1763. According to an 18th century Dutch logbook that was found in a bookshop in southern France recently, 30 surviving crew members made a gruelling journey along the Sharqiyah coast to Muscat.

There have been more shipwrecks along the Omani coasts in history but the Amstelveen mishap stands out. Some years ago, by coincidence, a 18th century Dutch logbook was found in an antiquarian bookshop in southern France that turned out to contain the account of the shipwrecking of Amstelveen at Cape Madrakah, 700km to the south of Muscat, and the dreadful trek by the 30 surviving crew members along the Sharqiyah coast to Muscat.

The log was published in 1766 by the only surviving officer of the ship, third mate Cornelis Eyks, but then soon forgotten. Dr Klaas Doornbos from the Netherlands analysed the mysterious shipwreck and subsequently decided to write a book on the intriguing story.

The book, Shipwreck and Survival in Oman 1763, has been completed but not yet published. An Arabic edition of the book is in the offing.

The story of the trek is a perfect sample of shared Omani-Dutch heritage. It lists the experiences and hardships of Dutch castaways in 18th century Oman, their encounters with Omanis in the desert, in Al Hadd, Sur and Muscat. Some of them died on their way to Muscat due to the extreme hardship.

The book provides fascinating details on the surviving skills of the crew and things like cultural misunderstandings, the clothes people used to wear, the food offered, the arms used, housing and customs. In Muscat one of the first locals the castaways met turned out to speak perfect Dutch !

Other issues are dealt with in the book, like the mystery behind the Amstelveen’s deviating course that led to the wrecking, and the rather un-empathetic way the Dutch East India Company dealt with the survivors.

A memorandum of understanding was concluded recently between the two countries to pave the way for the joint study, signed for Oman by Salim bin Mohammed Al Mahrooqi, Under-secretary of the Heritage and Culture Ministry for Heritage Affairs, and for the Netherlands by Ed Kronenburg, Secretary-general of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

By Owain Johnston-Barnes - Royal Gazette

This summer, the Marine Heritage section of the Department of Conservation Services will work to rescue artifacts from the shipwreck of the blockade runner, the Marie Celeste.

Recent storms have exposed more of the ship’s bow, revealing its contents while at the same time placing the artifacts at risk.

Dr Philippe Max Rouja, Custodian of Historic Wrecks from the Department of Conservation Services, said he believes a large storm sometime in the last 20 years blew out the light, loose sand out of the bow and exposed the denser seabed material below, together with the artifacts buried inside.

“With this protective layer gone little by little, the denser material gets washed away so that now, each subsequent time the sand is removed, in even a light storm event, more of this dense layer is removed, exposing and endangering these unexpected artifacts,” he said.

The Marie Celeste, also known as the Mary Celestia a Confederate paddle steamer sank in 1864 in mysterious circumstances while being piloted by John Virgin. It has since become a popular landmark for divers, enjoyed by both locals and visitors. Dr Rouja said that since 2004 his department has carried out post-hurricane assessments at several wrecks around the Island.

“I decided it was important to conduct these surveys after hearing reports from some of Bermuda’s most experienced divers and dive shops that hurricane Fabian had exposed a significant portion of the Marie Celeste, including remnants of broken artifacts, specifically in and near the bow,” he said.

“The shipwreck of the Marie Celeste is an artifact in its own right. Unlike almost any other shipwreck in Bermuda, it speaks directly to our wider Atlantic maritime history.”

In January, following a series of winter storms, divers discovered a well-preserved and still corked bottle of wine and the top of a wooden crate, leading many to believe that a portion of the ships Civil War era cargo, intended to be delivered to Wilmington, remains in part inside the bow.

“We initially speculated that if she sank bow first, the wine bottles and case may have tumbled there from the general cargo are at the time of her sinking,” Dr Rouja said.

“However, this area, though seemingly relatively open today, would have in 1864 consisted of a series of small bulkheads.

“I think we can safely speculate that these items were hidden there quite on purpose, representing someone’s private stash of contraband.”

BBC News

Marine archaeologists are in a race against time to preserve parts of a shipwreck they believe is the most significant found in British waters since the Tudor ship, the Mary Rose. Paul Rose, explorer, diver and presenter of Britain's Secret Seas, visited the site.

"We've watched it fall apart in front of our eyes for five years," said Dave Parham, senior lecturer in marine archaeology at Bournemouth University. "But you can only do one thing at a time."

The Swash Channel wreck is an early 17th Century armed merchant ship.

It was found in 7-9m of water on a sand and shingle seabed on the edge of Hook Sands near Poole Harbour in Dorset in March 1990, when a Dutch dredger hit it.

It was left for almost 15 years until an assessment for English Heritage in 2005 found it was a much more significant site than first thought.

Bournemouth University's Marine Archaeology programme began visiting and recording the wreck as parts of it became exposed, in work funded by English Heritage and Poole Harbour Commissioners.

But the archaeologists say the wreck is disappearing as sediment, which protects the ship, has been eroding so quickly that parts of the structure are exposed and decay before they can be recorded.

Divers from Britain's Secret Seas were the first team apart from the archaeologists working underwater, to see and film this beautiful piece of history.

Full story...

By Russell Drumm - East Hampton Star

When the Village of Sag Harbor gave Long Wharf and two surrounding acres of underwater land to Suffolk County on Nov. 20, 1947, the wreck of the brig Middletown had been lying undisturbed on the bottom for 168 years, ever since British forces fired on her from Sag Harbor’s prominent pier during the Revolution.

When the county resolved to give Long Wharf back to the village in February of this year, the bones of ships, sections of “wharf cribs,” and yet-to-be-discovered artifacts remained undisturbed, and that’s the way it should stay, at least until money can be raised to do a proper archaeological study, in the opinion of Henry Moeller, a retired professor of oceanography, marine archaeology, and botany at Dowling College.

Mr. Moeller was instrumental in finding the wreck of H.M.S. Colloden in Montauk’s Fort Pond Bay in the late 1970s. Cannons, cannonballs, shoes, bottles, and even a length of tarred rope were brought to the surface. The collection is held at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum on Bluff Road in Amagansett.

In 1999 Mr. Moeller traversed Sag Harbor with a side-scan sonar, a machine able to paint a black-and-white picture of objects from rebounding sound waves. The bottom literally echoed with hints of the harbor’s rich past. Mr. Moeller said he was concerned that the county’s giveback would not be accompanied by sufficient protections of the surrounding bottomland and its submerged history.

Long Wharf is on the National Register of Historic Places and has its protections, but Mr. Moeller said he was concerned that the bottomland and its treasures did not, making them more vulnerable in village hands.

Sag Harbor’s resolution, which states that the village wants the wharf back “for the municipal purpose of constructing, maintaining, and/or improving roadways and highways,” was debated last week in the County Legislature’s public works committee, of which County Legislator Jay Schneiderman of Montauk is a member.

The roadway on the wharf is now owned by the county. Route 114, a state road, passes by the wharf’s landward end.