What was mean to be a routine equipment test has led to one of the first maritime breakthrough found this class by NOAA’sOkeanosresearch vessel .
Researchers in the Gulf of Mexico were conducting what is screw as a shakedown – a trial run dispatch meant to test , calibrate , and integrate equipment in improvement of coming commission in parliamentary law to ensure that both personnel and gear are in - tune and ready to rock as the ship sets off to explore some of the planet ’s most remote locations : the seafloor . During an engineering prima donna meant to try a remotely operated vehicle ( ROV ) , sonar serendipitously plunk up the shape of a shipwreck on the bottom of the seafloor .
That ’s when crews opened up the ship ’s springy feed to scientists around the world , who look out the dive in real time . Though many details are still unknown , oecumenical laying claim were made by head marine archeologist from across the Earth .
The vas is believed to be a sailing vas built in the mid-19th hundred , possibly a schooner or brig , that measures about 37.8 beat ( 124 feet ) long . It is made of wood with copper sheathing covering the bottom of the hull , which has helped to continue some of the integrity of the vessel due to its antifouling holding . We do not know the age of the vessel when it was lost – it could have been decades after being build – but experts were able to characterize the time period during which it was constructed base on the ship ’s radical and bowing , Isaac Hull body , and remain of the windlass .
No artifacts remain to tell us about the crew on board , where they were going , or what hap , nor do we cognize what events transpired before the ship settle , but there are a few clues . All structures above the water line are miss and there are not many trace of standing rigging . A number of timbers take care like they were charred and several fasteners appear bent – both indications of combustion , which leads researchers to believe the ship perchance caught attack and was about entirely waste before it sank . This could assist explain why almost half of the ship is gone and there are no personal will power or pack of cards artifacts observed around it .
Copper sheathing around the Cordell Hull has protected the bottom dowry of the ship from maritime life that has otherwise infest the vessel . The numbers “ 2109 ” are visible on the trail edge of the ship ’s rudder , as well as on the nail that fastened the number to the ship .
