Galleon markings, identification

[G.I.B.]

General question if I may,

Other then the ships bell, and cannons, what are some of the other items on board a 1700's era Spanish Galleon that would reveal it's name/origin. What are some of the more common items found today that would bear the ships name, or other clues to it identification?

Would the Captain's traditionally carry anything that could had survived to the present time, which bore their name on it?

Thanks...

 

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[ScubaFinder]

Ahhh, the age old question. Most ships had several official names, plus a few nicknames. Identifying a ship is not an easy task, and generally can only be done with any certainty by comparing artifacts from the wreck site to original cargo manifests and hoping something matches perfectly. Unfortunately, most cargo manifests from 1700's era Spanish vessels list the cargo in vague terms like "113 boxes of gifts". Even if you are lucky enough to have something listed like "Gold Cross with emerald inlay" there may have been several items brought up that match that description, all from different sites.

You can get close to the date with coins, you can tell where she was built by researching the fittings and wood used, and you can generally deduce who's flag she was flying at the time provided she was not a pirate ship. I have seen an astrolabe with the ships name engraved on the back, but that was not a general practice back then. Bells can help if you can figure out every name a particular ship ever had, as the bell was usually inscribed with the name the builder gave to her. Ships in those days changed hands many times, and each new owner gave the ship a new name generally. There were also many ships of the same name throughout the years.

Going through the archives and looking at manifests and survivor accounts (if there were any) is about the only way. If it was a single wreck, deducing the name can often be accomplished, but when an entire fleet went down together, it is a daunting task to name the individual wrecks. The 1715 wrecksites are not known by their names, there is much speculation, and little proof for most of the sites. The state went out on a limb and claimed to have positively ID'd the wreck at Pepper Park as the Urca de Lima, later investigation proved this ID to be incorrect, hence the names like "Cabin Wreck" that we use now.

Good luck, trudging through the archival documentation and trying to unravel the mystery is 90% of the fun...right?

Jason

 

[Cablava]

Jason said it well.

The bell cannot be relied upon either, I have a bell at home which I took from a ship called "Jumbo Dubai" however the bell is embosed "Tor Stockholm"
the ship it was made for. Everything is often not as it seems.

Mike

 

[G.I.B.]

Jason,

Thank you for the detailed reply. That makes a lot of sense, and has cleared up an issue for me.


'preciate it... thanks again.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Mike makes a good point about bells...I once went on a wild goose chase looking for archival info on a "lost galleon" based on an inscription from a bell. Turns out my lost ship went down a thousand miles away, was salvaged, and the bell was salvage cargo heading back to Spain when it went down again.

One thing I left out is that the number, size, material, and make of the cannon can often help with an ID, but these too were often swapped and retrofitted with better guns as they became available. These retrofits may or may not have been listed in any documents. More often than not, cannon will tell you she is NOT the ship you thought she was, or if you're lucky, will add some credence to a speculative ID.