Galleon Santiago

[Panfilo]

I think Salvor that anything is possible though unlikely at best. I remember reading about your friends Bahamas 1605 wreck and it made me think that this was very strange though probable because it meant that after the storm the Santo Domingo (as they stated) would have had to bypass and avoid Cuba and must have been on its way to Spain in order to be in the channel. Unlikely after loosing the masts or sails or both with much gold onboard. What perhaps could have happened is that one of the ships that recovered part of the wreck Don mentions like the Drake or two others that I know about that went to Jamaica, traded the loot and this ship sank off Memory Rock, just a thought, a theory.

 

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[Vox veritas]

Claudi:
Documents don't lie, people do. Sometimes there are contradictory accounts in contemporary documents, you know this plus not everything that is in an antique document is necessarily true just because you found it in an archive in Sevilla. One has to analyze several independent reports and I had come across this information sometime ago but there are many other documents that range from 1605/06/08/12 that state that there were no survivors aboard the four missing ships. One of which is from the same Governor of Cuba, Pedro de Valdes, which I would assume you have in your documents stating that there were no survivors. In particular a document from 1612 states that there were no survivors so I would put in doubt the veracity of what that document states. You perhaps know that there were several search expeditions after the event, the first by the fragata San Diego of Sebastian Fernandez Pacheco and the San Simon led by Rafael Perez. There was a later expedition that left Cartagena in 1607 and there is no mention of any survivors in any of these documents. The most contradictory fact is that the San Cristobal which survived the storm and ended up in Cartagena finally returned at the end of December 1606 with the Armada de la Guardia of General Jeronimo de Portugal, don't you think they would have mentioned this very critical information that there was a survivor that could finally tell where the galleons sunk? That never happened... because there were no survivors.

Hi Panfi,
certainly, this it is the research method. It is necessary to analyze the information and to compare it with another that can cross. About the captain Calderón, is strange what says, but on the other hand there are not reasons so that he lies, except to justify that it lost his fortune and in 1626 it claims a grace to the king.
I like your analytic spirit. Please, let me have your e-mail. Cheers VV

 

[Mackaydon]

And we know the 'Drake' was dispatched to Seranilla to protect British interests from the French; while the British were salvaging a Spanish galleon. Yet, has the French record ever been checked to see what they may have discovered or salvaged? Personally, I've read nothing on that point.
Don..

 

[Panfilo]

If one likes the study of shipwrecks and this is not for everybody, one needs to have primarily a well developed deductive mind as you are foremost a nautical detective, looking for clues and analyzing the evidence to find out what actually happened, when and how. You are a renowned “naufrologo” by profession and have studied hundreds of cases to know that the obvious sometimes is not the truth and that people have many reasons to lie to the authorities. More so if there is a monetary reward involved, people tend to let the imagination flow and change things a bit or a lot. Remember Zacarias… he is number one in my personal list of liars, a Guinness record in “advanced imaginary accounts” Captain Calderon could have indeed been aboard one of the four surviving galleons and figured that 20 years later nobody could contradict him and stated that he had lost all his fortune there. “Probable cause” is what they call this in detective shows, a reason for lying, he was claiming he lost all his fortune but he alone survived. Possible but very unlikely when compared to many other contemporary reports. I’m not saying that this account is not true, just that its very unlikely and does not fit the other accounts, interesting to see if there are other facts in his account to support his claim, what happened, where did it sink but more important of all how did he manage to get a small boat into the water in the middle of a furious hurricane alone?

Yes Don, the French connection is very interesting indeed...a novel.