Deep Water Wrecks?

[mojosavage]

Hello again all,

As I said in a previous discussion thread, I am researching deep water wrecks. I would clasify a deep water wreck as deeper than 500' but many of you might have a different opinion about that. Really any stories of deep water wrecks would help me greatly.

I am basically looking for wrecks to research that are known to have been lost in deep water, preferably 16th to 18th century, in either the central Gulf or Atlantic side of Florida out a ways.

I was hoping that the members of this learned group would have some gems to share with me as a starting point. I have several things in mind but I don't want to cloud the discussion with my thoughts, I am interested in all of yours!

Thanks in advance for the discussion!

ms

 

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[mad4wrecks]

Potter's book The Treasure Divers Guide, Marx's Shipwrecks in Florida Waters, Singer's Florida Shipwrecks all contain lots of references to ships going down in deep water off the Florida coast. The Bahama Channel has to be littered with old wrecks! Not all of them sucumbed to the reefs. The ships were often in disrepair, leaky, top heavy, overloaded and then there were all the tropical storms, hurricanes and nor'easters. Two annual fleets with sometimes dozens of ships in each fleet multiplied by 200 hundered years or so and that is just the Spanish ships!

 

[Salvor6]

Mojo, there are two noteworthy wrecks that come to mind: one year after the Atocha sank, the 1623 silver fleet sank after making the eastward turn towards Bermuda. The 1589 fleet of 4 huge galleons loaded with gold sank somewhere between FL and Bermuda. There were 10 smaller vessels that went down with this fleet.

 

[Cablava]

Deep water wrecks mean there are probably less references to work with, look how long the Titanic took to find (obviously the extreme) but the point is deep water costs lots to search and better equipment. J

Just taking the marine construction business for an example. I am about to get involved with a project in 1250m of water installing some pipe tie-ins and the mooring systems required to to upload gas. I have done this many times in 20 to 150m but this is a new challenge for me. Diverless operations, Dynamic positioning, deep water ROV's it costs a fortune. and we will be installing new stuff. Collecting old stuff at deep depths has got to be a lot harder.

Sure you may find something on the side scan but it costs a lot of money to find out what you have down there and often you cannot recognise anything from the ROV cameras and other sensing equipment. Service boats have to be DP in order to stay over the site.

So it comes back to same answer you have to find it on paper first and then find it again before you start to pour money into deep water recovery.

Oh. I do contract work for the major oil and gas companies. They pay the bills

 

[mojosavage]

The Titanic illustrates what my thinking is. Yes, it took forever to find it but technology finally became available to find it and then dive to it. For 70 years no one would think of diving on the Titanic but then one day, Ballard said, "Hey, ya know we out to go find the Titanic with these new technologies!"

I think that the continued development of deep water ROV technology as well as Bathymetric scanning equipment will bring some of this stuff to a more affordable level in 5 - 10 years. Still Expensive, but less so.

 

[mojosavage]

Cornelius,

Thanks for the input. I guess I got sidetracked on the particulars of this topic. My original question pertained only to research and I was looking for some interesting wrecks to begin exhaustive research on, which for me can be several years. I just wanted to look farther out than most people do and was looking to the group to provide some tracks for me to follow. We then got on a discussion about costs and so forth.

 

[Sandman]

How deep is Deep? Myself, I have been down to 200 foot and don't like it. Bottom time is less and special air mixtures are involved. There are a few fine books on the subject and they were mentioned in other posts. If your looking for research material you could also try the insurance companies or shipping people. They would have leads for you.

Good luck,

Sandman

 

[mariner]

At those really deep levels, they are using single atmoshere manned submersibles, and even single atmosphere dive suits. For example, Phil Nuytten, of British Columbia, who developed the Newtsuit, the first single atmosphere diving suit, has now developed a fully articulated diving suit that will enable you to go down to about 1,000 feet or more in two or three minutes, stay down for up to 72 hours (if you ever wanted to do so) and come back up in the same two or three minutes, without any need for decompression, etc., because you are always at single atmosphere pressure. The air supply is continuously reoxygenated by a self contained unit.

These exosuits are still under development, but you can get in the delivery queue for about $100,000 a time, I think. However, as the technology is established and put into relatively mass production, the cost will probably plummet.

Check it out at www.nuytco.com

Mariner

 

[ceolacanth]

The Newtsuit was most certainly not the first one atmosphere diving suit. Try lethbridge 1715 then there were many others of various designs some successful and many not, some of the more successful (although not all articulated by design) were lethbridge diving engine, Wasp, Sam, Jim, Spyder, Mantis,Panzer, Neufeldt just to name a few.
To get launched and down to 1000ft takes a lot longer than 2-3 minutes likewise for the recovery.
Phil's a brilliant man but don't hold your breath for the exosuit it is still very much prototype. To sum up ROV is a more cost effective means for salvage (try and buy a newt suit) Understandably ADS allows one to utilize the largest computer of all "mans brain" this is beneficial in time utilized regarding awareness of surroundings and just about any other task at hand but as to cost ........

However if anyone does have the requirement or project to justify utilizing ADS technology just send me an email.

 

[ceolacanth]

Ah but an atmospheric diving suit non the less

Yes it is true it was very limited in depth, but for its time>>>
I would place ADS articulation in probably 3 groups the first being the older sealed pressure bearing type: peress, tritonia, etc then the semi compensated limited pressure seals (oil filled) Jim, Sam , spyder etc and 3rd the Fully compensated versions of Newts (upgraded wasps ) and I see that Mike Humphreys (swore blind he had retired) has come out with a patent for a brilliant design seal utilized in articulation joints on ADS systems.

The new suits are very maneuverable and with a competant operator will fly circles around ANY ROV and complete all tasks in a shorter period . But I still feel that for most salvage orientated projects ROV is the most cost effective way to go.

 

[mariner]

I think that two or three minutes to get down to/up from 1,000 foot was something of an exageration on my part - it may be five to ten minutes, but it is that order and not hours. It is also the case that at moment manned ROVs are available and doing salvage work, down to 3,000 or more, but I do not think it will be long before equipment like the exosuit is being used for recoveries in the 200 - 1000 foot range, and at a price that is cost-effective compared to the alternatives. I am sure there are many, more knowledgeable people than me who can address this subject, but I was very impressed when I looked at this equipment.

Mariner