The San Jose was carrying gold, silver, gems and jewellery collected in the South American colonies to be shipped to Spain's king to help finance his war of succession against the British when it was sunk in June 1708 during heavy fighting off the coast of Cartagena. In the fighting the vessel was reported to have exploded, with most of its crew killed.
Artefacts on the wreck indicate it might date to the American Revolution. Amid the shipwreck’s broken remains are an iron chain, a pile of wooden ship timbers, red bricks (possibly from the ship cook’s hearth), glass bottles, an unglazed pottery jug, a metal compass, and another navigational instrument that might be an octant or sextant.
Finland’s accomplished diver and wreck researcher Rauno Koivusaari, who discovered the famous treasure ship Vrouw Maria in 1999, has now also found the wreck of the Hanneke Wrome just south of the island of Jussarö in Finland. According to historic documents, the ship was carrying 10,000 gold coins, estimated to be worth around €50 million today.
In a video streamed live from the Queen Maud Gulf off Nunavut, underwater archaeologist Ryan Harris moved from stern to bow, stopping at a handful of different points along the wreck to share clues from the long-sunk vessel.
He started by inspecting two brass six-pounder canons, one of the first features the team saw with a remotely operated vehicle when they began inspecting the site with an “underwater robot”, after the 19th-century wreck was discovered late last summer.
The ship experienced some problems during her long journey. On 26 July 1889, she entered the Suez Canal and ran ashore in Great Bitter Lake, destroyed the stern post and lost the rudder. After repairs, Ertuğrul set sail again on 23 September.
While sailing in western Indian Ocean, the ship took on water from the bow. The crew was unable to conduct the necessary repairs until they reached Singapore.
Ertuğrul was repaired in Singapore and departed on 22 March 1890. After a ten-day stop in Saigon, she arrived in Yokohoma on 7 June 1890.
The brew was reproduced thanks to elaborate research by Finnish and Belgian scientists who teamed up after the wreckage was discovered off Finland's Aaland Islands in 2010.
Divers exploring 40 feet down found only five bottles of beer next to 145 champagne bottles -- confirmed as the world's oldest drinkable bubbly -- in the long-lost wreck. The Government of the autonomous Åland Islands is the owner of the findings and had the beers analyzed at VTT Technical Research Center in Finland.
During the battle between the French and the Dutch, who controlled Tobago at the time, the French flagship Glorieux, with her superior guns, sank the Dutch vessel on 3 March 1677.
Kroum Batchvarov, assistant professor of maritime archaeology and leader of the research team, said: “To find the Huis de Kreuningen—almost by accident, as she was outside the boundaries where we expected to find her—undiscovered and untouched for over 300 years was an exciting moment.”
Two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were part of Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to Asia.
The ships disappeared after they became locked in ice in 1846 and were missing for more than a century and a half until last month's discovery by a group of public-private searchers led by Parks Canada. It was not known until now which of the two ships had been found.
The Swedish warship Mars, otherwise known as Makalös (peerless), sank in a sea battle during the Northern Seven Years War in 1564.
Captain Dan Porter and dive partner Bobby Hartwell were working at a depth of about 20 feet, in an area where Porter and his crew had already uncovered 17th century ceramic pieces, a musket ball, and a scattering of large ballast stones. Weather conditions had deteriorated throughout the day and by afternoon “were so rough that the current was running straight up the boat’s stern and had exerted enough force to break the vessels bow line,” said Porter.
