Ship Wreck

[Alexandre]

On another point , thanks to Alexandre' on his explanations, fascinating stuff indeed.  Another small question if you have time, what was the average crew for such a wreck as ours, and what was the average sailing time from Portugal to India?

I also heard from another person , that a good few months back , a solid "beam' of wood, in a curved shape, like that of a scorpions tail, but on a larger scale was found in the area, nobody knew or cared what it was, and it was just left , sticking up through the ancient sands, whilst the miners went about their task of recovering diamonds.... It is now known that this piece of wood, is part of that wreck.....

Damn... here I am, useless, and you guys (an girls) with what appears to be the earliest wreck of a Portuguese ship in your hands!

You know, besides all that you can read in the history books - the Portuguese Maritime Empire, the first global sea discoverers, the heroes of early European navigation blah, blah, blah - there's not a single ship ever excavated archaeologically (the only exception is a piece of the bottom of a returning nau from 1606 and a frigate sunk in Mombasa, Kenya, from the late 17th century, beautifully excavated and published by INA).

So, no one knows how a Portuguese ship looked like, how it was built, how it was crewed, how it sailed, what it carried from and to India. We know more about Roman villas in Portugal, 2000 years old, than we know about Portuguese ships from 500 years ago.

To add salt to the injury, the Lisbon earthquake sent the House of India into the Tagus river - so, our archives sources are very few and very scarce... that's why this Namibian ship, not being salvaged by treasure hunters like all those others plundered and blown into smithereens in Mozambique, South Africa and Seychelles, rises like a bean of light (we archaeologist do have a tender spot for ship timbers...)

[Alexandre]

Hi Alexandre,i was privvy to see some new photo's today,and it seems that most of the articles recovered are lying submerged in huge containers of water,i hope that will let you sleep better!

I do sleep well, I am pretty sure this wreck is in good hands! :)

[Alexandre]

On another point , thanks to Alexandre' on his explanations, fascinating stuff indeed.  Another small question if you have time, what was the average crew for such a wreck as ours, and what was the average sailing time from Portugal to India?

Sorry, I forgot to answer the questions.

The number of people aboard a Portuguese East Indiaman varied according to the ship's tonnage and travel accidents. For instance, Jean Hugues van Linschotten wrote that, at the end of the 16th century, Portuguese naus carried somewhere between 400 and 500 sailors and passengers but, in 1643, a galleon carried 930 persons and in 1724, a ship carried 700 people, of which 400 were convicts sent to India. Sometimes, during shipwreck recoveries, a ship would be carrying more than a thousand souls...

If all went well, it could take as much as six months to reach India. If, for some reason, they were delayed by the doldrums or they failed to catch the monsoon, it could take as much as a year to arrive there, with a stop made somewhere along the route, Mozambique for instance.

[Alexandre]

Hi Alexandre,i was privvy to see some new photo's today,and it seems that most of the articles recovered are lying submerged in huge containers of water,i hope that will let you sleep better!

I could kill for new photographs... ;)

[SandyB]

As  said .. intrepid  explorers and  adventurers ..  so  many people aboard a ship ??   fascinating stuff   . keep it coming ..

[Dalene Steenkamp (Coetzee)]

We should actually invite Alexandre to our reunion in November (then he can kill Adriaan, who will be my host, for bragging about those pictures he saw and not posting even 1 here for us).  LOL

This stuff is so interesting  -  makes me silently wish that some more treasures like this will get discovered along the Namibian coastline.  So much of our history is still a mystery to us and these findings just shed a little more light on the roots of our past.

Carry on, boys....  I am all ears and eyes!

[Jeremy Dixon]

I thought mike was talking about something I didnt know about. Were are they storing the stuff my guess is the vault at 2 plant recovery! Cant anyone load a couple more photos for us to have a look at?

[pbrandt]

Greetings to all Oranjemunders and other Shipwreck fans! 

With Alexandre supplying us all with such interesting information there is not much I can add - only that I am happy the site is covered up, the artifacts seems to be in fresh water and the world is listening, watching and waiting. Now only to hope that 'they' are all now planning an international, multi-disciplinary project which would do justice to this great find. Maritime Archaeology is a very specialized field with many facets and such a project needs lots of planning, involvement of many different experts from various scientific disciplines, museum involvement, money etc etc

Attached a photograph of a similar cannon as was found at your site- this is from the Girona (1588) website - thus probably with copy right! These cannon were mounted high and had a number of pre-laoded breach blocks ready  (shown in the pic) and made it possible to shoot quite fast - this gave the Spanish and Portuguese a huge advatage at that time over their enemies.

[Michael Alexander]

Our local Music Man is also the local scribe, here is his entertaining piece about the wreck from todays Newsletter for all those of you who do not get the Newsletter......

[dave hughes]

To add to Alexandre's comments about the difficulty of preserving the timbers of the wreck: One of Henry VIII's ships, the Mary Rose was sunk in 1545. The wreck was found and brought to the surface in 1982 after 437 on the seabed. The remnants of the ships wooden hull has been receiving a constant spray of a waxy solution for the past 26 years.

[Alexandre]

Well, now I can spill my beans, since it's out in the street and the powers that be have come forward: yesterday, via the Portuguese Embassy in South Africa, a request for cooperation by the Namdeb archaeologists has reached the Portuguese Foreign Affairs Ministry and from there, the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.

So, it looks like one or two of our guys will be going your way one of these days... :)

http://dn.sapo.pt/2008/05/09/artes/portugal_pondera_enviar_missao_a_nam.html

[Michael Alexander]

Won't be any chance that it will be you Alexandre'?

[Alexandre]

Don't know. I guess it will all depend on how much budget we can bargain for (we, as a country, don't have diamonds and all our gold was lost in shipwrecks ;).

But, if anyone is going at all (that is, if all the red tape is done with) then  Francisco Alves, our Director for the National Division of Underwater and Nautical Archaeology will certainly be that one.

[Michael Alexander]

As most of you know , the wreck actually lies below sea level, and lies in a Coffer dam, the mine keeps the pumps running and pumps the sea water back over that wall, I wonder how long the mine will pay to keep those pumps running in order to keep the digsite dry? Anyone know something?

[Michael Alexander]

I keep thinking of what might have been when that ship smashed into the rocks, was there a storm? Was it in the night? Did any of them actually make it ashore? If those that made it ashore, know that even though they were looking at a bleak and desolate landscape, dry and barren, devoid of all water, that if they walked along the beach, south, just 12km...they would find the biggest freshwater river in Southern Africa, ..... did some of them make it there? How many? Did ever any of them ever return to Portugal? And how long will it take before the experts confirm, yes this ship was the "abcd", what was this story that there was royalty aboard? Did this boat first visit Brazil? If you look on some of the links in here, you will see, in order to catch the winds, a number of boats went across to South America first, then back to Africa....one has to admire their courage ....
Sigh! SO many Questions, So little answers, and I only have one life.....