Within a day’s drive from New York City is a wreck junkie heaven, with numerous shipwrecks to explore along the St. Lawrence River on the US-Canadian border, in the area called the Thousand Islands. Larry Cohen and Olga Torrey give a sampling of the wrecks in the region popular with both the American and Canadian diving communities.
The four week online course – called ‘Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds: Maritime Archaeology’ - starts today and is open to everyone.
The course will introduce you to the pioneers of the discipline and explain what maritime archaeology is and why it is relevant today. We’ll also explore the technologies used to investigate these challenging environments and the new horizons that are opening to us daily.
Finally, we’ll help show you ways in which you can become further involved in the exciting world of maritime archaeology.
HMS Tamar was a 4,600 tons displacement sail and steam-powered Royal Navy troopship launched in Britain in 1863. She served as a supply ship from 1897 to 1941 and gave her name to the shore station HMS Tamar in Hong Kong (1897 to 1997).
In 1897 Tamar was hulked as a base ship and used as the Hong Kong receiving ship and served as the 'name' ship for R.N. headquarters until it was replaced by the shore station, which was named HMS Tamar, after the ship.
Captain Kidd was executed in 1701 for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Legend had it that Kidd hid much of his loot, which has prompted numerous treasure hunts around the world and inspired Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote Treasure Island.
Finland’s accomplished diver and wreck researcher Rauno Koivusaari, who discovered the famous treasure ship Vrouw Maria in 1999, has now also found the wreck of the Hanneke Wrome just south of the island of Jussarö in Finland. According to historic documents, the ship was carrying 10,000 gold coins, estimated to be worth around €50 million today.
In a video streamed live from the Queen Maud Gulf off Nunavut, underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris moved from stern to bow, stopping at a handful of different points along the wreck to share clues from the long-sunk vessel.
He started by inspecting two brass six-pounder canons, one of the first features the team saw with a remotely operated vehicle when they began inspecting the site with an “underwater robot”, after the 19th-century wreck was discovered late last summer.
The new study, published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), reports "chemical and sensory analysis" of the historic liquid. It was led by Prof Philippe Jeandet, from the University of Reims in Champagne-Ardenne, France.
During a survey in 2009, the Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) located some twenty wrecks in the area. A recent search revealed an additional 15 wrecks, taking the total to at least 35.
Most of the wrecks stem from the post-WW2 scuttling, but there were also some that we could not associate with this campaign, said chief scientist at Norway's Defence Research Institute, Petter Lågstad.
Some of the wrecks were obviously unrelated to the scuttling because of their size and age.
NOAA, working with private industry partners and the U.S. Navy, has confirmed the location and condition of the USS Independence (CVL-22), the lead ship of its class of light aircraft carriers that were critical during the American naval offensive in the Pacific during World War II.
Resting in 2,600 feet of water off California's Farallon Islands, the carrier is "amazingly intact," said NOAA scientists, with its hull and flight deck clearly visible, with what appears to be a plane in the carrier's hangar bay.
The ship was purchased from the federal government of Canada through Crown Assets Distribution in 2008 with the intent of making this the first artificial reef in the Greater Vancouver area.
Leading up to the sinking, the Annapolis has been meticulously cleaned of hazardous and pollutant materials in compliance with federal regulations and an estimated 250 tons of materials (almost everything but the steel hull and aluminium super structure) has been recycled.
