HOT NEWS !
Stay informed on the old and most recent significant or spectacular
nautical news and shipwreck discoveries
That ‘New World’ feeling: Nina, Pinta replicas in Winona
By Danielle Wick - La Crosse Tribune
Columbus used the stars. They use GPS. Columbus’ crew slept on deck. They sleep below. Columbus and his men were on the sea for 50 days at time. They dock in a new port every few days.
The Columbus Foundation’s crew on the Pinta and Nina may not suffer as their predecessors did, but their ships are the closest replicas currently sailing the ocean blue — or, for a few weeks this summer, the Mississippi River.
The Pinta and Nina set sail in March from Gulf Shores, Ala., and made 15 stops on their way to dock Thursday afternoon in Winona.
The scale-size Nina has a 65-foot-long deck and is the most accurate copy of Columbus’ beloved ship ever built, according to Archaeology Magazine. Its traveling companion, the Pinta, is a little bit bigger than scale, with an 85-foot-long deck.
“People always ask about pirates,” Pinta senior deckhand Bradley Johnson said. “The ships were covered in tar; so since they’re black, people think they’re sinister.”
Not a single one of the seven crew members is a pirate, but the members do gain their sea legs over time. Volunteer Dave Balog, a retired electrician from Indiana, is on a three-week trip with the ships.
“It wasn’t on my bucket list,” Balog said. “But I didn’t know you could put something like this on the bucket list. When my wife saw (that people could volunteer), she said ‘This is you !’”
Explorer, state, France ink deal on shipwreck
By Steve Zucker - Charlevoix Courier
With a few pen strokes Monday, Charlevoix resident Steve Libert moved one big step closer to finding out if a shipwreck he found at the bottom of Lake Michigan in 2001 is in fact the long lost French vessel the Griffon.
Sitting in the Charlevoix City Council Chambers and in the presence of a few family members, and Charlevoix Mayor Norman “Boogie” Carlson Jr., Libert signed documents formalizing a deal between his organization, the State of Michigan and the French government granting Libert permission to continue exploring the shipwreck site.
In 2001 Libert, president of Great Lakes Exploration Group, found a shipwreck on the bottom of northern Lake Michigan that he believes is the Griffon — the first European vessel to sail the upper Great Lakes.
Built by the legendary French explorer, Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, the Griffon was intended to carry out lucrative fur-trading commerce which would support La Salle’s expedition in search of the mouth of the Mississippi.
According to Libert’s Website, on Sept. 18, 1679, on its return maiden voyage the Griffon, loaded with 6,000 pounds of furs, sailed out from present day Washington Harbor on Washington Island in northern Lake Michigan in and was never seen again.
In the years since his find, Libert has been engaged in a protracted legal battle with the state over ownership of the vessel.
He said the deal he signed Monday marks a major milestone in his 28-year quest to find the Griffon. Libert said the agreement permits his organization to continue in its efforts to verify the identity of the shipwreck.
Extreme archaeology: Divers plumb sacred Maya pools
From University of Illinois - R&D
Steering clear of crocodiles and navigating around massive submerged trees, a team of divers began mapping some of the 25 freshwater pools of Cara Blanca, Belize, which were important to the ancient Maya.
In three weeks this May, the divers found fossilized animal remains, bits of pottery and – in the largest pool explored – an enormous underwater cave.
This project, led by University of Illinois anthropology professor Lisa Lucero and funded by the National Geographic Society and an Arnold O. Beckman Award, was the first of what Lucero hopes will be a series of dives into the pools of the southern Maya lowlands in central Belize.
The divers will return this summer to assess whether archaeological excavation is even possible at the bottom of the pools, some of which are more than 60 meters deep.
“We don’t know if it’s going to be feasible to conduct archaeology 200 feet below the surface,” Lucero said. “But they are going to try.”
The Maya believed that openings in the earth, including caves and water-filled sinkholes, called cenotes (sen-OH-tays), were portals to the underworld, and often left offerings there. Ceremonial artifacts of the Maya have been found in pools and lakes in Mexico, but not yet in Belize.
Maya structures have been found near two of the eight pools the team surveyed.
“The pools with the most substantial and most obvious settlement at the edge also turn out to be the deepest that we know,” Lucero said. The divers so far have explored eight of the 25 known pools of Cara Blanca.
Undersea probe to seek out lost port city
By Jaya Menon - The Times of India
Encouraged by the zeal witnessed at the recent world classical Tamil conference, the DMK government has decided to fund an undersea expedition to excavate the remains of a 2,000-year-old town, Poompuhar or Kaveripoompattinam, submerged under the sea off the Nagapattinam coast in Tamil Nadu.
The marine archaeology wing of the Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) will be assigned the task. The expertise of the underwater wing of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which was involved in past explorations of the ancient sunken towns of Dwaraka and Mamallapuram on the east and west coasts, will also be used.
Reams and reams of ancient Tamil literature and even early geographers and historians like Ptolemy and Pliny have described the early Chola period town of Kaveripoompattinam as a vital maritime port that had trade links with the Roman empire and China until it was washed away by tidal waves, now recognised as a tsunami.
A few onshore and offshore excavations since the 1960s have given archaeologists an exciting glimpse of this once flourishing port town and capital of the Chola kings ring wells, brick structures, semi-precious stones and amphora pieces. Some artefacts and remains are displayed in the museum at Poompuhar town and preserved in the NIO.
Confirming the proposal, state minister for school education and archaeology Thangam Thennarasu told TOI that the government-sponsored excavation would be a significant step towards preserving Tamil culture.
"We have initiated talks with the NIO and are exploring the scope of such an excavation, not just off Poompuhar but also other ancient ports," he said.
By Nathan Bruttell - Today's News-Herald
Pitch black, icy water, 230 feet below the surface and inside a 54-year-old collapsing ship.
That combination would scare most people, but for Havasu resident Joel Silverstein, the dive down to the famous Andrea Doria shipwreck is as good as it gets.
“You have to be able to work in the dark, you have to be able to work alone and you need a fair amount of resolve.
This is a very dangerous location and fatalities do happen,” said Silverstein, vice president and COO of Havasu’s Tech Diving Limited. “Sometimes it’s flat calm and perfect down there. Other days it’s a washing machine.”
But the famous ocean liner shipwreck that sunk in 1956 after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm in the waters off Nantucket still gives up treasures, Silverstein said.
On June 25 aboard Capt. David Sutton’s R/V Explorer on the Silverstein/Sutton 2010 Andrea Doria Expedition, New Jersey divers Ernest Rookey and Carl Bayer located and recovered the “crow’s nest bell” from the Andrea Doria. The bell is considered to be “one of the most significant finds in the history of the wreck,” Silverstein said.
“This is an outstanding and historic find,” said Silverstein, the expedition leader during the find, in June. “In my 18 years of diving the Doria, this is probably the most significant artifact found.”
Andrea Doria historian and author Gary Gentile, who found the wreck’s stern bell in 1985, was also aboard the Silverstein/Sutton expedition.
“There was never any proof that a crow’s nest bell existed until today,” said Gentile in June.
Gentile has been diving the wreck since 1974 and has more documented dives on the Andrea Doria than any other diver, according to a press release. Fewer than 1,000 divers have visited the wreck from all over the world and 13 have lost their lives.
Silverstein said the dangers, depth, isolation, freezing temperatures and strong currents have combined to earn the Andrea Doria the nickname as “the Mount Everest of dives.”
“The danger and the intrigue of finding something significant make it one of the most famous dives in the world,” Silverstein said, adding that he’s made 14 dives on the wreck since 1992. Silverstein’s wife and Tech Diving Limited President Kathy Weydig has made several dives as well.
“We take a lot of precautions before heading out and safety is our absolute first priority. Finding artifacts is actually easier now than it used to be because it has collapsed and they’re just spilling out. Most divers don’t enter the inside anymore.”
Finding the crow’s nest bell was a combination of “great skill and a little bit of luck,” Silverstein said.
The 75-pound bronze bell, which holds the Andrea Doria name, was largely covered in sand and debris on the ocean floor when Bayer and Rookey first saw it.
Canadian archaeologists hunt long-lost Arctic explorers
By Sian Griffiths - BBC News
It has been more than 150 years since Capt Sir John Franklin and his 128 men perished in the Canadian Arctic, their ships lost in one of the greatest disasters of British polar exploration.
Now, a Canadian archaeological team is en route to the Arctic in a fresh hunt for Franklin's ships.
Relying on 150-year-old testimony of indigenous Inuits and 21st-Century methods like sea-floor surveying, the team hopes to find HMS Terror and HMS Erebus and discover once and for all the fate of the men - who are believed to have succumbed to scurvy, hypothermia and even cannibalism before they perished in the frozen Arctic.
The expedition by Parks Canada, a Canadian government agency, comes amid Canada's increasing efforts to assert sovereignty over the waters of the Northwest Passage, which is increasingly navigable for longer periods during the summer.
This sea route is the same one Franklin and his men set out to find in 1845. The expedition will also be the first to search for the ship sent to rescue Franklin, HMS Investigator.
Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris and his boss Marc-Andre Bernier have been pondering the fate of Franklin and his crew while examining maps of the Canadian Arctic at their Ottawa headquarters.
Aiding in their search are underwater archaeologists Jonathan Moore and Thierry Boyer.
Remarkably, the crew of the Investigator survived.
"The Investigator promises to tell its own stories!" says Mr Harris.
"Our job is to understand and make those objects speak," adds Mr Bernier, "and that's what's fascinating."
Rare 'Whisky Galore' bottle up for auction
From Stornoway Gazette
A bottle of Ballantine's from the "Whisky Galore" ship, The SS Politician, is being offered at Bonhams annual Scottish Sale in Edinburgh between 17 - 20 August.
It is believed to have been salvaged from the wreck of the ship in the 1950s or 1960s and is being sold with photographs of the salvage operation at an estimate of £1,200 – 1,800.
In 1941, the SS Politician set sail for Kingston, Jamaica with a cargo which included pianos, motor parts, bedding and 28,000 cases (264,000 bottles) of whisky.
The ship ran aground in a gale off the Outer Hebrides near the island of Eriskay. Luckily the crew were rescued unharmed; and so, over the next few weeks, was the whisky. Islanders, from Eriskay and beyond, starved of whisky by war time rationing, systematically liberated around 24,000 bottles before the authorities caught up with them.
Some of the looters were fined; some ended up in jail; few of the stolen bottles were recovered. The hull of the ship was blown up by a frustrated local customs officer to put the whisky beyond temptation, prompting one anguished islander to exclaim, "Dynamiting whisky ! You wouldn't think there'd be men in the world so crazy as that !"
In 1947 the Scottish author, Compton MacKenzie wrote a novel, Whisky Galore, based on the incident which, two years later, was turned into a successful Ealing Comedy film of the same name.
Whisky from the Politician rarely appears at auction. In 1987, eight bottles were retrieved from the wreck which still lies submerged off the coast of Eriskay and sold for £4,000. Despite extensive salvage efforts in 1989 only 24 more bottles were recovered.
Seafaring bounty goes up for sale
From This Is Bristol
Mementoes of one of the most dramatic battles in Bristol's naval history go under the hammer tomorrow.
In 1745 two of the city's ships plundered 2,381,000 ounces of Spanish silver worth £800,000 from two armed French treasure ships in the North Atlantic. And while most of it was turned into coins, some was melted down and turned into ornaments for the rich and famous.
Two of these, candelabra bearing the crest of William Murray, the first Earl of Mansfield, go under the hammer at Woolley and Wallis's sale in Salisbury tomorrow with an estimate of £8,000 to £12,000.
Murray was one of the main supporters of Britain's War of Austrian succession, the conflict that gave the privateer captains James Talbot and John Morecock the right to seize the treasure. Bristol was a major port for privateers – privately owned ships authorised to attack and capture enemy vessels in times of war.
And it was on July 10, 1745 that Talbot and Morecock, captaining the Prince Frederick and Duke, sighted the Louis Erasmé, Marquis d'Antin and Notre Dame sailing back to France with their hoard from Callao, the port for Lima, Peru.
One of the enemy ships surrendered after its captain had been killed by a pistol shot, another did so after prolonged fighting and the Notre Dame escaped. The masts of the two captured ships had been shot away, and it took three weeks to tow them to back Bristol with their heavy cargoes of treasure.
In early October, the fortune – weighing 78 tons – was paraded overland on 45 wagons to the royal mint at the Tower of London. More than 2.6 million silver dollars – pieces of eight – formed the bulk of the booty, along with gold doubloons and pistoles, gold bars – plus 800 tons of cocoa, which in itself was highly prized.
There was great rejoicing over the capture, and a medal was struck in honour of Talbot and Morecock.