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Close Topic OptionsExplorers Find 1780 British Warship In Lake Ontari
- Politics, Business, Civil, History - Posted: 14th Jun, 2008 - 9:27pm
Posts: 3 - Views: 860
Explorers Find 1780 British Warship In Lake Ontari
| QUOTE |
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday. Shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the HMS Ontario, which was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780. The 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes, Scoville and Kennard said. The Ontario went down on Oct. 31, 1780, with a garrison of 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, mostly Canadians, and possibly about 30 American war prisoners. After the ship disappeared, the British conducted a sweeping search but tried to keep the sinking secret from Gen. George Washington's troops because of the blow to the British defenses. Kennard, an electrical engineer who has been diving for nearly 40 years and has found more than 200 wrecks in the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, the Finger Lakes and in the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, began searching for the Ontario 35 years ago but quit after several frustrating and fruitless years. Six years ago, he teamed up with Scoville, a diver who developed the remote-controlled submersible with students from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Since then, the pair have found seven ships in the lake. A rare feature that helped identify the ship: the two crow's nests on each mast. Another was the decoratively carved scroll bow stem. The explorers also found two cannons, two anchors and the ship's bell. The clincher was the quarter galleries on either side of the stern - a kind of balcony with windows typically placed on the sides of the stern-castle, a high, tower-like structure at the back of a ship that housed the officers' quarters. There are an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, including about 500 on Lake Ontario. |
Full story: https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080614/ap_on_sc/shipwreck_found
I am fascinated by things like this--especially when they are so well preserved. I could not believe that there are an estimated 4,700 shipwrecks within the Great Lakes! The details that they were able to share about the ship is also amazing!
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I do too! You know the funny thing is in high school I couldn't of cared less about history but since I have become interested in Genealogy it seems anything that is found and is of another time fascinates me. I can picture it with real people which I could not of before.
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TOPIC: Explorers Find 1780 British Warship In Lake Ontari