Posted on

another project for 2012, small to start

The Continental Navy brigantine Andrew Doria (sic) was a former merchant brig that was purchased by the Continental Congress late in 1775 and sas rerigged and converted to a warship at the Humphreys shipyard in Philadelphia.  She fought in the battles of Block Island and Nassau, received the first international salute to the American flag from the Dutch at St. Eustatius, and was burned to prevent capture near Philadelphia on 21 or 22 Nov 1777 after the Royal Navy forced the Delaware River..  Oh, those Brits….
A non-profit group called Andrew Doria – The First Salute, Inc. wants to build a replica, and wants to find and map the original to make the replica more accurate.  They think they know where the brigantine and a British prize named Racehorse were burned.
The site probably is heavily sedimented.  If the vessels were destroyed too quickly to strip them first, and if their guns were iron (probable) and are still there (doubtful), there is a good chance we can find them with a magnetometer.  However, ground-truthing any buried mag hits would require excavation, which is far beyond the scope on this initial reconnaissance.  All we could accomplish on this trip is to localize mag targets for later investigation, a necessary first step.
If First Salute is correct about where the wrecks lie, the search should only take a day or two.  I hope we can do it in April while we are in Delaware River for the Fort Elfsborg search and while we still have LAMP’s good mag on loan.  The project would be coordinated with the Naval History and Hertitage Command, and the New Jersey Bureau of Archaeology and Ethnography.  Stay tuned.  As always, contact IMH if you would like to participate.

Posted on

2012-2014 plans

IMH is initiating two big reconnaissance projects for the next two years.  Dates are tentative.

Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, October 2012 to March 2013.

We will seek collaboration with local governments, the National Park Service, LAMP (the archaeological division of the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum), and universities.

The plan is to use sidescan sonar and magnetometer to scan selected areas along the northern coast of Puerto Rico, then the Virgin Islands, then the southern coast of Puerto Rico.  Most scanning would be done by a core crew, with volunteers coming down for a week or two to map the targets found.  One specific target is a War of 1812 schooner that foundered at St. Croix in 1928 at the age of 116 years or more.

The route from Florida to Puerto Rico goes right through the Bahamas.  We also hope to spend at least a month there to recon areas or sites selected by the Bahamian government.

Angkor, Cambodia, October 2013 to March 2014.

We will seek collaboration with 

            the Cambodian government agency APSARA,

            the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a branch of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),

            the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO),

            the École française d’Extrême-Orient,

            and others to be identified.

Angkor has two large artificial lakes (“barays”) and a smaller baray named Srah Srang..  The Eastern Baray is filled in, cultivated, populated, and crossed by roads.  The Western Baray and Srah Srang are wet.  Angkor Wat, the primary temple, has a large moat covering approximately 0.9 square miles.  Angkor Thom, the ancient palace immediately north of Angkor Wat, has an even larger moat, but half of it has filled in.  Other temples are nearby.  Some of them have their own barays and moats.  These sites are sacred to both the Hindu and Buddhist religions.

Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia, is located south of Angkor.  It covers approximately 1,040 square miles in the dry season, or 6,200 square miles in the rainy season (June through September).

As best we know, none of these waters has ever been archaeologically surveyed.

Fieldwork on the Caribbean project will be open to everyone on our usual no-take-no-talk basis — we do not disturb sites or tell anyone except the appropriate government officials where we went or what we found.  The Angkor project will be limited to those who have archaeological and black-water diving experience.

Both projects will require serious outside funding.  Setting up the projects will take much preparatory work for historical research, funding, logistics, permits, visas, and schedules.  If you would like to join in those preliminary efforts or in the fieldwork please contact david.howe@maritimehistory.org.

Posted on

A lost Caravel lost in the sands of time

The year was 1612, proudly three small ships were being keeled, three years later a turn of events will mark them in history. Little is known of the changes or modifications of what is referred to as the “Latin Caravel” similar in design to two of the three ships that Columbus sailed across the Atlantic to discover the New World in 1492, but changes in the course of the years did evolve. Much is written in curious sentences of the “Lost Pearl Boat of the Mojave” but in actuality little is really known of the architecture involved. Three ships left Acapulco, in hopes of discovering pearl rich beds of the Gulf of California, now known as the Sea of Cortez. What is known is that the ill fated voyage in 1615 was to say the least a tragedy of errors and negligence. Discovering a tribe of natives on its voyage the small group of boats entered into trade clothing for pearls. Cordone who began the trading decided that the instead of the fine clothing promised he would instead give the natives, bundles of old clothes and rags. Once the deception was detected , the local chief sent his warriors on the attack. Cordone was mortally wounded, his ship returned to Acapulco with its wounded skipper and the skipper of a sister ship, Rosales whose boat struck a reef and began to take on water abandoned, but not before its cargo of pearls had been moved to the boat skippered by Juan de Iturbe. There the story of the “Ghost ship of the Mojave” was put in motion. 

As we all know nature, and circumstance can often lead to disaster, Iturbe was about to find out exactly how those events would forever seal the fate of his boat. Iturbe proceeded to sail North, entering the flooded Colorado river basin he proceeded to sail further inland. At that point in time as well a tidal inudation of the Gulf of California contributed to the error of assumption. Iturbe thinking he was still in the Gulf, proceeded to search for the beds of pearls. The as fast as the flooding occured it began its retreat. Iturbe soon realized that the basin was emptying and made his attempt at escape back to open water,though a shallow draught its water under keel was just not there, and Iturbe’s fate and that of his ship was sealed. Finding his craft stranded in the sands, he evacuated his crew with provisions all they could carry and trekked across the desert and mountains of Cailfornia some 366 miles distance to San Luis Obispo  to the Spanish Mission there. In 1616  he was given another ship but that of his former command was lost.

In the area now known as the Mojave Desert, in legend and myth the ill fated boat and its location remains a mystery today and as well in the archives in both Spain and the reports filed by Iturbe the lost in the area somewhere above the 34th latitude remains. For eight months I have researched the “Great Bird of the Mojave” as it has been handed down by Native Americans, the sporadic news reports over 396 years, all state to date the location of the “Pearl Ship” remains a mystery. The craft from some reports was 30 meters in length, 8 meters at the beam and had an estimated weight of 50 tonnes. Studying satellite and archival records, my research begins next week to explore three sites of the possible location of Juan de Iturbe’s ill fated pearl boat.