Wrecking history of the Bahamas

AARC said:
I will also add that EVERYTHING on ships was made from it... for it was superior and still is.

Also... the oil from the seeds made all the paints and varnishes etc etc.

And... BOTH were also eaten in harsh hard times to survive hunger.
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I agree, linen and hemp, very similar, both with edible seeds. Jute came later, competing with linen and hemp. Who controlled the jute market? Did the controllers of the jute market, lobby for the destruction of the hemp production? Shortly after WWII? Still a lot of sailing ships and boats on the oceans. I think there are a few years between, before the synthetic fibers appeared.

Hemp ropes although the best, did suffer much more from wear and tear than synthetic fibers. Specially in the tropics, rot was an ever present problem.
 

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WRECKING said:
I agree, linen and hemp, very similar, both with edible seeds. Jute came later, competing with linen and hemp. Who controlled the jute market? Did the controllers of the jute market, lobby for the destruction of the hemp production? Shortly after WWII? Still a lot of sailing ships and boats on the oceans. I think there are a few years between, before the synthetic fibers appeared.

Hemp ropes although the best, did suffer much more from wear and tear than synthetic fibers. Specially in the tropics, rot was an ever present problem.
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Yeah it was Hemp primarily until 1940's then change over to the first synthetic fiber... Nylon.
 

WRECKING said:
Thank you, very good observation.
The situation of the ELDORADO anchors is somewhat different. In the area where the anchors are, there is still something like one mile to where the water would be too shallow for the ship. Deep sand all the way. However, at the edge of the bank the color of the water changes dramatically, a very clear sign of the water getting shallow. I would guess, that the ship was driven onto the bank during daylight. The wind must have been very violent from the West. Maybe they had already suffered rigging damage, otherwise they could have sailed along the bank with the wind from the west.

Funny, I lost both masts of my schooner only a few miles from there in 1985.

Yes, I am sure now, the ELDORADO anchors will be my first chapter in the book about the Wrecking History Of The Bahamas. What would be nice, is if it could also be again the last chapter as a closure.



Here is a bit more detail on one of the ELDORADO anchors. What is the name of this shape? Would V shape be a good description? Well, this was a bad design. They broke easily. It is also an early design. Over the centuries one can observe the evolution of anchor design. Looking closely at all the broken anchors one finds, one learns to notice the weaknesses and reasons of why these anchors broke.
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1655.jpg
 

Deep water with a steep bank shallowing up fast, would this have made them drop an anchor in a hurry, they would have still been navigating at this time and checking the depth?
The area of the sand bank could have been a lot shallower then, I have experienced diving and working in the Goodwin’s which is a huge area of sandbanks. Over the years the sand banks move, over three or four hundred years a shallow area could completely disappear, in 2005 the Rooswijk wreck was completely covered in sand, 2018 went back the wreck was completely exposed, a huge volume of sand had migrated south, you are talking Sahara sand dunes totally disappearing.
The Anchors look English?
Rooswijk 2005.jpg
 

Magoopeter said:
Deep water with a steep bank shallowing up fast, would this have made them drop an anchor in a hurry, they would have still been navigating at this time and checking the depth?
The area of the sand bank could have been a lot shallower then, I have experienced diving and working in the Goodwin’s which is a huge area of sandbanks. Over the years the sand banks move, over three or four hundred years a shallow area could completely disappear, in 2005 the Rooswijk wreck was completely covered in sand, 2018 went back the wreck was completely exposed, a huge volume of sand had migrated south, you are talking Sahara sand dunes totally disappearing.
The Anchors look English?
View attachment 1934759
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Generally I associated this V shaped anchor type with English ships. But then, anchors were lost and recovered a lot. Many Spanish ships were built in the Baltic or the Netherlands. So anything is speculation.
There is little doubt that the anchors were dropped one after the other with the wind from the West. If the ship did not sink, why would they not pick up the anchors again? The water is so clear there, that one can see the anchors very well from the deck of a boat or ship. Specially with the anchor rodes still attached.
Why drop 3 anchors one after the other? The bottom is excellent holding ground there.
There are no under water sand dunes in the area. The surface of the sand is flat, except for small irregularities caused by clams and such, the living creatures of the first 3 feet of sand. The sand is from very fine to coarser, all calcarean coral reef residue and sea shells.
I dug down to bedrock, about 15 feet of sand. Cleared about 20 square feet of bedrock. The temperature was maybe 2 degrees warmer down there. I guessed maybe alkaline lime reaction with some organic matter.
More broken coral and conch and such the deeper I got.
The sands do shift with great hurricanes, when the seas come from the right side. In fact, one anchor fluke was exposed and was first sighted from the lookout up on the mast, before the magnetometer, towed 100 feet behind the boat picked it up.
This anchor fluke showed recent exposure. The intact wooden stock and the hemp rode still attached, only about 3 feet deep, proved that these anchors had been undisturbed for 500 years.
The year before a big Hurricane passed over the area.
Currents are barely noticed at this spot. Tides are around 3 to 5 feet and generate strong currents where confined, but this spot is wide open.
 

The anchors look like a set, but your right could be any nationality, a lot of ships were taken as prizes so even if they were English anchors, again the ship could have been operated by any nation.
I see the one anchor in the photo you are working at and two lying together?
Mary Rose excavation in 2005, 23 years after the main section of the vessel was lifted. The anchor in my previous post was missed in 1982,or really lots of the wreck was missed, even port side structure that was thought to have been completely eroded.
The reason it was missed was that the way the ship collapsed in stages over a period of time, the seabed formed again before the next section collapsed so when they originally excavated the ship, and found what appeared to be the original seabed, they thought they had completed the excavations, and went no further.
You could assume that your two anchors are say starboard anchors from a ship that settled on her starboard side and then decayed over a period of time, but they could be port anchors that indicate the top of wreck lying on her starboard side, when a wreck collapses it can form into what looks likes the seabed, but in realty the wreck itself could be five or six feet below the anchors, alkaline lime reaction = Concrete.
You cleared a good area, and I am sure you would have noticed a difference in the depth profile of the site that would indicate a shipwreck must have been one that go off agian. Not other mag hits in the area or known cannon sites?
Picture 404.jpg
 

Magoopeter said:
The anchors look like a set, but your right could be any nationality, a lot of ships were taken as prizes so even if they were English anchors, again the ship could have been operated by any nation.
I see the one anchor in the photo you are working at and two lying together?
Mary Rose excavation in 2005, 23 years after the main section of the vessel was lifted. The anchor in my previous post was missed in 1982,or really lots of the wreck was missed, even port side structure that was thought to have been completely eroded.
The reason it was missed was that the way the ship collapsed in stages over a period of time, the seabed formed again before the next section collapsed so when they originally excavated the ship, and found what appeared to be the original seabed, they thought they had completed the excavations, and went no further.
You could assume that your two anchors are say starboard anchors from a ship that settled on her starboard side and then decayed over a period of time, but they could be port anchors that indicate the top of wreck lying on her starboard side, when a wreck collapses it can form into what looks likes the seabed, but in realty the wreck itself could be five or six feet below the anchors, alkaline lime reaction = Concrete.
You cleared a good area, and I am sure you would have noticed a difference in the depth profile of the site that would indicate a shipwreck must have been one that go off agian. Not other mag hits in the area or known cannon sites?
View attachment 1934789
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Thank you for your help.
We could say that the Mary Rose anchor you posted has a very similar shape as one of the ELDORADO anchors. About the same curvature and the same skinny crown. The ELDORADO ship was obviously much smaller, my guess would be something around 200 -300 tons would fit the size of the anchors.
No, the wreck is definitely not where the anchors were. We removed the anchors and run the mag, actually I swam the mag sensor along the bottom over the whole area. Then we did the digging with the airlift. Having done many thousands of hours of airlifting in my younger years, I am confident not to have missed any signs. Above I made a mistake when I described the area of bedrock cleaned. I often make this mistake, mixing feet with meters. The area cleaned was about 20 square meters.
 

When one finds an intact shipwreck, there are often 2 anchors at the bow and sometimes one anchor at the stern. Very often there is one more anchor in the middle of the ballast pile. This anchor was stored in the hold in a vertical position, so it could be easily brought up on the deck. Once on deck, the wooden stock was attached. This procedure would take some time.063Treasure.jpg
this is a Dutch shipwreck of 1648, with such an anchor in the middle of the ballast.
If the wreck is buried in the sand, sometimes this anchor sticks out of the sand and seems to be "set".
This is why one always digs under an anchor.
 

Magoopeter said:
Rooswijk had two spare anchors standing upright, they marked the center point of the ship,

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/anchors-rooswijk-goodwin-sands-9250d648e7ad442d9b5a7ee851cbf3b7

Better help here
https://biganchorproject.com/database
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Thank you for the interesting links.
Here is a much more modern anchor, my guess is 1860-1900, found about one mile from the old anchors. Note how the crown is much more reinforced.163Treasure.jpg Probably one of the last anchors with a wooden stock. When anchor chains came into general use, the mariners quickly learned that the chain would eat up the wooden stock.
 

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Every now and then, one must stop and ask oneself: ”What am I doing. Am I wasting my time and energy?
The ELDORADO shipwreck, is it worth it?

What is it worth?

To R. F. Marx it was a 100,000,000US$ shipwreck.

To history and archaeology it would be priceless. Considering how well the anchor stock and rode were preserved, it would mean a fantastically well preserved time capsule, of a time period, of which there is very little real, palpable information.

To me, it would mean closure. I failed to find this shipwreck many years ago. If I could be of help in finding it now, it would make a powerful ending in my book about the Bahamas wrecking history.

To a treasure hunter, it would be a challenge, a hunt, with all the excitement of the hunt and all the incredible elation at the find. An immense jackpot.

So, you guys tell me: is it worth it?
 

WRECKING said:
Every now and then, one must stop and ask oneself: ?What am I doing. Am I wasting my time and energy?
The ELDORADO shipwreck, is it worth it?

What is it worth?

To R. F. Marx it was a 100,000,000US$ shipwreck.

To history and archaeology it would be priceless. Considering how well the anchor stock and rode were preserved, it would mean a fantastically well preserved time capsule, of a time period, of which there is very little real, palpable information.

To me, it would mean closure. I failed to find this shipwreck many years ago. If I could be of help in finding it now, it would make a powerful ending in my book about the Bahamas wrecking history.

To a treasure hunter, it would be a challenge, a hunt, with all the excitement of the hunt and all the incredible elation at the find. An immense jackpot.

So, you guys tell me: is it worth it?
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You know we cannot stop, it is the one thing that compels us, as children we were programmed to learn, asking our first teachers, our parents, what is that what is this, as adults we now ask ourselves where and why.
For me it is never about the value or the money, it all about the mystery, to solve the unanswered question, there are many questions in life that we will never answer, even about our existence or the universe but we keep looking for answers, and that is why it is never a waste of time it is just who you are, and what drives you.
We are lucky to have dived between the treasure and the bones, never knowing what will be unearthed next, and there is nothings as satisfying moving back the sand to find coins, artifacts are good, but I do not know, treasure is just special.
I have come across Nazi like archaeologists who protest about treasure hunters and stick to their grant providing UNESCO comfort blanket, exclusion zones, not selling artifacts and preserving wrecks in situ, (excluding people and letting the history and ships rote in the seabed) it always amazes me to see them come back on deck with a handful of coins, big red faces pumped with excitement and always declaring that was the best dive, they ever had.
We know what it is like to find the first coins ever to come from a shipwreck and spend months unearthing parts of a virgin wreck, I do not know anything that tops that, it is still driving me onto the next adventure.
What it is worth, we come from the East we may never ever come home but the MAGIC that we find is worth a lifetime.
 

Magoo... the attachments arent working... invalid.

Repost them please... would like to see them.
 

Magoopeter said:
Ken Welling, (Geniuses? shipwreck hunter) explaining exactly were the chest of silver ingots lay, on the sea bed, so accurate I fell over them.
View attachment 1934894
After first dive, Ken was the only other diver on the wreck before, he found the mother load, I got the first coins to come from the wreck, big red face pumped, the feeling was just magic,
View attachment 1934895
View attachment 1934896
View attachment 1934897
View attachment 1934898
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That magic feeling...can it be described? I don't think so. Nobody can ever know, unless they felt it themselves.
 

WRECKING said:
That magic feeling...can it be described? I don't think so. Nobody can ever know, unless they felt it themselves.
Click to expand...

I soupose not, but if youve done it then you know how lucky you are.

Pre dive brief by King ken

Picture 014.jpg
 

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