Caravel wreck

[Diver0001]

So.... For the last year or so we have been diving on what we are now sure is an 18(c) Caravel.

I am not an archaeologist so it took dozens of dives to identify features and understand what we were seeing.

What, at first, seemed like a "double hull" turned out, after some research, to be a very standard way of building caravels in that period.

What appeared to be bales of rope turned out to be rigging. Unfortunately it was impossible to recover any of it because touching it caused it to disintegrate into dust. Nevertheless, the wreck has been called the "rope wreck" in Dutch.

Our ability to identify it as a Caravel depended on getting underneath it to some extent to observe that the hull planking had been laid "adjoining" and not "overlapping", which we learned could help us narrow down the period of time in which it was built.

A "real" archaeologist also found "cleats" on the wreck. These were spikes that were tied to the underside of shoes in order to give grip on an icy deck. Further examination of the wreckage shows (after many dives) evidence of 2 or 3 decks and framing of less than 30cm. That's very robust for an 18c merchant ship but not uncommon for a war ship.

Further "digging" shows no evidence what so ever of armaments or features that would suggest armaments. The archaeologist concluded that it must have been a whaling ship. In that period of time "robustly built" caravels were operating in northern waters (explaining the cleats) as Dutch sailors established and supported whaling operations in the northern Atlantic based in Scotland.

Why it is laying in a lake (which in medieval times was the opening of the harbor of Rotterdam) is unknown. There appears to be no record of it sinking there. The only reference we can find is that "a ship" was commissioned to recover the cargo of another wreck with a cargo of lead bars that sank in 1751 or 1752.

That ship had come from Germany and run aground before sinking. The record shows that during recovery operations the salvage ship also sank. No details about the salvage ship were given. Given that these two wrecks are like 3-5 min swimming distance from each other, our suspicion is that the Dutch "whaler" was the salvage ship.

R..

 

[Remy B.]

Is this the one laying in Oostvoornse ?

I always wanted to go there but they say it a little far from shore, that it is DPV world and because it lays round 40m I don't find buddies to do a Tec dive.

 

[Diver0001]

Send me your telephone number. We'll take you there. We'll need to do a couple of dives to lead up to it because the swim back is done in mid water and it's worth your time to do a practice run to get dailed in.

I'll be back in Holland in 1/2 April and I'll give you a call to make an appointment.

R..

 

[Jared0425]

That sounds quite unusual. Ships were and still are a valuable asset and for them not to refloat her and strip everything that wasn't nailed down is baffling. What's her status on the lake bed? Flayed open and heavily detroriated with little to no artifacts or is she intact all the way up to the bilge keel and littered with stuff?

 

[Diver0001]

It's a mess. It's partly under the bottom so we can't see if there are any artifacts on that part of it. The part that's above the sand used to be two decks but they have caved in upon each other. The wreck is broken in a couple of places but the general lay of the land is still visible if you know what you're looking at. There are several videos online that will give you an impression of the wreck.

 

[Jared0425]

I'm not an expert in European designs but it would appear that her back was broken which prevented her from being refloated. Hard to tell but it appears they salvaged what they could as I didn't see masts, blocks or deadeyes. I think I saw the anchor hawser near the bow at 2:33. Was that the rudder post standing at 2:46? Interesting all around though, what's the depth and water content?

 

[Diver0001]

I can't be sure. It's hard to discern any damage that I can clearly identify as being related to the sinking. It's been on the bottom of the lake for about 300 years so most of the deterioration is just due to erosion. Part of the wreck is also under the sand so to me it's impossible to see what damage it has through the entire hull.

What I do know is that there are several such wrecks in this lake and the record shows that some of them sunk in storms and at least one sunk after running aground.

I'm also not sure how common it was to re-float wrecks at that time. It seems to me that salvage was common but recovering the ship was not. It may have had to do with the fact that re-floating a ship that size (about 40m long) would have required an even bigger ship to tackle it to the surface and there weren't a lot of ships big enough to do it. It may have just not been possible.

R..

 

[Remy B.]

It may have had to do with the fact that re-floating a ship that size (about 40m long) would have required an even bigger ship to tackle it to the surface and there weren't a lot of ships big enough to do it. It may have just not been possible.

R..

And at 35m depth and zero visibility, there were no divers nor Dive Torch to do such thing.

 

[Jared0425]

And at 35m depth and zero visibility, there were no divers nor Dive Torch to do such thing.

I had no idea it was that deep. I thought she was in shallow water with brackish water. That explains quite a bit. Keep up the work guys and thanks for sharing this.