The weather plays ball.

At last some decent weather allows us back out in the little survey boat Chesil Chieftain. Should get a couple of days in with the sidescan before easterlies kill us at the weekend. Next week we will be transferring all the sonar onto Wey Chieftain as we start our searches in deeper water for amongst other things an aircraft

A little patience required!

We feel our latest wreck discovery may be of such importance that we should spend some time scouring the area for additional clues to its identity; we know we have a substantial site that contains the remains of a ship dating back to the 1700’s. From what we have already seen much of it is buried deep in the seabed and spread over a large area and later wreckage is also on the site just to confuse the issue. Now we have an area to home in on I am going back through all the sonar data we have covering 160 000 square metres and enhancing the smallest lump that has the tell tale straight edge which in most but not all cases indicates a manmade object, It is driving me nuts!

Making sense of it all

This would appear to be the method of construction of our most recent find. This certainly takes us back to the 1700's if not before.

Spot the cannon

Two of at least ten cannon we have around the present site we are now looking closely at. Difficult to spot aren't they? There are others almost completely out of view and probably more besides totally buried.

Time to call in some help

Our hull planking gets some knowledgeable attention. Thickness is two inches, width is ten inches, the dowels or treenails are one and a quarter inches in diameter. From this we can work out the likely size of our vessel. The wood is thought to be possibly Scandinavian oak, next stage is Dendro dating.

We think this site needs investigation before it is lost.

The ship was shatter'd into three parts, the top deck was thrown up upon the ridge of pebbles, call'd Cheszil-bank, the cabin overwhelm'd and buried under the sands, pebbles and sea-weeds, but the hull never found.

Part of the official report into the loss of one of the ships that is of particular interest to us in Lyme bay. Have we found that ship? One thing for sure we have found a substantial site, one we now have to make serious decisions about. This piece of timber has been lifted, photographed and returned to the sea until further investigation by the relevant experts can be carried out.

Sometimes you have to take a chance

Looking forward to a couple of days target diving small sonar contacts, we will also be having a closer look at this site we found a couple of weeks ago, there are further interesting anomalies close by. I took a bit of a flyer putting the guys on this it just looked like a smudge on the sonar but finds around it made me think it was worth a look. Brilliant shot by Jason Brown with Simon Brown watching over.