"The unknown wreck"

[keegah]

"The unknown wreck"

Does anyone know anything about the unknown wreck by the power plant.i believe it's a fisher lease called "the harold holden" site.Is it believed to be a 1715 wreck? Thanks,keegah

 

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[mad4wrecks]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

You have confused two different sites.

The "Harold Holden" wreck is an 1810 shipwreck just south of the Ft Pierce inlet. Pretty well picked over. Aka Archie's Bar wreck

As for the "unknown wreck" around the power plant, an actual shipwreck has never been found but a few artifacts have been discovered in the water and on the beach. I worked the area in the late 90's. Lots of deep sand and lots of sharks (warm water discharge from the power plant attracts them)

Both areas are under Fisher leases.

 

[signumops]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

I did a job at the power plant back in 77. We were cleaning out the the outfall pipes that run from the cooling ponds out to the outfall caps. Tremenously HUGE barnacles grow inside those pipes... they are about 7 or 8 foot in diameter. Had a crew work from the caps going west and the biggest part of the crew going from the ponds eastward toward the caps. Piledrivers, Dockworkers and Divers Union guys from Miami would not dive the job... too risky. Some kids from FIT's marine institute (don't think it is still in business now) at Stuart were filling in, and my last night on the job, one of em got tangled in the hydraulic hoses for the rotary grinders we were using. He was about 300 feet in and it took all of us about five hours to finally get him out of there. There were two crossbar supports in the pipe and you had to remember whether you went over the top, or bottom of them on the way into the face of the grinders. Like digging for coal without using lights, sort of. He crossed under where the hydraulic went over the top, and there's where the problem began.

Anyway, at that time I had absolutely no idea what kind of wrecks lay in that area but there are a few worth digging up IF you can find their piles. They are very old... much older than the 1715 genre, and they were exposed back in the early sixties (but not now).

On page 252 of "The Rainbow Chasers", Tommy Gore is shown holding a type C olive jar that came from near the power plant. Recently, archaeologist Bob Baer did a pre-construction survey in the area and he found timbers in the dunes. But there is quite a mixture of wreckage along that beach and a lot of stainless junk lying about from the plant construction, including a pipe nipple for offshore fueling (I think, but don't really know for sure) attached to a long steel pipe that will drive your mag completely nuts. Just north, outside of the Fisher boundary there is supposed to be a sunken blockade runner about 1500 feet out. But, Tom is right... DEEP sand all along there. I thought hurricane Wilma might have restored the rock bottom in that vicinity, but, apparantly not.

Sent along a clipping from the Palm Beach Post showing some old hull timbers exposed about a mile south of the power plant.

 

[signumops]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

I really appreciate that picture! I hope you are there to take some more while they are going at it. Please send them as you can. Love to see the divers in their hats and harnesses.

I only wish we had a jack-up boat to work from back then... only had this lousy wooden landing craft that leaked constantly. Polly L is perfect for this job. Kind of a wierd time of year to be doing it though...

Tell them to watch out for the horozontal cross bars... tell em you've been in there looking for coins. Tell em I want my Rolex if they find it. LOL

 

[keegah]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Any coins ever found off this wreck? if so, what were the dates?did fisher or any subs ever find a ballast pile?Thanks

 

[signumops]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

I am not the person to say, cause I did not find ANY coins there myself. I only have pretty substantial hear-say to repeat, coming from people I have known for many years.

Early 1600's cobs and at least one bar, but from two areas in the lease bounded area, but, both high and dry sites. Can't say more.

If you sub contract next season, maybe we can talk.

BTW, we are not talking about a single shipwreck here, but several near one another.

You never see bunches of diggers there, but there have been some, and I only know of one guy who hit a small jackpot in the area, and he is dead now.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

I work for the Fisher's, and there has been nothing recovered from the area. Something most don't know about those sites is, the Fisher's took out leases based not on wreckage, but on guesses. If you calculate the leagues between shipwrecks from the survivor accounts, they indicate that there could be wrecks down there (but they don't say 6 leagues SOUTH, just 6 leagues from this or that ship). The Fisher's took out leases based on the research, hunted them, magged them, dived them, etc. for many years, but nothing of any importance was ever found. I too have heard stories....but I've never seen any artifacts and neither have they...until I do, they are just stories in my opinion. There are so many great beaches to work, why go chasing old stories when you could go chasing coins!

Jason

 

[billinstuart]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

I have been curious about that area for years. Tommy Gores book reinforces my curiousity. there are some finger reefs that appear to project seaward in that area. Fishermen have known for years there is stuff up there.

Frankly, a complete keel system washed ashore after a hurricane. Some terminally stupid "state archeologist" determined it was a "bridge timber", and the whole system, including stem and stern post, have been destroyed. They were Iron bolted together, so they weren't 18th century, but an interesting item anyhow. Did I mention I have no respect for "state archeologists"?

 

[signumops]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Check out page 70 and 71. Kip Wagner took the lease originally (I believe Mel Fisher was still raising chickhens at the time) to cut K.R. Dye and company out of the picture. Net fishermen from Summerlin's Seafood docks discovered the piles originally.

Here is another picture of that "artifact" from that lease area.

 

[Chagy]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Hello Terry,

Thanks for sharing....great info...When you say there are a few wrecks in the area, are they all from the early 1600s? or different dates? It is well documented that there was another vessel traveling with the 1618 "San Martin"
that has never been found.....on another note, a few vessels that were traveling with "La Concepcion" 1641 were lost with out any clue....some people think they are in Bahamas and others think they were lost in the coast of Florida.....

Things that make you go Hummm

Chagy........

 

[MoTwister]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

A few years ago I saw a handful of very rough pillar dollars that were suppose to have been found at the power plant don't remember any readable date on them. DiverLynn what kind of vis do the divers want? Around there anything better than 3-5 feet is a blessing.

 

[Chagy]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

If these wrecks are not 1715 wrecks...... its there any theory or guess in what they could be.....

Also in 1600 Captain Diego Rodriguez Garrucho wrecked in the coast of Floida with a cargo of 700,000 pesos and 245 chests of good from the Orient

Also in 1618 a patache with mail wrecked in the general area...the survivors made it to St Augustine

All the best,

Chagy

 

[signumops]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Chagy:

There is no answer regarding the identity of these vessels and I have had to interrogate several people to get any answers at all. The fact is that a hurricane (I think it was Isbell or Cleo, or both) completely re-arranged the sand nearshore from what is now the power plant to the Martin County Line. Between Douglas Beach and a point just outside of the southern boundary of the Fisher lease ( unknown wreck ) I know of three alleged locations, none of them being 1715. Early 1600's is the coinage date that I know of, and that is just one of the wrecks. The bars were undated, but they came from the same area the jug came from that I pictured in my previous message. I am NOT even counting the civil war wreck that is mentioned in the newspaper clipping. There were actually cannons buried in the dune there at one time, and this location was known to Kip Wagner, Bill Sauerwalt, Bill Andrews and his family, ect.

The jug is a type C and according to Marken in "Pottery From Spanish Shipwrecks" is almost identical to one discovered on the wreck of the Elizabeth which went down in 1839, but, this type was also found on the Atocha. The difference being the fluted bottom which is pretty extreme in the example from the suspect location. I spied a similar jug on the shelf in the museum pictures you posted from DR. That might give you some clues.

I think the vice boat traveling with the Honduran Almirante is probably lying very near the Almirante itself.

Back to the unknown lease... there are some pretty big items in about 28 feet of water underneath hard sandy bottom. Can't say more here. I do have a single little ballast stone which is enough for me to know that more digging would be worth while.

 

[Chagy]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Things that make you go Huuumm...Thanks for sharing

All the best,

Chagy.......

 

[billinstuart]

Re: "The unknown wreck"

Methinks I am not alone in knowing more about the "unknown wrecks" than I care to divulge.

Correct that...there is nothing out there, never has been, don't waste yer time looking.