Canada Ping!
Posted on 10/08/2014 6:37:52 AM PDT by centurion316
A shipwreck uncovered beneath the icy wastes of northern Canada has been identified as long-lost HMS Erebus.
The Victorian-era vessel became part of nautical folklore after it vanished in the mid-19th Century.
Its captain, Sir John Franklin, had been searching for the fabled Northwest Passage.
Experts on Thursday confirmed that the wreck, discovered last month, was indeed the celebrated Royal Navy vessel.
"It is in astonishing condition,'' said search team member John Geiger, president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. "We're over the moon."
The ship set sail from England in 1845 under Sir John's command.
He was accompanied by a second ship, HMS Terror, captained by Francis Crozier.
Alongside Sir John were 128 officers, all of them aiming to find the elusive sea route linking the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Arctic seas off northern Canada.
The two vessels were last seen in the summer of that year bypassing whaling boats in Baffin Bay, off the coast of Greenland.
But soon afterwards, the ships vanished. Inuit hunters told tales of starving white men who had been seen in the freezing wilderness over the following months and years.
Historians speculated that the ships had become trapped in the vast ice floes of the Canadian Arctic.
But until Thursday the exact fate of HMS Erebus had not been known.
The ship was discovered after the Canadian government ploughed millions of pounds into an extensive search operation.
It was found under just 11 metres of water near King William Island, 2,000km (1,200 miles) north-west of Toronto.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Canada Ping!
BFLR
At only 11 meters of water I would expect somebody will make the attempt to raise it - if it’s in as good of shape as they say.
I would not think it would be considered a grave site as the thought is the ship was abandoned.
We can see from the damage that the ship has been hit by icebergs.
There is another ship in the Canadian Arctic that is amazingly preserved. It still has some ropes and rolled up canvas on the masts.
Don’t remember if it was identified.
The ships were ice bound for a year and a half before they were abandoned. The top masts and top gallant masts along with their yards would have been struck down on deck as soon as they were stuck. All of their running rigging and most of the standing rigging would also have been taken down. The fact that the main mast, fore mast, and mizzen mast appear to be gone suggests that the ice tore them loose after the ship was on the bottom. There does appear to be considerable damage to the transoms, counter, and sternpost that was likely caused by ice. Most of the missing deck planks were probably pulled up and burned to keep warm.
In the sonar image we can see some planks on the bottom as if they were ripped off.
I think it was a sidescan picture that Klein sonar had on their site several years back that showed a vessel with furled sails and some rope ends streaming in the current. Deeper than this wreck. Damned if I can recall if it was identified.
Note: this topic is from 10/08/2014. Thanks Squawk 8888.
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