3113
Hello Summer!
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18th Century Ship Found Under World Trade Center!
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TheeGoatPig
There is no R in my name
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I would like to know why I hear about these kinds of things from people across the country/world, when they are happening in my back yard. This is like when I heard the story of a cat chasing a bear up a tree in West Milford New Jersey (the town I live in) from someone in Scotland. News just never gets to me in a timely fashion...
CharleyH
Curioser and curiouser
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Interesting. Thank you. Dunno what ship it could be, intriguing, but then I am still interested in what actually happened on the Mary Celeste before it entered the Mediterranean Sea completely abandoned.
There are many reasons for a ship to be found in that specific location - it would be more surprising if there weren't any wrecked ships in what was probably the busiest port in North America - but it would be even more intriguing if the ship they found was one that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle, for example. 
mynameisben
Half man, half-wit
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Must have been piloted by the great, great grand pappy of the captain of the Exxon Valdez.
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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It is highly likely that the vessel was intentionally sunk at that location in order to provide fill for extending a wharf. This was common practice in many ports throughout the world in the 18th and 19th centuries.
There's a simple reason that Water Street in lower Manhattan has that name— it once marked the water's edge. The shoreline of my hometown was extended by similar means and, over the years, expanded a couple of blocks into the water.
My father helped himself to a "ship's knee" from one of the abandoned wooden ships that littered the shoreline of our harbor. It fit nicely above a brick wall on our property and was a fixture of my childhood years.
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oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
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How about this discovery?Bronze Age Boat
THE world's oldest well-preserved seagoing boat - a preservation fund for which was launched earlier this month [Og's note: in 1994] - is currently being examined by a team of archaeologists and scientists.
Discovered two years ago 23 feet beneath the streets of Dover, the 3,300-year-old vessel is giving prehistorians an unprecedented opportunity to study British technology in the Bronze Age.
Preliminary examination of the remains - co-ordinated by Paul Bennett of Canterbury Archaeology Trust - is revealing that the carpentry was not only very sophisticated, but also practised on a grand scale. At almost 60 feet in length, the boat would have been twice the length of a double-decker bus.
Constructed without the use of nails, the vessel's six main timbers were sewn together using slender lengths of wood - highly pliable yew - lubricated with animal fat and caulked with beeswax and three different types of moss.
Building the craft would have been a major undertaking, requiring a substantial communal investment in time and energy. Some estimates suggest the boat would have taken five men about 18 weeks to construct.
Felling the trees, splitting them, shaping the resultant timbers, and gathering wood, beeswax, moss and other raw materials would have taken the prehistoric shipwrights a grand total of around 6,000 man-hours.
Timber experts believe the boat was made of wood obtained from three massive 200 - 300-year-old oak trees. Each tree would have been up to 130ft tall when it was felled.
It seems that Bronze Age shipwrights chose trees with relatively fast growth rates, perhaps to ensure straightness of grain and a lack of knots - the characteristics required for an evenly stressed boat timber.
Once the trees had been selected and felled, the shipbuilders set about splitting and shaping the wood. Using bronze axes, adzes, chisels and gouges, they would have done much of the work deep in the forest before moving the roughly shaped timbers down to the river-bank.
Here the finer carpentry was carried out, some of it with flint rather than metal tools. Archaeologists are now busy studying the tool marks on the timbers, in an effort to work out exactly the size and type of tools used.
Once completed, the vessel was almost certainly used for coastal and cross-Channel trade, as it was too large for the river Dour, the remnants of which still flow under Dover.
The boat seems not to have possessed a sail, and would therefore have been driven by human power alone - probably around 24 crew equipped with paddles. Although maximum speeds could have reached eight or nine knots, the top cruising speed would have been only about four knots. At that speed, it would have taken only around five hours to cross the Channel.
In the Bronze Age, speed was an essential ingredient for successful cross-Channel operations. Voyages could only be undertaken in relatively calm sea conditions, and Channel crossings therefore had to be carried out rapidly while good conditions lasted. The longer the journey time, the greater the risk of a change in sea conditions.
An example of one type of cargo the Dover Bronze Age boat may have carried - and what happened to vessels in bad weather - was found on the sea-bed off Dover in 1974. Local amateur divers discovered part of the cargo of a Bronze Age vessel wrecked in around 1200BC.
The boat has never been found, but 60 kilos of cargo - scrap metal, consisting of 352 mostly broken axes, daggers, rapiers, swords, spearheads and chisels originating from Europe - were brought to the surface.
Apart from metalwork, the boat would probably have carried high- value goods such as jewellery, amber, top-quality textiles, metalwork and even pottery. It was probably only in use for around 10 years - 20 at the maximum - according to marine archaeologists studying the vessel.
The end came for the Dover boat one autumn around 3,300 years ago. The vessel was dumped on top of the fresh corpse of an Atlantic salmon lying at the edge of a small freshwater creek. The archaeological evidence shows that after the vessel was dumped, it was partially dismantled. However, whether this was to provide timbers for other boats, or if it was some sort of decommissioning ritual is not known.
According to research carried out by University College London, the vessel and its immediate surroundings were used either as a site for animal butchery (probably cattle and red deer), or as a dumping ground for their butchered carcasses.
In design terms, the Dover boat is one step up from a dug-out canoe. Simple plank-built vessels were the next logical development when dug-outs became too small for all requirements, and when sea voyages became commonplace. The Dover craft is the oldest substantially complete seagoing vessel found anywhere in the world.
However, there are much older river and lake vessels which have been found, and there is indirect evidence of seagoing boats pre- dating the Dover vessel by tens of thousands of years.
As long as 50,000-60,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines almost certainly used seagoing craft of some description to cross the 40 miles of sea from what is now Indonesia to Australia. By 30,000 years ago, the people of the New Guinea area had begun using more sophisticated craft, in order to sail across 100 miles of ocean to places such as the Solomon Islands in Melanesia.
The oldest surviving boat remains ever found are those of a 9,000-year-old river craft - a dug- out canoe - discovered in Holland. However, much more sophisticated river vessels, beautiful 4,500-year-old Egyptian Nile boats were found ritually buried adjacent to the Pyramids.
Archaeological remains of the cargoes (although not much fabric) of ancient seagoing ships older than the Dover vessel have been found in the Mediterranean. The cargo-rich site of a shipwreck off the coast of Turkey dates from 1500BC.
Scientists and other specialists from the universities of London, York, Cambridge, Wales (Bangor) and Sheffield, as well as the Museum of London and English Heritage, are studying the vessel and the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust has been formed to raise the pounds 1.3m needed to conserve the vessel, and then put it on permanent display to the public.
(Photograph and graphic omitted)
Og
THE world's oldest well-preserved seagoing boat - a preservation fund for which was launched earlier this month [Og's note: in 1994] - is currently being examined by a team of archaeologists and scientists.
Discovered two years ago 23 feet beneath the streets of Dover, the 3,300-year-old vessel is giving prehistorians an unprecedented opportunity to study British technology in the Bronze Age.
Preliminary examination of the remains - co-ordinated by Paul Bennett of Canterbury Archaeology Trust - is revealing that the carpentry was not only very sophisticated, but also practised on a grand scale. At almost 60 feet in length, the boat would have been twice the length of a double-decker bus.
Constructed without the use of nails, the vessel's six main timbers were sewn together using slender lengths of wood - highly pliable yew - lubricated with animal fat and caulked with beeswax and three different types of moss.
Building the craft would have been a major undertaking, requiring a substantial communal investment in time and energy. Some estimates suggest the boat would have taken five men about 18 weeks to construct.
Felling the trees, splitting them, shaping the resultant timbers, and gathering wood, beeswax, moss and other raw materials would have taken the prehistoric shipwrights a grand total of around 6,000 man-hours.
Timber experts believe the boat was made of wood obtained from three massive 200 - 300-year-old oak trees. Each tree would have been up to 130ft tall when it was felled.
It seems that Bronze Age shipwrights chose trees with relatively fast growth rates, perhaps to ensure straightness of grain and a lack of knots - the characteristics required for an evenly stressed boat timber.
Once the trees had been selected and felled, the shipbuilders set about splitting and shaping the wood. Using bronze axes, adzes, chisels and gouges, they would have done much of the work deep in the forest before moving the roughly shaped timbers down to the river-bank.
Here the finer carpentry was carried out, some of it with flint rather than metal tools. Archaeologists are now busy studying the tool marks on the timbers, in an effort to work out exactly the size and type of tools used.
Once completed, the vessel was almost certainly used for coastal and cross-Channel trade, as it was too large for the river Dour, the remnants of which still flow under Dover.
The boat seems not to have possessed a sail, and would therefore have been driven by human power alone - probably around 24 crew equipped with paddles. Although maximum speeds could have reached eight or nine knots, the top cruising speed would have been only about four knots. At that speed, it would have taken only around five hours to cross the Channel.
In the Bronze Age, speed was an essential ingredient for successful cross-Channel operations. Voyages could only be undertaken in relatively calm sea conditions, and Channel crossings therefore had to be carried out rapidly while good conditions lasted. The longer the journey time, the greater the risk of a change in sea conditions.
An example of one type of cargo the Dover Bronze Age boat may have carried - and what happened to vessels in bad weather - was found on the sea-bed off Dover in 1974. Local amateur divers discovered part of the cargo of a Bronze Age vessel wrecked in around 1200BC.
The boat has never been found, but 60 kilos of cargo - scrap metal, consisting of 352 mostly broken axes, daggers, rapiers, swords, spearheads and chisels originating from Europe - were brought to the surface.
Apart from metalwork, the boat would probably have carried high- value goods such as jewellery, amber, top-quality textiles, metalwork and even pottery. It was probably only in use for around 10 years - 20 at the maximum - according to marine archaeologists studying the vessel.
The end came for the Dover boat one autumn around 3,300 years ago. The vessel was dumped on top of the fresh corpse of an Atlantic salmon lying at the edge of a small freshwater creek. The archaeological evidence shows that after the vessel was dumped, it was partially dismantled. However, whether this was to provide timbers for other boats, or if it was some sort of decommissioning ritual is not known.
According to research carried out by University College London, the vessel and its immediate surroundings were used either as a site for animal butchery (probably cattle and red deer), or as a dumping ground for their butchered carcasses.
In design terms, the Dover boat is one step up from a dug-out canoe. Simple plank-built vessels were the next logical development when dug-outs became too small for all requirements, and when sea voyages became commonplace. The Dover craft is the oldest substantially complete seagoing vessel found anywhere in the world.
However, there are much older river and lake vessels which have been found, and there is indirect evidence of seagoing boats pre- dating the Dover vessel by tens of thousands of years.
As long as 50,000-60,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines almost certainly used seagoing craft of some description to cross the 40 miles of sea from what is now Indonesia to Australia. By 30,000 years ago, the people of the New Guinea area had begun using more sophisticated craft, in order to sail across 100 miles of ocean to places such as the Solomon Islands in Melanesia.
The oldest surviving boat remains ever found are those of a 9,000-year-old river craft - a dug- out canoe - discovered in Holland. However, much more sophisticated river vessels, beautiful 4,500-year-old Egyptian Nile boats were found ritually buried adjacent to the Pyramids.
Archaeological remains of the cargoes (although not much fabric) of ancient seagoing ships older than the Dover vessel have been found in the Mediterranean. The cargo-rich site of a shipwreck off the coast of Turkey dates from 1500BC.
Scientists and other specialists from the universities of London, York, Cambridge, Wales (Bangor) and Sheffield, as well as the Museum of London and English Heritage, are studying the vessel and the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust has been formed to raise the pounds 1.3m needed to conserve the vessel, and then put it on permanent display to the public.
(Photograph and graphic omitted)
Og
Last edited:
bronzeage
I am a river to my people
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It was tough getting that thing on the trailer.
oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
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Is that why you left it cluttering up Dover?
There are several thousand years' worth of parking penalty tickets outstanding.
Og
CharleyH
Curioser and curiouser
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I think we've seen a doco about that. It's something I'd adore seeing first hand. It's fascinating, Og. The earliest stories I recall about sea invasions are about the Vikings and they invaded GB in boats with no rudders. Imagine a trek all that way with no rudder! I can't imagine. Those seafaring folks of long ago must have been a mighty hardy breed.
bronzeage
I am a river to my people
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I loaned it to my cousin Erik. You might have known him. Big guy with a red beard.
oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
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This ship is only a few miles away: Hugin
My brother's former house was built using timbers from a large ship that had been broken up in the early 17th Century. The ship had been built about 1550.
The beams of the house were oak, pickled with seventy years of tar and salt water. The floorboards were also oak, in lengths up to thirty feet, fourteen to sixteen inches wide and four inches thick. When some floorboards had to be lifted to install central heating pipes, the contractor had to use strongbacks and automobile jacks. All the pipe joints were made above the floorboards.
Some of the timbers had been attacked by woodworm and death watch beetle. The woodworm gave up after about an eighth of an inch. The death watch beetle managed a quarter of an inch. Apparently neither like salty tar.
Og
Tio_Narratore
Studies
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About 60% of what we think is New York City wasn't there when Henry Hudson first sailed up the river. It's all land fill. Much of Canarsie materialized when I was a kid, and Tribeca is, I think, the most recent addition to the ever-expanding shoreline. And Boston has even more "reclaimed" land.
If you want a quick look at it, Bill Rathge has some maps in his book from a few years ago, Rubbish!.
If you want a quick look at it, Bill Rathge has some maps in his book from a few years ago, Rubbish!.
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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Back Bay was..., quite literally, Back Bay. Boston was a peninsula. It's amazing to look at an 18th century map of Beantown and compare it to today.
Tio_Narratore
Studies
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yes, trysail...the same with NYC. In Montreal, a whole new island was built for Expo 67, and take a look a the Nederlands; when I was a kid, the was a Zee there!
voluptuary_manque
Literotica Guru
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One of the reasons San Francisco is so badly damaged when an earthquake occurs is because much of it, too, is built of fill. The stuff wiggles like jello and anything standing on top falls down and catches fire.
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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One of Simon Winchester's many wonderful books, A Crack In The Edge Of The World, was written about the 1906 earthquake, California geology and touched on this aspect of underground San Francisco.
Songcatcher
Stud Muffin
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The molten steel didn't burn it?
TE999
How 'bout a kiss, baby
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The excavators found what remained of a brick furnace and iron hoops in the hulk, it was no doubt a whaler that had seen better days and the hull was used as landfill. There are also indications the ship may have burned above the waterline. A fascinating bit of history.
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