Posted on 06/22/2006 6:38:09 AM PDT by Pharmboy
The Bonhomme Richard sank in
about 180ft of water
Experts have expressed confidence that they can find the sunken wreck of the ship made famous by legendary Solway born sailor John Paul Jones next month. The Bonhomme Richard went down in 1779 off Flamborough Head in East Yorkshire as Jones famously said: "Surrender - I have not yet begun to fight."
Several bids have been made to recover the ship captained by a man credited as the founding father of the US Navy.
Now underwater archaeology experts will use hi-tech methods to try to find it.
Dr Robert Neyland, head of the underwater archaeology unit at the US Navy Historical Centre, will head a team of six on a three-week search.
"We thought that one way to go about it would be to take the last historical information for locations of the fleet and the ship itself," he said.
"We put that together with the weather and tide information for that time period which have been recreated very well.
'Relatively deep'
"We then used modern computers to create a predictive model of where the ship went down," he added.
Dr Neyland is confident the wreck can be found despite the depth of waters involved.
"It is going to be in waters that are relatively deep - probably 150 to 200ft," he said.
"Divers are able to work in those waters - and archaeologists too."
Jones, a native of Arbigland on the Solway coast, engaged the British ship Serapis off Flamborough Head.
He captured Serapis but had to watch his own ship sink into the North Sea.
The battle on 23 September, 1779 is counted as one of the most memorable battles of the American Revolution
GREAT link! I do wonder what was up with "Alliance".
The Richard was a gift from the Queen of France. Franklin was our Ambassador to FRance seeking aid for the Revolution. Jones was exactly what we needed at that time. Bold, daring, fiesty, and a fighter. And he BELIEVED in the cause of liberty. '...in harm's way' defined the US Navy.
More interesting trivia...if memory serves me correctly the commander of carrier Bon Homme Richard while at Yankee Station off N.Vietnam was an admiral by the name of Morrison...whose son James became an infamous rock singer/wannabee poet of some note.
Check out JPJ's Report, which explains how the captain of the Alliance was upset at JPJ for JPJ's refusal to allow him to pursue a ship that was sighted close to shoals. That's some temper, eh?
Another good link is by the USN.
Captain Landais... probably John Kerry's ancestor. :')
Thanks for the pic of the old Bonnie Dick CVA-31.
When I went through boot camp in San Diego, looking out the window of our barracks across the Bay was the Bonnie Dick - moored to the pier at NAS North Island.
Later, serving aboard a tender, we did a lot of repair jobs on the Bonnie Dick during WESTPAC tours.
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks Pharmboy and Gondring. |
||
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.