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nautical news and shipwreck discoveries
Crews search for Civil War history
By Nick Cenegy - The Daily News
For years, the scoured remains of a Civil War naval tragedy slowly rusted beneath the spinning propellers of gargantuan tankers and sky-scraping container ships.
The scuttled USS Westfield, a Union gunship, and the last vestiges of its 14 doomed crew lay obscured in sea floor sediment near the confluence of the Texas City and Houston ship channels.
On Wednesday, however, divers and salvage crews visited the all-but-forgotten site to begin recovering what is left of the ship in preparation for a planned 5-foot deepening of the Texas City Channel.
Since the dredging will damage or destroy the archaeological site, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District and Navy salvage experts stepped in to remove artifacts from the site, as required by federal law, Sharon Tirpak, Corps project manager for the Texas City Channel, said.
The Westfield sank in an ill-fated attempt by Union sailors to destroy the ship so Confederate sailors wouldn’t capture it, she said.
Absecon Lighthouse in A.C. unveils new collection of Titanic memorabilia
The Absecon Lighthouse was constructed to prevent shipwrecks. But stop by the lighthouse Thursday evening and the focus will be on what is probably the most famous shipwreck ever.
Thursday is when the lighthouse operators unveil their newly acquired memorabilia and exhibit material related to the sinking of the ocean liner Titanic.
The exhibit includes small pieces of debris from the ship, which sank on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg. It also includes movie props, newspapers and books detailing the sinking and several panels telling the story of the ocean liner, its passengers and the disaster.
The collection, valued at more than $150,000, was originally assembled in the late 1990s and intended to be part of a traveling commercial show about the shipwreck. But those plans fell through and the collection's owners - Donna Andersen, of Atlantic City, and John Glassey, of West Atlantic City, approached the lighthouse about donating the items.
What would Shackleton's whisky taste like ?
From BBC News
After a century buried in the Antarctic ice, a rare batch of whiskey which belonged to the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton is to be recovered. So what might it taste like ?
It's been on the rocks for the last 100 years, buried under two feet of ice at the South Pole. Now the two cases of "Rare Old" brand Mackinlay and Co whisky are to be retrieved.
A team of New Zealand explorers heading out in January have been asked by Whyte & Mackay, the company that now owns Mackinlay and Co, to get a sample of the drink. The crates were left behind by Sir Ernest Shackleton when he abandoned his polar mission in 1909.
Citrus, Marion county divers to help find old shipwrecks
From Citrus County Local News
The Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN), Hernando Past and Southeastern Archaeological Services invite the public to Bayport Park from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday to watch archaeologists, FPAN staff and volunteer divers record possible shipwrecks located during recent remote sensing surveys.
Bayport was the site of two brief engagements between Confederate land troops and Union blockading vessels during which several blockade runners were "scuttled,” or burned, on purpose by the Confederacy to keep them out of Union hands.
The archaeological remains of Civil War-era vessels associated with these events are reported to lie in the waters off Bayport.
Archaeologists are concerned about the preservation of the submerged cultural resources at Bayport and recently conducted a remote sensing survey in the hopes of relocating the archaeological remains of the blockade runners.
The blockade running vessels used in and around Bayport were designed to navigate the shallow waters of the central gulf coast; however, no documents exist that show how these vessels were built.
Archaeologists hope the archaeological remains, if located, will provide knowledge about this unique ship construction.
Captain Kidd's treasures found !?
From the Springfield Republican (May 1849)
It seems by by the following account, that all the gold in the world is not packed away in the placers of the Sacramento.
The other day, Martin and Samuel Shaw, of Palmer, while on a hunting excursion, near the "Old Boston Road", on "Snake Hill", discovered a cave in the rocks.
In the den they found a sealed bottle containing a letter, purporting to have been written by Captain Kidd, the notorious pirate, to some of his inferior officers, informing them where some large deposits of wealth were made, and entreating them to possess themselves of that treasure, and extricate him from some difficulty which the letter represents him to have been in.
He adds that he sends the letter by a footman, as other conveyances were unsafe.
The letter bears marks of great antiquity, and some of the shrewdest men in the vicinity, after examining the document and the circumstances of the case, have joined with the discoverers, to go in pursuit of the buried treasure.
Our informant, who is perfectly reliable, informs us that the letter would be submitted for publication, were it not for the fact the the place of deposit would be thus revealed, and the aims of the lucky finders be thwarted. That would be bad truly.
Found or not found finally...?
Nau portuguesa com tesouro valioso descoberta no Brasil
Jornal de noticias
Uma equipa de mergulhadores encontrou perto da costa da cidade brasileira de Rio de Janeiro restos de uma nau portuguesa do século XVIII que naufragou com uma carga avaliada em cerca de 670 milhões de euros, informou a imprensa local.
Os pesquisadores encontraram restos de madeiras que podem ter pertencido ao "Rainha dos Anjos", um barco que se afundou a 17 de Julho de 1722 frente à baía da Guanabara, na costa do Rio de Janeiro, escreve o jornal O Globo.
O navio, que viajava da China para Lisboa, tinha feito escala no Rio de Janeiro carregado com 136 preciosas peças de porcelana chinesa da era do imperador Kangxi (1662-1722), terceiro da dinastia Qing, das quais actualmente apenas está conservado um vaso no Museu Imperial da China.
"Os chineses eram conhecidos pelos cuidados com que embalavam a porcelana. É muito provável que encontremos peças inteiras", declarou o autor da descoberta ao jornal.
Muito embora os vestígios estejam pendentes de ser enviados a laboratórios dos Estados Unidos para confirmar a sua origem, o mergulhador José Galindo, autor da descoberta, já conta com várias empresas internacionais interessadas em patrocinar as investigações arqueológicas.
Pelas contas de Galindo, será preciso um investimento de 196 mil euros apenas para desenterrar parte da nau e mais 1.166 milhões de euros para a trazer à superfície.
Uma empresa britânica mostrou interesse em deslocar equipamento para a zona e participar nas investigações, enquanto que uma companhia norueguesa até já visitou o local.
O brasileiro José Galindo relata que fez a descoberta quando procurava uma hélice perdida por um rebocador no ano passado.
Diving for answers - Fisherman helps uncover lost artefacts
By Anthea McGibbon - The Gleaner
While many Jamaicans fear the sea, some can't imagine their lives without it. Residents of Port Royal are among those whose lives are linked to the sea in more ways than one.
Emmanuel Blake, a Port Royal resident and fisherman for more than 50 years, makes his living from the sea and has helped uncover some of its hidden secrets.
Blake is one of the divers who years ago joined an expedition to retrieve items from the bottom of the sea that were buried there after the great earthquake of 1907 that caused a large chunk of Port Royal to sink.
Much of the artefacts from the area now on display at local museums were retrieved by Blake.
During the late 1960s to early 1970s, Blake joined Robert 'Bob' Marx, an undersea archaeologist, to assist in pumping and retrieving anything that told tales of the history of Port Royal from their muddy burial ground.
The 1907 earthquake, followed by several natural disasters, according to Blake, caused an underground shifting over time, constantly burying the pieces farther.
South Pole explorers to drill for Sir Ernest Shackleton's whiskey
By Simon Johnson -Telegraph
Explorers are planning to recover a rare batch of whiskey lost during explorer's ill-fated voyage to the South Pole a century ago.
Two crates of the now extinct “Rare Old” brand of McKinlay and Co whiskey have been buried in the Antarctic ice since Shackleton was forced to abandon his polar mission in 1909.
But Whyte & Mackay, the whiskey giant that owns McKinlay and Co, has asked a team of New Zealand explorers heading out on a January expedition to return a sample of the drink for a series of experiments.
The team intends to utilise special drills to free the trapped crates and rescue a bottle from the wreckage, which is believed to have been discarded 97 miles from the pole.
If they cannot retrieve a full bottle, they are hoping to use a syringe to extract some of the contents.
The sample will then be brought home to Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay's master blender, who intends to replicate the famous old whiskey.