SS City of Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco’s Deadliest Shipwreck Found Again

Recently, History.com featured an article titled “Found: San Francisco’s Deadliest Shipwreck.” They reported that the wreck of the 345-foot Pacific Mail Line passenger steamer SS City of Rio de Janeiro had been found by NOAA researchers using high-definition sonar in 287 feet … Continue reading

LaSalle’s Freeze-Dried Shipwreck La Belle on the Move

Two years ago we posted about how a team of scientists at the Texas A&M University Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation were using freeze-drying to preserve large sections of French explorer’s Robert LaSalle’s flagship, La Belle, which sank in Matagorda Bay in … Continue reading

Update: A Shipwrecked Beer Reborn — Åland Brewery Recreates 170-year-old beer

In 2010, we posted about a shipwreck in the Baltic, off the Åland Islands of Sweden, in which 30 bottles of champagne and 5 bottles of beer were found intact in the wreckage.  In 2011, two bottles of the champagne were … Continue reading

Superstorm Sandy Reveals Shipwrecks and Shuts Down the Statue of Liberty

When Superstorm Sandy came ashore roughly two weeks ago, she uncovered at least two shipwrecks.  On Fire Island, New York, the storm washed away dunes east of Davis Park revealing the remains of a wooden ship believed to be a post-Civil War cargo … Continue reading

DNA Testing and the Mystery of the 18th Century Shipwrecked Bone-Setter

A fascinating story from Wales. Sometime between 1743 and 1745, a smuggler from  Llanfairynghornwy on  the isle of Anglesey, rescued two boys, in stormy seas in the middle of the night – the only survivors of an apparent shipwreck. Both boys had … Continue reading

On the Trail of the Pirate Blackbeard and the Queen Anne’s Revenge

The wreck of the pirate Blackbeard‘s Queen Anne’s Revenge, which sank in 1718, was believed to be discovered in 1996.   After 15 years of excavation, the State of North Carolina and the North Carolina Maritime Museum announced today that they had confirmed that … Continue reading

The World’s Oldest Champagne Sells at Auction

Last  July we posted about divers finding intact bottles of champagne, believed to date from between 1782 and 1788, in the hold of a shipwreck on the Baltic seabed.   In November, a bottle of the “world’s oldest champagne” was opened and tasted by … Continue reading

Tragedy on Christmas Island – Asylum Seekers Die in Shipwreck

A horrific story from Australia’s Christmas Island where a boat carrying asylum-seekers believed to be from Iraq and Iran broke up in rough after striking rocks offshore.  Forty two people were been rescued and twenty seven have been confirmed dead, though that … Continue reading