Fish or Cut Ballast

[tarpon192]

A ballast beach in Saint Lucia...

That would light a fire under me if I saw that on a beach. Nothing is round and smooth on the ocean floor, yet alone on the beach. Those stones do not fit in where they were photographed.
Did you detect the area?
Are any of those stones "hot rocks"?
Looks like the ship would have been blown very close to the beach when all hope was lost. Most of the "GOOD STUFF" could hace been recovered, but you never know!
That is a great picture. 8)

 

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[signumops]

Nick Terret took the picture. I don't have the bucks to go to places like Saint Lucia. Terret has been all over the place for years taking pictures, and he has taken some others of similar beaches in the Lesser Antilles.

I think that this is a beach where a river met the sea at one time, and that is how all those stones got polished. But, maybe it is a ballast dump. Whatever the case, in the foreground of the photo you can see some red ballast. Every 1715 wreck has some red ballast on it. It must be a common stone in the Caribbean. My neighbor has some on his front porch, but it came from New York.

 

[hobbit]

Many "beaches" in California are composed of cobbles like those seen above. The bight between La Jolla and Pacific Beach is loaded with them. They are not "ballast stones", but ancient river gravel. If you are a masochist, try using a PI there...hot rock city...

 

[Old Bookaroo]

There's a beach on the northern side (northern end) of North Manitou Island, Lake Michigan, covered in smooth, round stones. Those aren't ballast - there are just smooth, round beach stones.

No where else on the island has these.

Many, many years ago I found a deadeye well out in the shallow water. I thought it was a human skull - stones were in the sockets.

The Manitous are ringed with wrecks - the Manitou Passage has about 150.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo

 

[aloysiusinfla]

I looked at my little collection, and I've got both a round red ballaststone and a black rough ballaststone. Both found on local beaches, probably the Nieves.

 

[pcolaboy]

British ships started using iron pig ballast in very early 1800, and they stopped using lead sheathing-or stopped putting it on about 1812, so if you found iron pig ballast and lead sheathing on a British ship-British=everything metal would have a broadhead stamped in it, you can date it to 1800 to 1812ish. If after that, it would have had copper sheathing. Spanish, not so easy. They used stone ballast for a while, and did not mark anything. Anchors , cannons and other things can date them.

Not to sound knit-picky...but the log of the HMS Mentor (1779-1781) specifically records the use of iron pigs for ballast. They were typically 18" long and weighed between 50-70lbs each.

 

[stevemc]

Thanks, I should have said used lead sheathing and iron pigs together for that 1800ish -1810ish period. I should have also said more or less, since I dont know exactly when they started and stopped, and who kept sailing that way. Yes I am sure they used iron in other countries too, once it was easier for them to produce it, much like lead is used today. Yes those iron pigs were like long loaves of bread.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

stevemc:

Am I correct in thinking the broad arrow would have been stamped on items used by the British army and navy - not on merchant ship equipment?

Unless, of course, a civilian vessel happened to using something that was ex-military.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo

 

[stevemc]

I dont know exatcly, I always assumed it was marked that way because it was British, but maybe it is the military only. We found a ship that everything metal that was used on the ship-each sheathing nail, each spike, deadeyes plates, all were marked with a broadhead. Good question.

 

[Old Bookaroo]

stevemc:

Was it a warship?

I found this on Wikipedia - and we all know that if it posted there, it must be true!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_arrow

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo

 

[ropesfish]

Any chance that those pig iron ingots were also part of the trading cargo? It seems like something that is as energy intensive to produce as pig iron and that has as many possible markets throughout the world might be a valuable trading commodity, one that was easily replaced by ballast stones when sold.
Pig iron ingots, in certain mineral-poor or primitive parts of the world should have been somewhat valuable.

 

[Klondikeike]

Blow are a sample of cut Ballast Stones I found hidden inside a small dune....I confirmed these with the local museums, as Ballast Stones from the 1554 fleet of which 4 ships ships crashed in to what is now known as South Padre Island, Texas during an late April tropical storm, one of the 4 ships was able to make it way to Havana, Cuba, but was scuttled there as it was no longer sea worthy. The Galleon these stones came from was the Santa María de Yciar, which was accidentally dredged up while cutting the "Mansfield Channel or Cut", during the early 1950's, separating So and No Padre Islands as we know it today... I was searching for gold and other valuable objects from this fleet, with some special technology that I use for treasure hunting, when these stones were detected inside the small dune on the So Padre Island side of the cut.....I also confirmed from the local museums, that on the return trip, some captains would place some Ballast Stones like these in the ship for additional ballast, if there was room and if needed, as these stones contained various amounts of either gold or silver and when they got back to Spain they could process the gold or silver from these stones without paying a tax on the gold...unlike was what taxed from the manifest. Once identified and known, I have since found several of these scattered within the dredge spoils of the Mansfield Cut.


Klondike

 

[signumops]

Now THAT was a worthy post! Durrand pulled up that pile of stones with a claim they contained something that could be processed out. Tommy Gore told me the story, but I can't remember what he said she claimed was in the ballast. But, it throws a new light on ballast. It needs a second look.

Did you know Nick Znika when he was digging on those wrecks?

 

[Bill]

Here is a picture of a piece of Onyx (Mexican I believe). Last year I found several pieces of Onyx with Spanish river gravel on a beach in Central Florida. The Onyx could have been only ballast, but also could have been cargo. The area has yielded Spanish coins as well.

 

[hobbit]

bump

 

[GatorBoy]

Blow are a sample of cut Ballast Stones I found hidden inside a small dune....I confirmed these with the local museums, as Ballast Stones from the 1554 fleet of which 4 ships ships crashed in to what is now known as South Padre Island, Texas during an late April tropical storm, one of the 4 ships was able to make it way to Havana, Cuba, but was scuttled there as it was no longer sea worthy. The Galleon these stones came from was the Santa María de Yciar, which was accidentally dredged up while cutting the "Mansfield Channel or Cut", during the early 1950's, separating So and No Padre Islands as we know it today... I was searching for gold and other valuable objects from this fleet, with some special technology that I use for treasure hunting, when these stones were detected inside the small dune on the So Padre Island side of the cut.....I also confirmed from the local museums, that on the return trip, some captains would place some Ballast Stones like these in the ship for additional ballast, if there was room and if needed, as these stones contained various amounts of either gold or silver and when they got back to Spain they could process the gold or silver from these stones without paying a tax on the gold...unlike was what taxed from the manifest. Once identified and known, I have since found several of these scattered within the dredge spoils of the Mansfield Cut.

Klondike

Very interesting..
I have here two stones I detected on a 1715 fleet beach..about an hour apart and probably about a quarter mile from eachother.
they both rang out high tones and read consistently in the upper nineties.



And no they didn't come from my rock garden..ha.. I just realized that in the photo and thought it looked funny.

 

[ivan salis]

in many ports in the days of old there were special areas to dump ballast * you just could not dump it anywhere you pleased--this was to prevent folks from causing hazards to navigation by them just dumping large amounts of rock and stone willy nilly over the sides of the vessel -- ballast was only carried on cargo vessels when paying cargo could not be found , on warships often there was more or less "permanet " ballast .

 

[ivan salis]

one vessel was "ubilla's" personal vessel bought from Echeverz in Havana , Cuba - Echeverz's pataches took her for illegal trading -it was "ta small English vessel'of the galaria type class --named mary --it came from Jamaica originally and English governor Hamilton reportedly was a 25% owner according to the ships capt who said so when he was captured but it made no difference to Echervez who took it any way --Echeverz had it sailed directly to Havana and then later on sold it to "ubilla"--who was short on small vessels after losing 4 due to storms in mexico -- -- it was a very small vessel and might have had different ballast stones than that of the others or none at all.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Here is a ballast stone from the 1659 San Miguel de Arcangel found by Doug Pope and the Amelia Research & Recovery crew. Both cut and river rock ballast is found here regularly. Often times people forget that some ballast was permanently built into the ship between the outer hull planking and inner cargo hold planking. The air space between the ribs was usually filled with mud and ballast stone which stayed there permanently (until the hull was torn open). This explains why some sites have two completely different types of ballast from different parts of the world on one ship. I'll have to find the pictures, but we also found cut ballast on a shipwreck on the East side of Tecero island near Monte Cristi, DR. The cannon from that site were estimated to be 1640-1690.

 

[penzfan]

Found this south of Ft Pierce 2 days ago. It weighs 83 grams. Any ideas?