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Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure

A remarkably well preserved Dutch fluyt has been discovered on the Baltic seabed off Finland.
Eerily Well-Preserved 17th Century Ship Found in The Dark Waters of The Baltic Sea

Divers from Finland have made an unexpected discovery while exploring the depths of the Baltic Sea, finding an incredibly well-preserved shipwreck dating back almost 400 years.

Volunteer divers from the non-profit Badewanne team more often come across wrecked 20th century relics sunk during the sea battles of World War I and WWII, so uncovering what appears to be a largely undamaged Dutch merchant vessel from the 17th century was a huge surprise.

The ship, an example of a Dutch 'fluit' (or fluyt), was found near the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, in the easternmost waters of the Baltic.

At a depth of about 85 metres (roughly 280 ft), the Badewanne diving team discovered this Dutch time capsule lying on the seabed, almost completely preserved and intact. ...

Even the holds of the ship are full, the divers say, still carrying its stock of provisions and wares from when Dutch cargo vessels largely dominated seaborne trade in this part of the world, thanks in part to the pioneering advancements demonstrated by the fluit itself. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.sciencealert.com/incred...ry-ship-found-in-the-depths-of-the-baltic-sea
 
The railroad car ferry Pere Marquette 18 sank in Lake Michigan 110 years ago, and the loss of its key crew members left the cause of the sinking a mystery. This summer the wreck was finally discovered.
Railroad car ferry found 110 years after sinking in Lake Michigan

Jerry Eliason and Ken Merryman said they used a combination of towed sonar and a transom mount to find the Pere Marquette 18 about 500 feet under the surface of the water some 25 miles from the coast of Sheboygan, Wis. ...

"We consider it arguably the most desirable wreck, with the most gravitas, in Lake Michigan," Eliason told MLive.com.

The men said the wreckage indicates the ship sank quickly and impacted the floor of the lake strongly. Eliason said the bow is now sticking up at a 30 to 40 foot angle.

"It's a lot steeper than any other wreck we've seen," he said.

The cause of the ferry's sinking remains a mystery. Captain Peter Kilty and his officers were among the 29 people who went down with the ship. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/airplane-seat-design-pandemic/index.html


This lengthy September 8 Minnesota Public Radio article provides much more information about the ship and the circumstances of its mysterious sinking.

Minnesota shipwreck hunters locate long-sought Lake Michigan wreck
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/...hunters-locate-longsought-lake-michigan-wreck
 
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An unusual slave ship wreck located.

Archaeologists in Mexico say they have identified a ship that carried Mayan people into virtual slavery in the 1850s, the first time such a ship has been found.

The wreck of the Cuban-based paddle-wheel steamboat was found in 2017, but was not identified until researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History checked contemporary documents and found it was the ship “La Union”. The ship had been used to take Mayas captured during the 1847-1901 rebellion known as “The War of the Castes” to work in sugar cane fields in Cuba. Slavery was illegal in Mexico at the time, but operators of similar ships had reportedly deceived Mayas left landless by the conflict to “sign on” as contract workers, often in Cuba, though they were treated like slaves.

The La Union was on a trip to Havana in September 1861 when its boilers exploded and it sank off the once-important Yucatan port of Sisal. ...

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40049600.html
 
Divers have contacted USN authorities with the news they believe they've found the wreck of the USS Grenadier - a submarine lost in southeastern Asian waters during WW2.
Divers in SE Asia may have found US submarine lost in WWII

Divers have found what they believe is the wreck of a U.S. Navy submarine lost 77 years ago in Southeast Asia, providing a coda to a stirring but little-known tale from World War II.

The divers have sent photos and other evidence from six dives they made from October 2019 to March this year to the United States Naval History and Heritage Command for verification that they have found the USS Grenadier, one of 52 American submarines lost during the conflict.

The 1,475-ton, 307-foot long Grenadier was scuttled by its crew after bombs from a Japanese plane almost sent them to a watery grave. All 76 of its personnel survived the bombing and sinking, but their agony to follow would be prolonged. After being taken prisoner, they were tortured, beaten and nearly starved by their Japanese captors for more than two years, and four did not survive that ordeal. ...

The wreck lies 82 meters (270 feet) underwater somewhere in the Strait of Malacca, about 150 kilometers (92 miles) south of Phuket, Thailand. ...

The Navy command’s Underwater Archaeology Branch on average receives two to three such requests a year from searchers like the Grenadier divers, said its head, Dr. Robert Neyland, in an email to The Associated Press. ...

“A complete review, analysis, and documentation may take two months to a year to complete,” he said, adding that it will likely take a few months in the case of this potential discovery. ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/15a7061222add012d94cbc8dadfb112b
 
In response to a hard-fought FOIA request the USN has released documents from its internal investigation into the loss of the submarine USS Thresher in 1963.
Navy releases documents from Cold War loss of submarine

The Navy began releasing documents from the investigation into the deadliest submarine disaster in U.S. history on Wednesday, but the Navy said the documents released under a court order don’t shed any new light on the cause of the sinking.

The first of the documents released were 300 pages from the official inquiry into the sinking of the USS Thresher on April 10, 1963.

The loss of the nuclear-powered submarine and all 129 men aboard during a test dive in the Atlantic Ocean delivered a blow to national pride during the Cold War and became the impetus for safety improvements. ...

“The loss of Thresher was a defining event for the submarine service,” said Rear Adm. William Houston ...

The Thresher story was already well known. It had undergone sea trials and was back in the ocean for deep-dive testing about 220 miles off Massachusetts’ Cape Cod.

The first sign of trouble was a garbled message about a “minor difficulty” after the 279-foot (85-meter) submarine descended to more than 800 feet.

The crew indicated it was attempting to empty ballast tanks in an effort to surface. The crew of an accompanying rescue ship heard something about the “test depth.” Then the sailors listened as the sub disintegrated under the crushing pressure of the sea.

The Navy inquiry found weaknesses in the design and construction of the first-in-class nuclear-powered submarine ...

The documents released Wednesday included the timeline of the sinking, evidence lists, reports, testimony and correspondence. But there were some redactions. Even more than 50 years later, technical details including the test depth were redacted.

In the documents, the Navy said it believes an interior pipe burst and caused electrical problems that caused an emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor. ...
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FULL STORY: https://apnews.com/f40eaf0b5383ab499a493819b9b30592
 
Discovery of a shipwreck in the Baltic has raised hopes it may contain the long missing remains of the fabled Amber Room.
Nazi shipwreck may solve 75-year-old Amber Room mystery, divers say
Polish divers said Thursday they have located a Nazi shipwreck from World War II that may help solve a 75-year-old mystery -- the location of the fabled Russian Amber Room. ...
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See this post in the Amber Room thread:

https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-amber-room.17039/post-1999206
 
Ivory from shipwreck provides new info on elephant populations.

In 2008, miners off the coast of Namibia stumbled upon buried treasure: a sunken Portuguese ship known as the Bom Jesus, which went missing on its way to India in 1533.

The trading ship bore a trove of gold and silver coins and other valuable materials. But to a team of archaeologists and biologists, the Bom Jesus’ most precious cargo was a haul of more than 100 elephant tusks — the largest archaeological cargo of African ivory ever discovered.

Genetic and chemical analyses have now traced those tusks back to several distinct herds of forest elephants that once roamed West Africa. “It is by far the most detailed and comprehensive attempt to source [archaeological] elephant ivory,” says Paul Lane, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge not involved in the work.

The new results, reported in the Feb. 8 Current Biology, give insight into historical African elephant populations and ivory trade networks.

For having been lost at sea for nearly 500 years, the Bom Jesus’ ivory is incredibly well-preserved, says Alida de Flamingh, a molecular biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ivory-shipwreck-african-elephants-tusk-dna-bom-jesus
 
A ship 'snapped in half' and sank off Turkey's Black Sea coast while en route to Bulgaria, with a shocking video showing the crew making an emergency mayday call

The vessel, named Arvin, broke into two pieces and sank off Turkey's Black Sea coast while en route to Bulgaria two weeks ago.
Rescue workers reportedly saved at least six people on board the ship and retrieved the bodies of two others.

A video shows the ship crashing over high waves before a loud creaking sound can be heard.

The surviving crew members were found in lifeboats.
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Short video at link.

0_cargo-ship.jpg
 
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hunck said:
Yeah, imagine being onboard when this happens. The sea doesn't even look especially rough - a bit of a swell but...
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Apparently, the report suggests it was narrow-hulled and not really designed for those seas.
 
No bodies were observed but wreaths were laid before and after the dives.

A submersible has dived to the world’s deepest-known shipwreck.

The vessel reached the USS Johnston, which lies 6.5km (4 miles) beneath the waves in the Philippine Sea in the Pacific Ocean. Explorers spent several hours surveying and filming the wreck over a series of dives. The 115m-long US Navy destroyer sank during the Battle off Samar in 1944 after a fierce battle with a large fleet of Japanese warships.

Victor Vescovo, who led the expedition and piloted the sub, said: “The wreck is so deep so there's very little oxygen down there, and while there is a little bit of contamination from marine life, it's remarkably well intact except for the damage it took from the furious fight.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56608713
 
A college professor and his students are confident they've found the remains of a steamboat that played a critical role in the US Civil War.
Wreckage Located In Tennessee River May Be The U.S.S. Chattanooga

Morgan Smith wasn’t sure he’d find what he was seeking. Heck, he didn’t even know if it was there at all.

He thinks he found it on the first try.

Smith, assistant professor in the UTC Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and his students are 90 percent sure they found the wreckage of the U.S.S. Chattanooga, a steamship that brought supplies to the starving army of U.S. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant outside Chattanooga in 1863. According to historical records, supplies had dwindled until there was only one loaf of bread left for Union soldiers.

After the war, the ship sat on the northern side of the Tennessee River across from what is now the Tennessee Aquarium and Riverfront. Eventually, it fell apart and sank.

On April 14, Smith and students in his “Underwater Anthropology” course are pretty sure they found pieces of it sitting on the muddy river bottom.

“It had a big role in American history and it is unrecorded as far as archeological sites go. The state of Tennessee was not aware that this was even here before we did this survey today,” Smith told a group of students ...
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FULL STORY: http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/cit...-in-tennessee-river-may-be-the-u-s-s-chattan/
 
Souleater said:
I would have thought that if they knew where it was moored when it 'fell apart and sank' it wasnt a great mystery where the wreckage would be.
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Rivers change course over the decades, and if the location wasn't well mapped at the time it would easily have been forgotten. Other US Civil War vessels were similarly lost and later found. For example, the Sultana's wreck was rediscovered under a soybean field as the Mississippi had shifted course since she sank.
 
Mark Twain in Tales of the Mississippi, talked about how the river constantly changed it's course. Hence the need of a river pilot.

At the time of his writing the river was increasing in length due to it becoming more circuitous & he estimated that if the trend continued by 2000 & something the river would stretch to Mars.
 
The WW2 era British submarine HMS Urge has been discovered off Malta and its identity confirmed. This dashes an earlier conspiracy theory claiming Urge had been lost off Libya while on a secret mission which has been covered up ever since.
Wartime submarine 'HMS Urge' identified, quashing conspiracy theories of sub's secret mission

Divers have confirmed the identity of the wreck of a British submarine that was sunk by a German mine near Malta in 1942, putting an end to controversial claims that the sub was sunk by Italian warplanes during a secret mission off the coast of Libya.

University of Malta maritime archaeologist Timmy Gambin said a team of six researchers made two dives to the wreck at the end of April and established it was the HMS Urge by the name embossed on its conning tower. ...

Gambin led the team that discovered the wreck in 2019 about 6 miles (10 kilometers) east of Malta, in an area that had been mined by German ships during World War II.

Before it went missing in April 1942, the submarine, skippered by Lt. Cmdr. Edward Tomkinson, had distinguished itself with a string of successes in battle, including crippling the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto and sinking the Italian cruiser Bande Nere, according to the Royal Navy. ...

In 1942, the Urge was based at Malta ... At the end of April that year, the British Admiralty ordered the submarine to leave for Egypt, along with other warships, to escape the intense bombardment of the island ...

But the Urge never arrived at Alexandria in Egypt and was officially reported missing at sea with 32 crew, 11 other naval personnel and a war correspondent on board.

The mystery of what happened to the Urge resurfaced in 2015 when a Belgian diver, Jean-Pierre Misson, claimed to have discovered its wreck off the coast of Libya, where he said it had been sunk by Italian warplanes during a secret mission ...

Misson's claims were contentious because they implied the Urge was off course when it sank, and that its commander may have disobeyed his orders. Misson continues to suggest that the wreck he found off Libya is that of the Urge, and that there has been a conspiracy to cover up its mission and fate. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photos / Illustrations): https://www.livescience.com/hms-urge-submarine-identified-no-secret-mission.html
 
Not a war grave so it can now be explored in a structured manner.

The wreck of a British submarine used in World War One has been given protection.

The submarine, which was deliberately sunk in 1918, was used to boost Britain's defensive power in the war. The protected status of the wreck, off the coast of Dartmouth, Devon, means it can be dived, but its contents are protected by law and must not be moved.

A team of specialist divers found the submarine during an investigation and reported the find to Historic England.

Lead diver Steve Mortimer, who was part of the team searching for the remains of German U-boats when they came across the wreck, said: "Every diver dreams of identifying a historically important wreck."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-57091381
 
EnolaGaia said:
In response to a hard-fought FOIA request the USN has released documents from its internal investigation into the loss of the submarine USS Thresher in 1963.
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A sad - even chilling - update ...

Declassified documents describing the initial response to the Thresher's disappearance suggest at least some of the doomed submarine's crew were still alive circa 24 hours after the sub sank to the bottom. This contradicts the conventional interpretation that the sub catastrophically imploded and killed everyone all at once.
USS Thresher’s Crew May Have Survived Many Hours After Its Disappearance According To New Docs

Declassified reports from one of the submarines that were looking for the Thresher suggest some of its crew may have survived the initial incident.

Remarkable new information has emerged on the fate of the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Thresher, also known by its hull number SSN-593, the lead submarine of its class, which was lost during trials east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in April 1963. While the official explanation had always stated that the submarine sunk soon after getting into trouble, quickly claiming the lives of all 129 sailors and civilian technicians onboard, a newly unclassified report indicates that at least some of the crew were still alive around 24 hours after the vessel supposedly imploded. Provided this latest account is an accurate description of the events, it would overturn our previous understanding of what happened. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...after-its-disappearance-according-to-new-docs
 
I thought about putting this in Lost & Found, but it does involve a boat wreck and 'treasured' cargo lost.
Treasure hunters find whiskey that sank into Ontario lake in 1964

A group of treasure hunters searching a Canadian lake were successful in their attempt to find some unusual sunken treasure: a bottle of whiskey that has been in the lake since 1964.

Dieter Mueller of Barrie, Ontario, said he has been fascinated by the tale of Otter Lake's sunken whiskey ever since several bottles were lost when a neighbor crashed his boat into a dock in 1964. ...

Mueller said he found a stash of underwater bottles while swimming once in the 1960s, but he was unable to reach them, so when he returned to the lake July 15 he brought friend Adam Blokzyl and diving expert Dave Davison to help.

Mueller said the group was getting ready to pack it up for the day when Davison found three bottles underwater, and one was still sealed and intact. ...

Mueller said Davison spotted more bottles buried under debris at the bottom of the water and they are planning to return to see if they can find more that remain sealed.

He said the whiskey was produced by the Gooderham & Worts company, which discontinued the spirit in the 1990s. ...
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SOURCE: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...reasure-whiskey-Dieter-Mueller/1911626900437/
 
Vid at link.

Tusker Rock's shipwrecks graveyard captured in art project

A photographer is paying tribute to the lives lost to a small island in the Bristol Channel known as a graveyard for shipwrecks. Tusker Rock, which lies about about two miles (3.2km) west of Ogmore-by-Sea, in Vale of Glamorgan, has claimed dozens of lives over the centuries.

Photographer and artist Peter Britton has always been fascinated by the 0.3 mile (500m) long island. His project aims to create an artwork which stands as a "legacy for the lives lost" to the "treacherous" rock through videos and photographs.

Video by Matt Murray and Nick Hartley

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-wales-57918489
 
EnolaGaia said:
A remarkably well preserved Dutch fluyt has been discovered on the Baltic seabed off Finland.


FULL STORY (With Photos): https://www.sciencealert.com/incred...ry-ship-found-in-the-depths-of-the-baltic-sea
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Finland’s Mysterious 18th-century Baltic Sea Ship Has Been Identified!​

An article on Diver Net quotes Minna Koivikko, from the Finnish Heritage Agency, who revealed to the media that the ship was named “Swan.”

Baltic.jpg


A bird motif on the Baltic Sea ship, which was initially discovered on the seafloor off the coast of southern Finland in July 2020, and then intensively researched by various experts.

Furthermore, it is known the craft was built in 1636 AD, and the archaeologists believe that closer examinations of the transom will reveal the coat of arms for the ship’s home port.

photogrammetric_2.jpg


A 3D photogrammetric model of the fluyt Baltic Sea ship as it was found on the Baltic Sea floor.

Archaeologist Martijn Manders, from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, said the new information found on the ship might even yield the names of the crew members.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/baltic-sea-ship-0015759

maximus otter
 
Found off North Norfolk, victim of Cromer wreckers?

Calm weather and clear water has revealed a 125-year-old shipwreck off the north Norfolk coast.

Chris Taylor filmed the sunken remains of the SS Commodore which ran aground close to Sheringham in 1896.

All 14 crew on the boat were rescued, but parts of the wreck remain visible when conditions allow.

Mr Taylor said he "stumbled upon it while returning to shore" after another dive.

"I have looked for it a few times in the past but never had any luck," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-norfolk-58599802
 
Two vacationers went snorkeling in Spain and discovered one of the largest known hoards of late period Roman gold coins.
Amateur freedivers find gold treasure dating to the fall of the Roman Empire

Two amateur divers swimming along the Spanish coast have discovered a huge hoard of 1,500-year-old gold coins, one of the largest on record dating to the Roman Empire.

The divers, brothers-in-law Luis Lens Pardo and César Gimeno Alcalá, discovered the gold stash while vacationing with their families in Xàbia, a coastal Mediterranean town and tourist hotspot. ...

Stunned by the find, Lens Pardo and Gimeno Alcalá reported it the next day to the authorities. ...

With the help of the archaeologists, they found that the hole held a hefty pile of at least 53 gold coins dating between A.D. 364 and 408, when the Western Roman Empire was in decline. Each coin weighs about 0.1 ounces (4.5 grams).

The coins were so well preserved, archaeologists could easily read their inscriptions and identify the Roman emperors depicted on them, including: Valentinian I (three coins), Valentinian II (seven coins), Theodosius I (15 coins), Arcadius (17 coins), Honorius (10 coins) and an unidentified coin, according a University of Alicante statement. The hoard also included three nails, likely made of copper, and the deteriorated lead remains of what may have been a sea chest that held the riches. ...

The hoard is one of the largest known collections of Roman gold coins in Europe ...

After the coins are fully studied, they will go on display at the Blasco Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum in Xàbia. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/divers-find-roman-empire-coin-hoard-spain
 
Here's a different kind of shipwreck story - the emergence of wrecks from the waters around Iwo Jima.
WWII 'ghost ships' rise from Pacific after volcanic eruption

Seismic activity from an underwater volcano near Tokyo has raised two dozen "ghost ships" — sunk after one of World War II's most famous battles — from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Helicopter footage from Japan's All Nippon News (ANN) captured the 24 ships washed ashore on the western side of the island of Iwo Jima, which is roughly 760 miles (1,200 kilometers) south of Tokyo, after they were pushed up, along with the seabed, by the underwater volcano Fukutoku-Okanoba.

U.S. forces sank the ships during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. ...

The smashed, sea-bleached wrecks are the remnants of transport vessels that were captured by the U.S. Navy and deliberately scuttled in the aftermath of the battle. As Iwo Jima had no port, the ships were sunk parallel to the shoreline to form a breakwater — shielding both weapons and troops from oncoming waves as they were unloaded onto the island ...

Barring another eruption of Mount Suribachi or the sinking of the seabed that the ghost ships are resting upon, the once sunken monoliths will likely remain on the island for some time to come. Iwo Jima is uninhabited and rarely visited by civilians — partly as a result of the enormous quantities of unexploded bombs and grenades left behind on the island — meaning that it is unlikely that the ships will be cut up for scrap or removed by Japanese authorities.
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/iwo-jima-ghost-ships-resurface
 
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