The British Brig Water Nymph or ... even an Englishman cannot take the liberty to deride a civil servant on German soil

The wreck of a 19th-century merchantman was surveyed and partly excavated in the course of archaeological fieldwork conducted prior to planned beach restoration in Ahrenshoop on the Baltic coast in north-eastern Germany. Extensive archival research led to the identification of the wreck and provided interesting details on the life and loss of a typical merchant sailing-ship of the mid-19th century.
© 2007 The Authors     

Dartmouth Revisited

As Dartmouth has been the only wreck of a man-of-war from the 17th century to have been published in a preliminary report, it has long been the benchmark wreck for this period. Since the date of the publication, however, research has uncovered information that was not available at the time and which may shed additional light on this interesting ship. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of Dartmouth 's construction and her place as a typical small cruiser of the mid-17th century.
© 2007 The Author     

Viking woollen square-sails and fabric cover factor

The discovery of the five scuttled Viking ships of Roskilde Fjord in Denmark and the subsequent excavation, preservation and analysis of the remains has initiated a programme of reconstructive archaeology led by the Viking Ship Museum of Roskilde in which four of the five hulls have now been reconstructed together with their rigs and square-sails. The reconstruction of the sails has been based on fragments of heavy woollen cloth found within the roof of Trondenes church in Norway dating to the mid-13th century. This paper uses the'cover-factor' modelling methods of modern textile engineering to analyse the'Viking' sail fabrics and assess their strength, resilience and performance in comparison with the linen sails from the wreck of the Vasa .     

HMS Falmouth: addressing the significance of a light cruiser lost in the First World War off the coast of Yorkshire

HMS Falmouth is the only known wreck of a Town Class light cruiser, which were ‘arguably the best cruisers of the First World War’ (Lyon, 1977c: 49). This article reports on a project to better understand the significance of the wreck and to raise public awareness of the heritage of the First World War at sea. Although the wreck is heavily degraded it is still of considerable importance, raising methodological questions about the role of multibeam survey and 3D visualization, access to archival material, and the characteristics of archaeology as applied to 20th‐century warships.     

A Late‐18th‐Century Merchantman Wrecked in the South Edinburgh Channel,Thames Estuary,England

The South Edinburgh Channel wreck consists of the remains of a large, unidentified armed merchant ship whose cargo included a rare consignment of Swedish plate‐money, among other goods. The wreck was lost some time in the later part of the 18th century in the Thames Estuary and was uncovered briefly by natural means between 1972 and 1977. This allowed archaeological investigation, which was undertaken in very poor environmental conditions in the early days of maritime archaeology in the UK.     

Wools from textiles in the Mary Rose, a sixteenth-century English warship

Wool fibre diameter measurements defining fleece type are described for 25 yarns from fabric remains recovered from the 16th century wreck of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth harbour. Over half had natural grey pigmentation and nearly two-thirds were of primitive hairy medium wool.     

Site Charting and Environmental Studies of the Monitor Wreck

Abstract

Marine geological and geophysical techniques have been applied to studies of the Monitor wreck to chart the fragments of the wreck and to determine the corrosion state of the remaining iron and the state of the geological and oceanographic environment in the immediate area of the wreck. Methods included magnetic surveying of the wreck site, computer calculations of the magnetization of the Monitor iron, and comparisons with magnetic measurements on iron artifacts from the wreck. Piston coring of the strata immediately beneath the wreck and near-bottom current measurements revealed evidence on the sedimentation rates and sediment transport at the site; these data confirmed interpretations made from high-resolution subbottom reflection profiles across the site.     

The Western Ledge Reef wreck: a preliminary report on investigation of the remains of a 16th-century shipwreck in Bermuda

In September 1988 archaeologists and students from the Program in Maritime History and Underwater Research at East Carolina University (PMHUR) identified the remains of an early shipwreck during a survey of the Western Ledge Reefs carried out for the Bermuda Maritime Museum (BMM). Structural material exposed at the wreck site proved to be a section of lower hull containing the keel, hull planking, frames, and a portion of the keelson that included a mast-step. In order to recover the archaeological record preserved at the site, the BMM applied for, and received, a licence from the Receiver of Wreck. As work at the site intensified, a prior claim to the wreck was discovered. Discovery of that claim ultimately led to a co-operative agreement between Brian Malpas, Donald Canton and the BMM that permitted on-site investigation to continue. During 1989 and 1990, the site was excavated by the Museum's underwater archaeological staff, the staffand students of the PMHUR and volunteers. In 1990, a comprehensive in situ map of the hull remains was completed and in accordance with the terms of an agreement between Malpas and Canton and the BMM, a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers raised the remains of the Western Ledge shipwreck in August 1991. Each recovered element of the wreck was transported to storage facilities at the museum and catalogued, cleaned, recorded and documented using techniques developed to record the Red Bay galleon. That work was completed in the autumn of 1991 and on 31st October 1991 the wreck structure was donated to the museum for study and possible display.     

The 9th‐Century‐AD Belitung Wreck,Indonesia: analysis of a resin lump

The 9th‐century‐AD Belitung wreck was discovered in 1998 in the Java Sea. Construction techniques rapidly confirmed that it was unlike any known Chinese or Southeast Asian vessel. The uncertainty about its origins was resolved in 2008 by timber identifications: it was constructed in the Middle East (probably Oman or Yemen). This paper, on the characterization of a dammar resin lump collected in the vicinity of the wreck, supplies additional evidence confirming the probable re‐stitching of the vessel somewhere in Asia. © 2010 The Authors     

The Natural Environment of the Shipwreck Vrouw Maria (1771) in the Northern Baltic Sea: an assessment of her state of preservation

Vrouw Maria, a merchant vessel sailing from Amsterdam to St Petersburg in 1771, ran aground in the northern Baltic Sea. Her cargo included Dutch works of art bought by Catherine the Great. The wreck was located in 1999, 41 m deep. This study aims to understand environmental factors and physical stresses affecting the wreck, using three different approaches—studying the wreck as an artificial reef; describing the conditions inside the wreck; and measuring the physical stresses caused by currents. The methods applied were biological, archaeological, hydrological, geological and physical. The data will be a basis for further monitoring. © 2010 The Authors     

The Norman's Bay Shipwreck,East Sussex,UK: a possible 17th‐century Dutch ship from the Battle of Beachy Head

This report explores a hypothesis that the Norman's Bay shipwreck is the Wapen van Utrecht, a 64‐gun Dutch ship lost during the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690. The shipwreck, found off the Sussex coast, was designated by the Protection of Wrecks Act (1973) in 2006, when it was speculated that the wreck was the English 70‐gun ship Resolution, lost in the Great Storm of 1703. Dendrochronology dates the vessel after the middle of the 17th century AD, however, with timbers from Germany or the Low Countries. Initiatives by the Nautical Archaeology Society to bring the protected wreck to a wide public are also discussed.     

The Wreck of the Ex-Slaver James Matthews

This contribution presents the progress of investigations into the wreck of the ex-slave ship James Matthews, wrecked off Western Australia in 1841. The James Matthews wreck site preserves many elements of the vessel’s structure, with the result that the basic architecture of an actual transport vehicle of the Middle Passage has been recorded in detail and can be analyzed in depth by maritime archaeologists working in tandem with naval architects. The discovery of the James Matthews wreck has made possible cross-disciplinary research of a type not previously feasible for the illegal period of slavery in the Atlantic.     

Traces of Fatty Acids from a Byzantine Sounding Lead Recovered off the Israeli Coast

Fatty acids, typical to large herbivores, were isolated from a 7th century Byzantine sounding lead recovered from a shipwreck off Dor, an ancient anchorage in Northern Israel. The fatty acids survived by being sheltered in an anaerobic environment provided through a site formation process induced by the disintegrating wreck. Previously established identification criteria for fatty acids, absorbed in ceramics, were used to show that tallow was used in this navigational instrument in the Eastern Mediterranean during late antiquity.     

One of His Majesty's ‘Beste Kraffwells’: the wreck of an early carvel‐built ship at Franska Sternarna,Sweden

We report recent fieldwork on an early‐16th‐century wreck in the Stockholm archipelago, Sweden. The discovery not only provides new insights into early carvel shipbuilding and its adoption across northern Europe but manifests the changing role of ships and the nature of power and agency in the process of state formation at the dawn of the modern world. © 2012 The Authors     

An astrolabe from Passa Pau, Cape Verde Islands

Mariner's astrolabes seem to have been in use from the 15th to the end of the 18th centuries. They evolved at about the same time as quadrants and cross-staffs. Their precursor, the astronomer's astrolabe and kamal, were either too cumbersome or not sufficiently accurate for sea-going use. An astrolabe found on the Passa Pau wreck is unique in that it is the only know/specimen coated with silver. It is dated 1645 and has the maker's name, Nicolao Rvffo, inscribed on it.     

A shipwreck cargo of Sevillian pottery from the Studland Bay wreck, Dorset, UK

This article is an account of the pottery found at the Studland Bay wreck, Poole. The assemblage includes an important group of Spanish pottery made at Seville at the beginning of the 16th century, including the largest group of lustreware and blue-and-purple wares ever found in an archaeological context. These wares were probably carried as cargo and collected at a stopping-off point along the itinerary of the ship, probably to be sold in northern Europe.     

A Survey of Shipwreck Sites Off the Southwestern Coast of Turkey

Abstract

Using a combination of remote sensing techniques (side-scan sonar and underwater television), and visual inspection by SCUBA-diving, 18 wrecks ranging in age from preclassical to 19th century A.C. were located between Bodrum and Cape Gelidonya. The majority of wreck sites were known to local sponge divers. All except one site have been looted; nevertheless, eight sites are judged worthy of further investigation.     

Processes and patterns of flow,erosion, and deposition at shipwreck sites: a computational fluid dynamic simulation

Shipwreck sites are open systems, allowing the exchange of material and energy across system boundaries. Physical processes dominate site formation at fully submerged wreck sites, and in turn influence chemical and biological processes at many stages of site formation. Scouring presents a fundamental yet poorly understood threat to wreck sites, and the processes and patterns of erosion and deposition of sediments and artefacts at wreck sites are poorly understood. Laboratory and field-based experiments to study these phenomena are time-consuming and expensive. In this study, open-source computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are used to model the processes and patterns of flow, erosion, and deposition at fully submerged wreck sites. Simulations successfully capture changes in the flow regime in the environment of the wreck as a function of incidence angle, including flow contraction, the generation of horseshoe vortices in front of the wreck, the formation of lee-wake vortices behind the structure, and increased turbulence and shear stress in the lee of the wreck site. CFD simulations demonstrate that horseshoe vortices control scour on the upstream face of structure but play a minimal role in scouring on the lee side. Lee-wake vortices dominate behind the structure, with low-pressure zones in the lee of the wreck capturing flow. The amplification and reduction of wall shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy in the lee of the vessel form distinctive patterns in relation to flow direction, with areas of amplified and reduced wall shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy demonstrating excellent spatial correlation with erosional and depositional patterns developed at real-world wreck sites.     

The Bakau wreck: an early example of Chinese shipping in Southeast Asia

Very few early Chinese shipwrecks have been discovered in Southeast Asia, despite the enormous volume of trade with China. This article describes the surprising hull features of one such wreck, and its diverse ceramic cargo. The Bakau Wreck dates to the early 15th century, and was bound from southern China to Indonesia via a Thai entrepot port.     

Preliminary assessment of a wreck in the Red River, Choctaw County, Oklahoma, USA

This paper reports the initial recording of an early riverboat wreck located in the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas. The wreck is probably the Caddo lost in 1842. The visible wreckage is described and the history of the Caddo is discussed. This is the earliest western rivers steamboat investigated by archaeologists to date.