Fieldschool Day 17

The Maritime Archaeology team surveying.

Today the total station arrived. We were all rather excited at camp by the idea of using the total station to get the exact location of FPL 17. Excited by the fact that the only total station knowledge we had was of using one in Thorsminde Denmark, for recording the Rudder of the ship HMS St. George. (See under Projects)

A total station can plot points and give GPS co ordinates by shooting light into a prism. The prism for FPL 17, since underwater, was attached to a very large poll so that it would sit above 3.5 meters in the water and still have the prism exposed for the total station to shoot from land.

The first (and only) divers of the day, Bente and Kostas set out on the boat and began the dive. 5 hours later, the two divers disassembled all the baselines and attained 4 datum points along the wreck. In order to do this, Kostas had to paddle his little Greek heart out at the surface to make sure the points were level with the total station that was on land (assisted by Christian), while Bente held the heavy poll steady at the stem post, the stern post and amidships between frames 350 and 207.

Of course this sounds all nice and easy writing it now on this blog, but I can assure you it took great effort to align the prism with the total station – 45 minutes to be exact. Rain and long distance from the total station on shore where not in the divers favour, but practice made perfect as they did it twice to be sure.

The last few frames of the‘4am wreck’ were measured and completed in the early hours of the day, as we sat out in the rain drawing and measuring with soggy clothing and smiles on our faces. Ironically, after all was completed for FPL 17 and FPL 77, the sun decided to greet us with its presence. So we began the interesting task of taking samples from FPL 77 for tree ring analysis. In order to do this, Christian, Sarah, Andrew, Marja, Della and I hesitantly began cutting pieces of the frames we had spent so long getting to know. Andrew teared up as he sawed away at the very frame he drew early that day. 10 samples later, and smelling a bit funny from waterlogged wood, we finished the day with Piñacoladas at the Prerow beach party.

Cate Wagstaffe

Fieldschool Day 16

Jens Dredging inside the ship at the stern

It had been raining all night and it was still raining a bit when we got up, so it seemed to be a wet day. But as the other times with rain at night, this day turned out to be a warm day afterall. The main aim of the day was to keep dredging by the mast of the ship and record what appeared with photos and measured sketches.

First dive started out with a drysuit that turned into a very wet suit because of a big hole in the sleeve. Fortunately Christian, Cate and Sarah were quickly at the beach to step in for the wet diver. A measured sketch and lots of documentation were made of the mast by Martin and Marja so it turned out succesfully after all.

On dive 2, our two professors, Jens and Thijs, were dredging by the mast and tried to find out where the mast were supported but with no luck. They decided that work should be continued on the inside of the stern where a lot of modern stuff appeared but also some worked timber pieces that were sketched and photographed on the third dive by Cate and Christian.

In the camp Kostas made the curves from the UMA measurments in excell. Some curves turned out very well while others looked like bananas on a hook. The work with the ”4 am wreck” is processing and the last four frames are on their way to be finished.

Bente Grundvad

Fieldschool Day 15

Dredging Operations

It wasn’t forecasted to be so, but the day began with barely a breath of wind in the air and the sea was almost perfectly calm. Dredging was continuing on the Telephone Receiver Wreck and Sarah and Kostas were going to have to dig deep.  They weren’t to know it but they would spend the most of their dive almost completely upside down. Next up to dive were Cate and Liv and they started their dredging near the main mast but they werent about to find any sails considering the mast was completely buried into the seabed.  Last but not least were Andrew and Sarah who took over where Cate and Liv finished up. They dreged even deeper and when the clouds of silt had settled shot some amazing film of the wreck.

Martin Lonergan.

Fieldschool Day 14

Bente demonstrates her natural abilities with a dredger

Today we began dredging around the shipwreck.  Our plan is to make three “trenches” around the ship: at the bow, the stern, and inside the ship at the mast.  Unlike a trench found on a land excavation, these trenches are more like craters, and they have a tendency to refill themselves if the sides get to be too steep.  It is possible that the crater made today won’t even be visible tomorrow, as the sea is constantly moving sand and sediment.

The three teams made some progress with their dredging, although the sediment proved to be less than stable.  The crater did collapse in a bit, so the next day of working will be redoing what we did today.  A few draft markings were uncovered in the process, and once they have been measured, they can be used to determine where the ship came from.

After the three working dives, we filmed a few tasks for the next batch of students on the dive course.  This included removal and replacement of a full-face mask while underwater, and a rescue drill.  Owing to the professionalism of all those involved, both tasks were executed with no problems, and only needed multiple takes due to problems with the filming equipment.

We are also making excellent progress with FPL 77, the 4 AM wreck.  More planks have been removed, and we are expecting to have recording completed by Wednesday, as well as dendrochronolgy samples taken.

Andrew Stanek

Fieldschool Day 13

Another day with high sun and 30º c, luckily the wind changed direction to south east and toke of in strength and the waves got smaller.

Todays tasks  was to measure the rest of the frames with UMA (Underwater Measure Apparatus) and to sketch internal structures of the wreck. We got some nice sketching done of the bow and stern and al the frames got measured as well. It was the plan of getting some underwater filming done, but technical problems with the camera put an end to that.

There was a lot of activity around the 4 AM wreck, a couple more planks were removed from the underlying frames and drawing was started. Some of them finished, others need more work tomorrow.

Some frames that came loose when planks were removed, we also started to record. The frames are being recorded from all four sides and in projection view.

Evening swims can definitely be recommended around here.

Sarah and Andrew cooked a lovely vegi meal that fitted the Saturday beer perfectly.

Fieldschool Day 12

Story time at FPL 77

Today we were again blessed with glorious weather at the school site and the sea conditions were also favourable for diving. The aim for the first of the days diving on the ‘Telephone Reciever wreck’ (FPL 17) was to use the newly renamed Underwater Measuring Apparatus ® to capture the curve of the ship’s frames, Bente and Martin made good headway on this.

Later Christian added to the plan of the wreck site while Marja took measurements and noted descriptions of all the timbers. For the last dive of the day Thijs continued the task of timber descriptions while Jens potogrpahed the wreck. All this diving was closely watched over by standby divers and captain for the day Sarah.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….work continued on the ‘4am’ wreck (FPL 77) with another clinker plank being removed and other loose clinker planks being carefully measured and sketched by the remainder of the team on land with a brief interruption by a group of local kindergarten children who had a story time with Jens learning about the piece and its importance.

All in all everything went according to plan today, including the ice cream after dinner…

Delia Ni Chiobhain

Fieldschool Day 11

Bente and Martin using the UMA

Another sunny day in Prerow. After breakfast we started making templates for measurings and description of the timbers under water. One of the templates were to fill in the curvature of the frames, this should be done using the invention known as UMA (Underwater Measuring Aparatus), as shown on the picture.

The plan for the Telephone receiver wreck was to draw a sketch of the wreck from above, using the measurings of the frames we had already filled in.
The first two divers down were sketching, using UMA and taking pictures of the wreck. The apparatus seems to work as planned, but it seems to be better to be two people to operate it.
During the second dive the wind picked up and the divers had problems getting back into the boat, so the group on board decided to cancel the last dive of the day.
Even thought we only got in two days we had had two productive dives.

Jens spoke to a very talkative local today, that remebered swimming by the wreck in the 1930s, so now we know that it has been there longer than that…

On the camp we started taking our clinker piece apart, taking pictures and filling in forms, that work will be continued the coming days.

Liv Gardsjord Lofthus

Fieldschool Day 10

Jens prepares Martin for his dive

We had a very productive day today. The outline of our underwater wreck (FPL 17) was completed by Marja and Bente. They set up a measuring tape along the port side base line. Then completed the outline of the port side.  Thijs took sided and moulded measurements of some frames. He also took some width and thickness measurements of planks.The fastening details of these planks and frames indicate that the boat is late 19^th century early 20^th century. During this dive martin took photographs of the entire ship. Many of the photographs were from the surface so it might be possible to put a photo mosaic together. It was not a great day for photographs however as there was a lot of sediment in the water. Jens and Christian took the plan back down, for the third dive, so that some of the internal features could be added. They put  a baseline, longitudinally, through the centre of the boat, parallel to the other two baselines.  With this they were able to measure in the keelson and the mast. I should say at this point that the wreck is upside-down on seafloor, so the keelson is sitting on top of the base of the mast. There is 55cm of mast coming out from the seafloor.  Jens and Christian also took two measurements going across the wreck to ensure the previous measurements were correct. Much to everybody’s  relief, they were.

Work continued on the “4 am” wreck (FPL77), with everybody on shore lending a hand. Up to this point each layer of planking has been removed chronologically. After all visible timbers were labelled, the flush planking was removed. Following the completion of a scale drawing the filler planks were removed.  The filler planks, or chocks, helped the flush planks to sit securely on the clinker planks. Today Della, Bente and Liv completed a 1:10 plan of the clinker planks, attached to the frames. Martin, Andrew, Christian, Liv, Jens, Kostas and I completed timber sheets for the filler planks. Andrew and Marja completed 1:10 drawings of two filler planks. Christian completed two scale drawings and a measured sketch of the filler planks. We also began timber sheets for the clinker planks in preparation for their removal tomorrow.

Sarah Fawsitt

Fieldschool Day 9

Recording the '4 a.m. wreck'.

Mike-Alpha-Papa Dive Ops…

I woke up this morning and I thought it would be a rainy day, but it turned out to be quite nice. It cleared up and it became a beautiful day, full of motivation and optimistic thoughts. We started so early, but a few minor things seemed to keep things behind… It didn’t happen…

First up for diving were Martin and Andrew. They carried out measurements of the wreck site and some checking on the outline drawing of the ship. Next to dive were Marja and myself. We went down to the starboard side of the wreck and tagged three additional planks and timbers that had been missed on previous tagging. When that was done, we started drawing the port side of the bow section. That was not easy… We had to try out different ways of doing that, but who dares wins. The last dive was carried out by Sarah and Della. They measured over half of the port side.

In the meantime back in the campsite…

Details finished on the second layer of the FPL wreck, we like to call it ‘4 a.m. wreck’, this is how it will remain among ourselves. Dumpy levels were taken to record its profile. Jens Auer made a description of the wreck. Jens, Bente Grundvad, Christian Thomsen and Andrew Stanek started recording the filling pieces.

A hard day’s work came to its end, but a big smile appeared on our faces.

By Kostas Alexiou

Fieldschool Day 8

Cate and Christian heading for the boat, for the first dive of the day.

The sun has left us, instead of waking up to a blue sky, it was instead clouded and rain. As Theijs so nicely put it; the difference between land archaeology and maritime archaeology is that maritime archaeologist work no matter the weather (With a slight moderation when it comes to wind of course=0), so the rain did not in any way slow down our progress or our mood for that matter…. Who needs the sun….

The site plan for the Telephone receiver wreck (Fpl 17) is coming along. After putting up additional baselines to improve the accuracy, the drawing of the frames started. Since we have a well preserved rising ship, we decided to draw as if the wreck was flushed with the ocean floor in order to get a comprehensible plan without to much clutter. This basically leaves the frames looking like small squares and makes it a lot quicker to draw. It was also attempted to do some cleaning of the site by removing a tree trunk. This turned out to be much more work then expected and in the end the tree trunk won and is still standing in the stern part of our ship in the writing moment.

Even though we have been diving the wreck for a week now, new pieces still pop up from under sand. Today a large piece of timber was discovered on the outside of the outline of the ship on the starboard side. It is still not clear which part of the wreck this could be.

Back in the camp work continues on 4 am wreck (Fpl 77). The recording of the two planks that have come off are almost finished and the overview drawing continues.

Marja-Liisa P. Grue