The Pearl Ship

auferret

Sr. Member
Sep 25, 2007
420
73
Tennessee
Detector(s) used
White's MXT
Sunray DX-1
Falcon MD20
Garrett Seahunter Mark II
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting

Old Bookaroo

Silver Member
Dec 4, 2008
4,318
3,510
Isayhello2u: That article appears in The Treasure Hunter magazine (Vol. 7, No. 1-2) pgs. 25 & 26. Johnnie Pounds often reprinted articles from our sources, and that layout looks like another publication. So, I'm guessing he did reprint it.

2.0: Perhaps from Westways Magazine, November 1931?

Mr. Weight, a very reliable authority on all matters of the American desert(s), prepared the Lost Ship of the Desert; A Legend of the Southwest [The Calico Press: Twentynine Palms, CA: November 1959) "A Calico Print Portfolio." Copies are almost unobtainable today.

Good luck to all,

~The Old Bookaroo
 

Jan 2, 2012
3
0
Primary Interest:
Shipwrecks
***INVESTOR NEEDED***

I believe I have found the ship. Once I get to the site and confirm it I am going to need an investor ASAP so I can hire archaeologists in order to conduct proper excavation. You will most definitely be well compensated for your generosity in the end.
 

Oroblanco

Gold Member
Jan 21, 2005
7,838
9,830
DAKOTA TERRITORY
Detector(s) used
Tesoro Lobo Supertraq, (95%) Garrett Scorpion (5%)
WELCOME TO TREASURENET robertherman83!! :thumbsup:

Congratulations and good luck!
Oroblanco

:coffee2: :coffee2:
 

Old Dog

Gold Member
May 22, 2007
5,860
397
Western Colorado
Welcome to T-net !!
please reconsider the archie angle.
they only make it more expensive, and give you nothing in return.
get a good one after you confirm the find. then waste the money.
you will have to prove it all over again anyway.

at least this way you may have something to show for it personally.
Rather than seeing it all go to an archie's private collection.
 

gollum

Gold Member
Jan 2, 2006
6,729
7,596
Arizona Vagrant
Detector(s) used
Minelab SD2200D (Modded)/ Whites GMT 24k / Fisher FX-3 / Fisher Gold Bug II / Fisher Gemini / Schiebel MIMID / Falcon MD-20
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Welcome robertherman83,

Don't know where you think you may have found it, but I have found that its' location is "fairly" common knowledge amongst old timers in the El Centro Area. No jewels or treasure, and most of the aft portion of the Caravelle was used to build part of a man's house (they used the aft portion because it had the only straight planks). A piece of the forward section of the ship is still at the location, but is usually under twenty or so feet of blow sand.

Best-Mike
 

Nov 8, 2004
14,582
11,942
Alamos,Sonora,Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hmm gollium: first let me say that I have been worried about you being stuck half way into an old mining tunnel with no help, you were too quiet for too long sheesh. Rather have you around than an old Land Rover.

Second I would tend to agree with you except for the irritating coincidence of the reports from Indians of an ole Spanish ship also being located in the sand dunes of the Pinacate region in Old Mexico.


Hmmmmm

:coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: glad that you are still here to have coffee with us ya louse.

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Furness

Full Member
Aug 23, 2008
184
64
Lancs
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi Guys,

interesting thread,

regarding the ship i have read the same story that Gollum mentions, and is more than likely to be correct,
when salt gets into timber and it is in conditions like the desert area referred to the rot is minimal due to the very dry conditions once the moisture evaporates out it becomes hard and doesn't rot much after that and the salt preserves it, rot is caused by a fungus which needs the moisture to survive and in dry conditions the fungus dies, except in the case of dry rot, which needs moisture at the start of the life cycle and then draws moisture from the air, this doesn't occur in saltwater conditions the salt kills it before the spores can grow,
many wooden ships in later years packed salt between the frames in between the outer planking and the inner planks called a ceiling to stop rot,

and its more likely that when it is called a pearl ship they are referring to mother of pearl which are the shells,
common round the pacific are are black lipped and gold lipped shell about 9 to 10 inch across when fully grown,
they were used before plastic for buttons, only the well off could afford them, peasants (like me) had to make do with wooden toggles to fasten their coats,
and only about one in a hundred had a pearl inside, and only about 10 percent of those were good enough to be worth anything, so any pearls found would probably be in a small chest on the ship and that at least to me could account for the wealth the guy who used parts to build his place came into,

a pearl is like an onion in layers (called nacre) about 3 to 5 layer of this are removed until the lustre shows,
until about WW2 there were about 50 pearling lugers operating out of Broome in Northern Australia, using natives islanders to dive for them in the gulf of carpenterier, and even up until the 1960s there were still a few operating there, any pearls found were sold and the money split between the divers and crew, they were a bonus and only a small proportion of the value of the entire cargo, the real money was in the shells,

also tidal conditions are such that Chinese ships are found in an area of Baja California, having drifted there over time, perhaps abandoned in a storm or some date back hundreds of years, there are photos of quite a bit of the stuff that has ended up in a gulf area, there are photos of this in a Book called hunting the desert whale by Earl Stanley Gardener, including hundreds of the glass balls used to float Chinese fisherman's nets before they invented plastic, all deposited there by ocean currents,

in the 1960s a ship carrying 60,000 plastic ducks the little yellow ones you see in fairgrounds, sank in a typhoon and have turned up all over the world, oceanographers track them and have used their findings to chart the ocean currents last year a few turned up on the Hebrides off Scotland, and that's a long way from the south Pacific, and it's more than likely that many of the ships found round America could have landed there that way, and not necessarily from Vikings or any other ocean goers exploring distant lands,

the carving on the rock could show oars when they are shipped, Viking ships and any open boat with oars including Greek and other Mediterranean single deck ships would place the oars just like the drawing unshipped and held vertically when approaching land so that they didn't get damaged and if the grounding was bad could easily drop them back into the thwarts in the gunnel's to back row out of trouble if a swell was running,

Roy is correct about the figurehead and fancy bow and stern sections regarding Mediterranean ships, most were designed like this as it finished of the keel and stem and stern pieces as it swept up at both ends, it makes for an easy run for the planks without tight bends , the stern normally in either a single curved piece flattening to an axe shape or carved like a palm leaf, although there were many variations in the design, and the majority a swans head as he mentions at the bow,
just my 2 cents worth,

John
 

Nov 8, 2004
14,582
11,942
Alamos,Sonora,Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Good morning Furness, a ***** post . The Indians have repeatably told me of the ship near the Pinacates, from which occasionally they have removed china (?) when it was exposed. It is full of sand.

Since I was on the trail of other projects, I never followed it up. Maybe a scroungy, X sheep lover, would find it a good project to warm up his creaky bones.

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. I don't care what gully of the Land Rover says, he is wrong - unless he is stating that 'I' am never wrong heheheh

p.p.s He is on my list, I had visions of just his feet sticking out of a caved in old workings in the desert since he wasn't posting, sheesh. Can you just imagine that beautiful Land Rover just sitting and rusting out there with no-one to take loving care of it, such as myself?
 

Jan 2, 2012
3
0
Primary Interest:
Shipwrecks
h
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0076.JPG
    IMG_0076.JPG
    370 KB · Views: 706

Furness

Full Member
Aug 23, 2008
184
64
Lancs
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Hi Jose,

It could well the Indians are correct as the Chinese used ships for a great deal of cargo from one port in China to another then up and down the various rivers such as the Yangtze, it was a common way of moving pottery or porcelain and other goods round china and quicker and with less breakages than in wagons on dirt tracks, and it carried a great deal more, normally they put everything in wooden slated boxes packed in layers of straw, large amounts were shipped this way,

John
 

Oroblanco

Gold Member
Jan 21, 2005
7,838
9,830
DAKOTA TERRITORY
Detector(s) used
Tesoro Lobo Supertraq, (95%) Garrett Scorpion (5%)
Umm - what is this?

IMG_0076a.jpg

Looks like a vehicle to my untrained eye, perhaps someone has already found it? :dontknow:

:coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2:
 

Nov 8, 2004
14,582
11,942
Alamos,Sonora,Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
HI sheep lovin cowboy. It does, until you put things into logical proportion or scale. That would make that ship (?) enormous.

My coffee???

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. Robert,, it would help if you could resize your picture to a max of 750 pixels.. You have 1440 now.
 

Nov 8, 2004
14,582
11,942
Alamos,Sonora,Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
:coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: :coffee2: Ladies & Gentlemen: Gracias my friends Furness & Robert. The data appears much clearer now Robert. However, you do realize that you are spoiling my fun with that land locked would be sheep luvin, cowboy ? snicker

Seriously Oro is quite sharp and has a tremendous amount of information in his mind, besides sheep. I intend to pick it, and your's.

Incidentally here are some values on the Vikinf Drakkars. (copied and pasted )

The average length of a longship was 28 metres. The largest ever excavated was seventy metres long. Its sixty oarsmen could swiftly deliver as many as four hundred warriors to a battlefield along the coast or well inland via a river. Like most large drakkars, it was owned by a powerful king. He was the only one who could afford to build it. In the last days of the Viking Age, three hundred of these longships were in the Viking fleet.
Crew:
The average longship owned by an earl or nobleman carried a crew of twenty to thirty oarsmen. They rowed the ship when the winds were slight or calm. Other crew members included a helmsmen, who steered the ship; a lookout who watched for rocks in shallow waters and a few spare men who took the place a tired oarsmen or replaced one lost overboard during a storm. The remaining men onboard were warriors, eager to do battle or to raid a community and rob it of its riches.
Construction:
Like all Viking ships, the longship, was constructed using the clinker design. This means it was planked using two centimetre thick oak boards which were overlapped slightly and then nailed together with iron nails. The spaces between the planks were caulked with tarred wool or animal fur to make the ship watertight. The planks were also nailed to support-ribbing that ran from the gunwale to the keel. The keel, which ran the full length of the ship, was made of one solid piece of oak. It add stability and made the ship travel straight through the water.
The longship was very sturdy, and yet flexible enough to withstand the waves of stormy seas and light enough to be dragged overland between two lakes or rivers. The prow, or bow, was sometimes tipped with a very ornate carving of a snake or dragon head, thus earning it the nickname "dragon ship". The prow ornament was removed while the ship was it sea. Replacing such a finely carved piece would be expensive and losing it might be a bad omen.

Don Jose de La Mancha
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Top