Found after 500 years, the wreck of Columbus's flagship the Santa Maria

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/exclusive-found-after-500-years-the-wreck-of-christopher-columbuss-flagship-the-santa-maria-9359330.html

by adventured • 12 years ago

146 52 12 years ago

independent.co.uk

tzs• 12 years ago

Those old ships were possibly the most efficient vehicles ever produced. They got several thousand miles per galleon.

ceejayoz• 12 years ago

Per gallon of what?

cpa• 12 years ago

It's a pun, and quite a good one! Galleon is a type of ship.

nikatwork2• 12 years ago

Rum.

spullara• 12 years ago

Ok, I thought it was funny. A pun that even an HN commenter doesn't get is a good one.

samstave• 12 years ago

Yes, they may be efficient but the reason it took so long to find is that they were not technically advanced, had they had clipper ship technology, the government of the time would have been able to determine exactly where it had been awashed.

EGreg• 12 years ago

Modern sailboats might be more efficient. As for the rowing, you have to take into account all the food that was consumed.

PS: Galleon lol

saganus• 12 years ago

That made me laugh. Good job.

dredmorbius10• 12 years ago

The Clipper ships, the most advanced sailing vessels operated commercially, could rival the speed of coal-powered steamships of their time, and even of modern oil-powered cargo ships when "slow-steaming" rules are applied. Many cargo ships capable of 23 knots have been restricted to 13 out of concern over fuel consumption.

Sail offers a number of advantages over powered ships, including the freedom from requiring fuel bunkers and costs. In a post-carbon world, among the options for shipping is a return to the use of wind power for at least a significant portion of shipping (and the elimination of 1/3 of hulls and cargoes presently comprised of petroleum shipments).

John Michael Greer looked at this in a recent post on Captain Gustaf Erikson, who maintained a fleet of commercially-operating windjammers through the mid 20th century, particularly with steel hulls and wire rigging.

It's also why you'll find navies at the forefront of research on energy research and propulsion. There have been three major revolutions in marine propulsion over the past two centuries: the emergence of coal in the 1850s (much later than its use in shorter-haul shipping and railroads due to the need to establish coaling stations -- an accomplishment demonstrated by the voyage Great White Fleet in 1907-1909), oil starting just prior to WWI, when Admiral of the British Navy Winston Churchill converted its fleet, and nuclear energy following WWII under US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, though the latter propulsion was adopted only for aircraft carriers, submarines, and icebreakers, with the exception of a very few other experimental nuclear powered vessels.

Navies are at the forefront of current research into next-generation fuel sources given the dual challenges of peak oil and global warming.

nikatwork2• 12 years ago

Wind power is also being used as a supplemental power source for cargo shipping. The first commercial shipping voyage using a computer-controlled kite saved an estimated 10-15% fuel (up to $1500 USD per day).

[1] http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080208/full/news.2008.564.ht...

brc2• 12 years ago

Nuclear powered shipping makes a lot of sense to me. No refuelling for 25 years, no localised pollution, powers through any type of weather conditions. No chance of oil spills (presuming they're not used as bulk oil carriers)

Usually when I mention this someone brings up safety as a concern. Sure, it is a concern - but surely it can be engineered around with some type of sealed-for-life engine unit that can't be cracked open to steal the fuel or waste, and will just sink to the bottom of the ocean as a single unit in case of a shipwreck.

It just seems made to me that navies have proven nuclear technology over the last 50 years or so, and yet it remains a military-only technology.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

The US Navy did run a number of nuclear powered cruisers up through the California class. Originally the idea was to keep up with the carriers whose range was limited by their fossil fueled escorts. Still the nuclear powered surface ships other than carriers fell out of favor as more efficient fossil fueled ships came about which also had much lower man power requirements.

Considering the large surface area of many cargo and passenger ships it would seem to indicate the possibility of some usage of solar power. The big issue being efficient enough panel construction in the face of the harsh conditions they would face.

lifeisstillgood• 12 years ago

And the new book - "1,001 terrible jokes for techies" - will be published in June.

brotoss• 12 years ago

Go back to reddit please

zdean• 12 years ago

“I believe that, treated in this way, the wreck has the potential to play a major role in helping to further develop Haiti’s tourism industry in the future,” he said.

Columbus was a genocidal maniac mis-credited generally for discovering the 'new world' that had been inhabited for thousands of years prior to his arrival:

http://boingboing.net/2013/10/10/christopher-colombus-raping...

I'm not sure I understand why someone would seek to make his historical impact a tourism draw.

spiritplumber• 12 years ago

It's likely that at least Italians and Spaniards will want to go see it.

huherto• 12 years ago

From wikipedia....

Columbus initiated the enduring relationship between the Earth's two major landmasses and their inhabitants. "Columbus' claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed."

PhasmaFelis• 12 years ago

Well, you can't deny that he was historically significant. There are tourist sites at Auschwitz and Dachau, after all.

It's probably too much to hope that the Santa Maria attraction will be a sober memorial, though.

erichurkman• 12 years ago

Tourism is not always about celebrating mankind's greatest achievements or breathtaking vistas.

Sometimes it is reflecting on human loss and depravity. And that's OK.

personlurking• 12 years ago

Case(s) in point: Dark Tourism (visits to "dark" sites, such as battlegrounds, scenes of horrific crimes or acts of genocide), Disaster tourism (the act of traveling to a disaster area as a matter of curiosity) and, slightly related, Doom Tourism (emerging trend involving traveling to places that are environmentally or otherwise threatened). Also, Slum Tourism...

psychometry• 12 years ago

You're going to be so mad when you find out what they did to Auschwitz.

srean• 12 years ago

The last part of the parent comment was rantsy, but in my opinion did not deserve to be down-voted past oblivion.

Back to your comment, yes Auschwitz outrages us, deservingly so, but this state of affairs has a lot to do with the fact that the perpetrators of Auschwitz lost. We hear a lot less outrage when the perpetrators 'won'.

sirdogealot• 12 years ago

Funny that a "spammer"'s URL link is highlighted and underlined when they utter an unpopular comment.

michaelsbradley• 12 years ago

"But it is Columbus the discoverer and explorer whom we truly celebrate and honor, not Columbus the civil governor..."

– Warren H. Carroll, Ph.D. Honoring Christopher Columbus. Faith & Reason, Summer 1992.

http://www.ewtn.com/library/homelibr/columbus.htm

protomyth• 12 years ago

Can't say in my neck of the woods we celebrate him or consider him an explorer since the place he "found" was already inhabited. It is basically like someone sailing from North America and saying they discovered London.

executive• 12 years ago

maybe they can search for MH370 now

bgun• 12 years ago

Wow, CNN's search for Flight 370 must have really broadened.

kijin• 12 years ago

The photo looks more like a pile of rubble than anything resembling a ship. Yeah, I probably shouldn't have expected it to look like the Swedish Vasa, but I was still disappointed. I guess organic materials don't last as long in the warm waters of the Caribbean as they do in the cold Baltic Sea.

Just out of curiosity, what would the conditions have to be in order for a wooden vessel to remain recognizable after being in warm water for 500 or 1000 years? Would anoxic water help?

codezero• 12 years ago

It sounds like much of what they found was ballast, which may have been heavier material like rocks/metal, and they identified it based on it being an anomaly compared to the surrounding seabed and journal entries made by Columbus.

As for your question, I wish I knew, though I recall from an Anthropology course I took that the older wooden artifacts tend to be found in peat bogs over a thousand years after being deposited.

If I understand correctly, the condition isn't great, but the peat bogs themselves prevent oxygen from entering the environment and decrease decay rates of organic material.

A quick search shows that peat bogs can exist under the sea so the conditions you describe might exist even under warm water.

harlanlewis• 12 years ago

The disappointing lack of shape isn't just from decomposition - the foundered ship's timbers were used to build a fort.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-lost-fort-of-colum... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Mar%C3%ADa_(ship)#Shipwre...

ciscoriordan• 12 years ago

The Vasa was in cold, brackish water. Low salinity is good for preservation.

Sinking somewhere difficult to reach is important, to prevent salvage.

The Vasa had her cannon brought up to the surface but was otherwise left alone. I went to the museum on a whim last year and was pleasantly surprised. It's not just the hull of the ship, everything onboard was preserved.

Really cool engineering project lesson, too. The Vasa had a critical engineering flaw (way too top heavy) that came about due to pressure from the king. As a result, she sank as soon as she was launched on her maiden voyage!

bluedevil2k• 12 years ago

Further, the brackish water was inhospitable for the organisms that usually break down wood in the ocean, ship worms for example.

mhandley• 12 years ago

One of the main reasons the Vasa is so well preserved is that the Baltic isn't saltwater - it's just slightly brackish. In saltwater, shipworms will eventually eat away any exposed wood, but they don't live in brackish or fresh water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipworms

DEinspanjer• 12 years ago

I wonder if any of the previous salvagers of things like the cannons will be able to recognize the newly discovered significance of what they took and capitalize on it.. I imagine the original salvagers probably turned the items around quickly, but anyone who is hanging on to a cannon that came out of the water anywhere around there has got to be curious if it might be that one.

rgo• 12 years ago

I wonder if Spain will claim ownership of the ship or its contents like they (rightfully) did with the treasures of Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-07/odyssey-and-...

The difference here is that the Santa Maria is not a warship, so I'm not sure the same rule applies.

tanzam75• 12 years ago

It does not matter that it is not a warship. Sovereign wrecks are owned by the sovereign entity, whether or not they are armed.

The problem is that the Santa Maria was not owned by Spain. It was owned by Juan de la Cosa, a private citizen.

Found after 500 years, the wreck of Columbus's flagship the Santa Maria

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