Yargh !
Posted on 06/22/2013 4:38:18 AM PDT by csvset
ATLANTIC BEACH, NC (WECT) – Divers trying to recover cannons from Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge wreck site off the coast of North Carolina were successful in their efforts Thursday.
Bad weather forced the team to scrub the previous two trips, but the conditions were just right the third time around.
A group from Cape Fear Community College used inflation bags to float two cannons to the surface.
This is the first time the cannons have been out of the water in almost 300 years. According to David Hardin with CFCC, the cannons are estimated to weigh 2,000 pounds each.
He said it took six hours to complete the operation and required close coordination between underwater divers and students, captain and crew on board CFCC's research vessel.
Blackbeard ran the ship aground near Beaufort inlet in 1718
Divers discovered the wreck in 1996 and a dozen other cannons have been retrieved since then, in addition to thousands of other artifacts.
The North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources owns the artifacts, and the largest display is at the Maritime Museum in Beaufort.
As more artifacts are being recovered and go through the conservation effort at the QAR lab in Greenville, the state is making it possible for more people to see them.
A statewide touring exhibit is now in western North Carolina, and more traveling exhibits are in the works as more artifacts are recovered and interest in one of North Carolina's most feared pirates grows.
More dives to the site are scheduled for August.
All of the artifacts should be recovered from the wreck site by the end of next year, but because of their fragile condition, it may take up to 15 years before all of the items will be conserved enough to be put on public display.
Yargh !
More pics at the source.
Blackbeard lived in Beaufort, NC for a time.
Spent a day and night in Beaufort. Really neat town filled w/ history. Saw Blackbeards house. Take the Ghost walking tour.
Correct pronunciations
Beaufort, NC...... BO fort
Beaufort, SC......,.BU fort
As you say, Vinnie, Beaufort, North Carolina retains the French pronunciation. The pronunciation of Beaufort, South Carolina is not an American corruption of the French; it is an English corruption transplanted intact in America.
Another name for Beaufort, SC is Parris Island according to my son Sgt RushLake, USMC.
I’m watching Blackbeard, The Pirate on TCM as I read this.
Edward Teach aka Blackbeard spent time on numerous islands of the Outer Banks, the Beaufort Inlet area is not really OBX. That ends with Portsmouth, or Ocracoke if you’re talking populated islands in the modern era.
Blackbeard was killed, beheaded, at what is known as Teach’s Hole at Ocracoke. Interesting ghost tale, if you row out to Teach’s Hole under a full moon and slap your oars on the water, his headless body reputedly will emerge and swim around your boat, lol.
Ghost tours on Ocracoke, too. If you enjoy that sort of thing a stroll down Howard Street in Ocracoke Village might be interesting. Lined with old family burial plots shaded under massive live oak, old family homeplaces interspersed.
Ocracoke is a wacky old place that sort of worms it’s way into your heart. If you can imagine an isolated microcosm of New Orleans, Key West and Sausalito, all rolled together and writ small without the decadence, and accessible only via public ferry, private boat or small plane, that would be Ocracoke.
bttt
South of Ocracoke is locally called the SOBX. 60 miles of uninhabited beaches with two fish camps on four or five islands depending on if hurricanes and Nor’easters have opened or closed inlets.
Portsmouth, Core Banks, Shackleford Banks, what are the others? I’m native, been out to Hatteras and Ocracoke many times, even daytripped over to Portsmouth and did not realize there are that many.
About 25 years back, two friends of mine researched Commodore Perry’s fleet on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. They determined that the Americans scuttled and burned one of their ships in a small creek near Niagara Falls, rather than let it fall into British hands. With scuba gear and metal detectors they found the ship. It took them the whole summer to bring up a cannon. They then spent months cleaning the cannon and getting it back into shape. Officials from New York State showed up and seized the cannon claiming that it belonged to the state. They never saw it again.
Ping!
You named them right. When I first started going to Portsmouth there were only three. Then hurricanes have since filled in and reopened old drum inlet twice, created Ophelia inlet and filled in new drum inlet.
After hurricane Ophelia in 2003 it was five islands, Portsmouth, Johns, Ophelia, South Core and Shackleford.
Now it’s back to the original three unless it’s a bad storm tide and old drum inlet gets flooded temporarily recreating John’s island.
Swash inlet up toward Ocracoke floods in storm tides once in a while but it’s so large and flat up there that the water just spreads out instead of carving a new permanent inlet.
The hurricane in 2011 over washed Portsmouth at the ferry landing and filled it in with sand which has since been dredged out. The next direct Cat 3 or higher that hits there will likely cut a new inlet at that location and permanently close the fish camp.
If you use the google earth timeline you can see the inlets opening and closing.
Good old New York.
Basically a gang, formed into a state.
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Saw a lot of damage on Hatteras, dodged a lot of drifting sand, drove through a lot of it, over a temporary one lane steel plate bridge just above Rodanthe at Mirlo Beach. Several of those fine juniper-shingled Hatteras style beach houses with towers had pitched over into the surf. New inlet trying to form there. All there is now is beach, narrow dune line, 12, narrow shoulder then the sound.
Other than sand on the road, Ocracoke was unscathed. Village being soundside sheltered them I guess. Didn't get much beach time, the wind was still up, stinging sand. Good shelling though, always is after a storm. Occasionally old shipwrecks get exposed afterward, so there's that too.
I can’t recall which book - but it might have been about Blackbeard. The early pirate flags were red - “blood” red. IIRC the skull and crossbones was a very late idea, and perhaps fairly rare. They would fly numerous country’s flags depending on where they were, or if they could tell from a distance the ship’s country of origin. Sail in close under a friendly flag - then raise their pirate flag as they engaged.
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