RevWar Shipwrecks

[blackjohn]

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?Stor...15-021750-8406r

4 more historic ships found off R.I.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., May 15 (UPI) -- With four more hulks spotted, Rhode Island can boast it has the world's "largest fleet of Revolutionary shipwrecks," a maritime expert says.

A recent find brings to six the number of historic sea wrecks dating back to the Revolutionary War found by the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project in its search for relics in Newport Harbor.

Project director D.K. Abbass told the Providence Journal the ships are believed to be part of a private fleet of 13 British transports sunk during the war for independence.

Abbas said among the wrecks still not located likely is the Endeavor, which Capt. James Cook sailed on his trip around the world beginning in 1768.

The discoveries were financed by a $20,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which covers exploration and discovery. New funding must be found to pay for study and excavation.

[Story]

More info -

Tue 16 May 2006

U.S. researchers find sunken British warships

By Richard C. Lewis

NEWPORT, Rhode Island (Reuters) - Four ships from a British fleet used during the U.S. Revolutionary War have been found off Rhode Island, and one may be the vessel 18th century explorer Captain James Cook sailed on his epic voyage to Australia, archaeologists said on Tuesday.

Researchers with the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project said they believe the four ships, and two others previously discovered, are part of a 13-vessel transport fleet intentionally sunk by the British in Newport Harbor in 1778 to keep French ships from landing to aid the Americans' drive for independence.

Using historical materials and sonar, the archaeologists discovered the ships in Narragansett Bay, within a mile (km) of Newport, Rhode Island's shoreline.

Divers found ballast piles about 30 feet (9 to 11 metres) underwater, with the ship's keel and other parts embedded in the sea floor. They also found at least one cannon, an anchor with a 16-foot (4.9-metre) shank and a cream-coloured fragment of an 18th-century British ceramic teapot.

According to the team of archaeologists, one of the 13 ships in the sunken British fleet was the "Lord Sandwich," which records show was once the Endeavour, the vessel Cook used to sail the Pacific Ocean, map New Zealand and survey the eastern coast of Australia in 1768-1771.

Cook, acknowledged by historians as one of the greatest navigators of all time, is credited with surveying Australia's east coast on the Endeavour expedition.

'47 PERCENT CHANCE'

Archaeologists said it was unclear which ship could be the Endeavour. Seven of the ships in the British fleet have not been found. But they said the latest find raises the chances that one of the discovered ships is the Endeavour.

"There is a 47 percent chance that we have our hands on the Endeavour," said D.K. Abbass, executive director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, a nonprofit organisation devoted to studying the state's maritime history.

She added it was unlikely anything on the ships would provide a direct link to Cook.

"Quite frankly, we could be working on her right now and never be able to prove it," Abbass said.

It may take years to fully investigate the shipwrecks found so far, Abbass said.

Historically, the finding is significant because it helps tell the story of the siege of Newport, marking France's first attempt to aid the American insurrection against the British.

Though the effort failed, leaders from each side, George Washington representing the Americans and Comte de Rochambeau for America's French allies, met in Newport two years later, to formalise their cooperation for subsequent battles.

The French ultimately helped the Americans entrap British forces on a peninsula at Yorktown, Virginia.

"So, what you have here is the British are geared up for the colonial rebellion and now they're looking at an international conflict," said Rod Mather, a British citizen and associate professor of maritime history and underwater archaeology at the University of Rhode Island.

The shipwrecks are Rhode Island property, Abbass said. There are no plans to raise them. Officials estimate more than two dozen ships from the Revolutionary War period lie beneath Rhode Island's waters. They include British Royal Navy frigates, vessels from the Continental Navy and a French ship.

[Story]

Race to find flagship of first US naval hero - in North Sea

Teams from both sides of the Atlantic to search for wreck of John Paul Jones's frigate off Yorkshire coast

By David Keys and Martin Hodgson

Published: 28 May 2006

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americ...ticle620705.ece

Every US schoolchild knows that John Paul Jones, their country's first naval hero, rejected a call to surrender with the immortal words: "I have not yet begun to fight." What is less well known is that he was within sight of the Yorkshire coast when he uttered them.

Whether Jones ever said what was attributed to him is not certain. But it is true that one of the bloodiest naval battles of the American Revolution was fought in the North Sea on 23 September 1779, and that the American commander, despite having to abandon his sinking flagship, won the day. He captured the British warship attacking him and sailed off into legend.

This summer, 227 years after that encounter, British and American crews will again contend with each other off the coast of Yorkshire. This time they are in a race to discover the final resting place of the Bonhomme Richard, the 42-gun frigate commanded by the "Father of the American Navy". Jones's heirs in the US military are planning an underwater search, but they face competition from two other teams.

The adventure novelist Clive Cussler is backing a separate expedition by the National Underwater and Marine Agency (Numa), and a third team of local divers from Yorkshire will investigate a wreck in Filey Bay.

The Bonhomme Richard has long been a holy grail of marine archaeology, thanks to its association with Jones, said the naval historian Peter Reavely. "Britain has Nelson, and John Paul Jones plays the same role in the US. He is the greatest naval hero of the American Revolutionary War."

Despite repeated searches, the location of the wreck has remained a mystery. British divers believe the wreck of a wooden ship found in Filey Bay is that of the Bonhomme Richard, said team member Tony Green. "We think the wreck in Filey Bay is the most likely candidate - but we're still some way off proving it. There are three teams looking, so someone's got to find something."

Recent research by marine historians has cast doubt on the British divers' theory, and the US teams will focus their efforts further offshore.

The race to find the vessel will start in earnest this July, with the arrival of a joint team from the Naval Historical Centre in Washington and the Connecticut-based Ocean Technology Foundation. Later this year, Mr Cussler, who has already led unsuccessful expeditions in search of the wreck, is expected to launch a third mission.

Using hi-tech underwater scanning systems, the US naval team plans to survey large swathes of seabed off Flamborough Head. "We're going to have to survey at least 20 square miles of seabed to stand any chance of finding her," said Robert Neyland of the US Naval Historical Centre.

Originally named the Duc de Duras, the ship was built in 1765, then bought by the French government, which refitted her as a warship and lent her to the fledgling US Navy. John Paul Jones re-named her the Bonhomme Richard - after a magazine published by the US ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin.

A Scotsman who started his seafaring career at the tender age of 13, Jones was considered a pirate by the British, but a hero by America's rebellious colonists. In 1779 he took the Richard and three other vessels on a raiding expedition around the British coast, hoping to draw the Royal Navy away from its blockade of American ports.

The squadron captured 13 ships before attacking a Royal Navy warship, the Serapis, which was escorting 41 British merchant vessels en route from the Baltic. After a savage four-hour battle, Jones captured the Serapis, but his ship was so badly damaged that it was abandoned. Safely aboard the British flagship, his crew escaped to Holland and eventually returned to America.

The rediscovery of Jones's flagship would be more significant than that of the Titanic in 1985, said Melissa Ryan, project manager at the Ocean Technology Foundation. "The Bonhomme Richard was lost in a battle of national importance: the first naval victory for America during the Revolutionary War."

The battle provided an early victory for the Americans, and convinced France to bankroll the rebel army, she said. "It was a turning point in our history."

[hitman]

It's good to see that old Clive is still getting out there and looking for wrecks. He started out looking for the Bonhomme Richard hope he gets it this time.