Arctic whaling logbook leads to shipwreck discovery
Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:38 am
Matt_AINA wrote:Mon Oct 01, 2018 7:36 pm Hi, I have been pretty terrible at keeping up with this forum...transcription and fieldwork have been distracting me! Please accept my apologies. I am sure this may be of interest to some of you.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4498819/calgary-researchers-whaling-wreckage-canadas-arctic-nova-zembla/
Back in March I was transcribing the 1902 logbook of the Dundee whaler Diana, where she reports the wreck of fellow Dundee whaler Nova Zembla. As many of you will know, to read an account of a wreck in Arctic whaling document isn't too unusual! I moved on to a typescript copy of a diary from the 1903 voyage of the Diana and they revisit the wreck of Nova Zembla and salvage her rudder. This peaked my interest and I began to think that the wreck could possibly be found. I casually delved into some newspaper records and found more accounts of the wreck, soon I had a wealth of information to narrow down the location.
I roped in a colleague, Mike Moloney, who is an underwater archaeologist here at the Arctic Institute and out of general interest we began to plot all this historical data. Once complete we were pretty convinced we knew where Nova Zembla lay and to my knowledge no British Arctic whaling wreck had ever been discovered. We approached the Royal Canadian Geographical Society who got really excited and kindly gave us a small about of funding to stage an expedition, with some extra help coming from AINA. We were kindly offered berths on a OneOcean Expeditions tourist cruise who agreed to divert their voyage to give us 7 hours at our proposed location.
With the help of a small drone, a Deeptrekker ROV, a zodiac and a couple of OneOcean crew we got....very cold!
In the final hour of our search we discovered substantial evidence for the wreck of 19th Century ship....masts, spars, planking etc littered the beach!
With no permit to land we had to rely on our drone to look at the debris. The Arctic air taking its toll on the drones battery we had less than 5 minutes flight time to snap some pics and get it back into the zodiac; not the easiest of tasks in a 1.5m swell!
One of the historical accounts states Nova Zembla wrecked 300 yards from a beach. Having identified the beach we in as close as the waves would allow and used the gps to go offshore approx 300 yards. We launched the ROV and almost immediately discover and anchor and chain (Another historical account states the anchors were dropped in an attempt to float off the reef).
Our very limited search time meant we did not find anything that said 'Nova Zembla' on it. The wreckage we did discover fits in so well with the historical accounts that we are confident this is the wreck. The fact the wreckage is still there points to how remote this location is, as if it were closer to any communities the likelihood is it would have been salvaged.
We are now planning to go back next year and stay on site to complete a thorough survey of the site. Hopefully we will be able to get a deeper insight into the lives of the sailors engaged in this arduous trade.
;D