Was this ship Blackbeards?

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Experts Hope to Show Ship Was Blackbeard's

 

By TOM FOREMAN Jr.

The Associated Press

Wednesday, May 25, 2005; 8:12 AM

 

OFF THE COAST OF ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. -- Researchers Tuesday raised another cannon from an underwater site two miles offshore, and hope it will help prove the sunken wreckage was once the flagship of the notorious pirate Blackbeard.

 

"We knew it the first day and we still have absolutely no doubt that she's the Queen Anne's Revenge," said Phil Masters, whose Florida-based research firm located the wreckage in 1996. "There is no other ship lost at Beaufort Inlet with anything more than 10 cannon, nor more than 110 tons that we know of."

 

 

The team has recovered more than 20 cannons from the site so far; since its discovery, more than 16,000 artifacts have been retrieved from the wreck.

 

Working Tuesday morning near the mouth of Beaufort Inlet, the researchers hauled the smaller of the two cannons _ a 6-foot-long, 1,000-pound gun _ from the wreck. An effort to lift a second cannon, about 8 feet long, failed. The team will try again Wednesday.

 

The expedition is the first for the researchers since a pair of professors published an article in a scholarly journal last month casting doubt about the find, saying it looks more like a mid-18th century merchant ship.

 

"Everybody's got an emotional attachment to Blackbeard," said Bradley Rodgers, an East Carolina University archaeologist and co-author of the article. "He is a very colorful part of our heritage. It doesn't surprise me at all that people are jumping on the bandwagon."

 

Project director Mark Wilde-Ramsing said his team has found strong clues the Queen Anne's Revenge sank at the site in 1718 _ though the team hasn't been able to confirm it.

 

"Until such time as we find that absolute one artifact that has initials in it, we'll continue to keep the door open, but I can tell you that door's just about closed," Wilde-Ramsing said.

 

Blackbeard, whose real name was believed to be Edward Teach or Thatch, led a band of sea robbers who plagued the shipping lanes off North America and the Caribbean in the early 18th century.

 

Historians believe the Queen Anne's Revenge was the French slave ship La Concorde seized by Blackbeard and his men near the island of Martinique in 1717.

 

The story goes that Blackbeard ran aground with Queen Anne's Revenge and its sister sloop Adventure near what is now Beaufort Inlet. After abandoning the ships, Blackbeard was eventually tracked down at Ocracoke Inlet by volunteers from the Royal Navy and killed in a battle Nov. 22, 1718.

[Kor37 9]

Wow. A major find and for once Robert Ballard wasn't the one to find it!

[HRH The KING 0]

It's definately Blackbeard's ship.

 

I saw it on a BBC documentary.

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Blackbeard stemware aids experts

 

May 27,2005

PATRICIA SMITH

DAILY NEWS STAFF

 

 

ATLANTIC BEACH - A broken piece of stemware found by divers this week on the shipwreck thought to have belonged to the pirate Blackbeard gives archaeologists more evidence that they're dealing with a very early 18th century vessel.

 

The four-sided design of the stem of a wineglass dates the artifact to between 1710 and 1720, but there's an even more telling characteristic, said Linda Carnes-McNaughton, an archaeologist at Fort Bragg who specializes in historic ceramics.

 

"The stem is embossed with little diamonds and little crowns because it's commemorating the coronation of George I," said McNaughton, who volunteers her professional services to the Queen Anne's Revenge Project.

 

King George I, a German, took the throne of England in 1714 after the death of Queen Anne. The Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship, ran aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718.

 

These Silesian wine glasses - named for a region of Germany - were popular in Germany and France but were never widely adopted by the English, Carnes-McNaughton said.

 

"They weren't rare, but they weren't common," she said.

 

They were made of leaded glass, which is clear but not as delicate as the elaborate crystal that came later and still made today, she said.

 

The wine glass - missing its base and about half its bowl - was found Wednesday at the stern of the vessel in an area archaeologists believe was the captain's quarters.

 

Divers made another major discovery in that area Thursday.

 

"We found the sternpost," said QAR Project Director Mark Wilde-Ramsing.

 

The sternpost is a large piece of timber at the keel of the boat that connects to the ends of the vessel's planking and supports the rudder. Divers found iron rudder straps, called gudgeons, attached to the sternpost, as well, Wilde-Ramsing said.

 

"It's a key section of the vessel," he said.

 

And it's well preserved, he said.

 

Divers did not try to raise the sternpost. They were not sure how big it was and, with the monthlong expedition at the site ending today, there was not enough time to find out, Wilde-Ramsing said.

 

Divers were able Thursday to retrieve an 8-foot-long cannon they had attempted to bring up Tuesday.

 

The winch on the research vessel Martech, from Cape Fear Community College, had pulled a 6-foot-long cannon from the waters earlier in the day but was not strong enough to hoist the bigger one, which weighed around 2,500 pounds, Wilde-Ramsing said.

 

Thursday, the project borrowed the vessel West Bay from the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries for the task. It was the eighth cannon hoisted from the site since the original discovery.