Fortunes are changed by shipwrecks. In wartime, a shipwreck could mark an irrevocable shift in the course of history, the upward or downward turn of whole nations. If French fleets had won control of Lake George during the French and Indian War of 1758, French might have been our mother tongue instead of English. Some market analysts associate the stock market panic of 1857 with one of America's worst civil disasters: the sinking of the S.S. Central America. The steamer, carrying large quantities of gold to New York during the California gold rush, capsized in a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina.
Shipwrecks are not just obscure graveyards. "We can find out a lot about society by looking at shipwrecks," said Maine/New Hampshire Sea Grant researcher Warren Riess, an archaeologist at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center. "Until this century, the ship was the most technically advanced thing that a maritime society would create. We look at ships as a reflection of a society's technical and economic ability. They tell us what was happening."
Not much was known about shipwrecks until very recently, making a ship's disappearance all the more mysterious. Scant records fueled legends about ships' precious cargo, inspiring searches for sunken vessels by historians, archaeologists, and treasure hunters alike. With the invention of technologies like scuba gear, submersible vehicles, and remote sensing, many shipwrecks once considered lost can now be located. Their recovery adds to our existing wealth, but also fuels the debate over ownership and potential exploitation of the resource.
Studies of historic shipwrecks in North America, from the 18th century slave ship Whydah to the Titanic, have prompted legislation for shipwreck protection within the past decade. Like fisheries and deep sea minerals, shipwrecks are a class of aquatic resource that may require careful management, said Porter Hoagland, research associate with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's (WHOI) Marine Policy Center.
Various user groups - archaeologists, historians, commercial salvagers, and recreational divers - vie for shipwreck access, control, and ownership, and the law attempts to accomodate their interests. Exercising the Sovereign Prerogative, the U.S. Congress passed the Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987. The law transferred ownership of abandoned shipwrecks - those shipwrecks without a legal owner - in state waters from the federal government to the states. Under this legislation, all shipwrecks found in submerged lands - usually within three nautical miles offshore - are the property of the states. Access to and recovery of other shipwrecks within U.S. waters (except those owned by the military) outside of state territorial limits are still governed by the federal district courts sitting in admiralty. These laws still tend to favor treasure hunters who can show a beneficial market value from the sale of historic shipwrecks.
Shipwreck laws in the Northeast vary from states like Massachusetts, which permits commercial salvaging of shipwrecks, to states like Vermont, which prohibits it. Prior to the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, states had no recourse when historic shipwrecks like the Whydah, a 1717 English slave transport galley converted to a pirate ship by "Black Sam" Bellamy, were commercially salvaged off their coasts. Today, no one can displace, damage, remove, or destroy any underwater resources in Massachusetts without a permit, said Victor Mastone, director of the state Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources. Massachusetts has 40 shipwreck sites open to the public, and new language in the state law will allow creation of underwater shipwreck preserves, Mastone said. Like other parks or sanctuaries, a shipwreck preserve is a zoned area that permits recreational use but prohibits commercial salvaging.
"We try to bring all the parties, including the sport divers and preservationists, to the table to collectively make the best decision for the use of the resource," said Mastone, who is both an archaeologist and scuba diver. But since state laws still allow commercial salvaging of shipwrecks, the board is sometimes forced to "make bad archaeological decisions," he admits.
Preservationists argue that antiquated shipwreck laws are permitting the depletion of the resource. The question of how best to utilize and protect shipwrecks is coming under closer scrutiny as interest grows in shipwreck diving and research, historic artifacts, and maritime museums, Hoagland said. Recognizing the cultural value of shipwrecks, New York, Michigan, Florida, Vermont, and California have established underwater preserves. Sea Grant programs in the Northeast have supported archaeological surveys of their states' underwater maritime resources and have held conferences on shipwreck policy to explore resource management alternatives.
Tens of thousands of shipwrecks, ranging from Revolutionary War vessels to whaling ships to World War II submarines, lie buried in the Great Lakes or New England waters, according to historical records that archaeologists use to locate sites. Yet until recently, no states in the Northeast had done formal shipwreck assessments to determine precisely how many really existed and to develop a plan for their recovery, said Sea Grant researcher D.K. Abbass, anthropologist and director of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP).
Pressure on shipwreck sites has steadily increased since the 1950s, with the popularity of scuba diving and technologies like the side scan sonar, which sends out sound waves, enabling users to detect shipwrecks on or buried beneath the ocean floor. Recreational divers disturb these sites by taking "souvenirs," Abbass said. Commercial salvagers and even some amateur historians, untrained in proper recovery techniques, have also contributed to the destruction of shipwrecks, he added.
A simple rearrangement of artifacts on a shipwreck can alter the information learned about a culture and its trading patterns, archaeologists say. To an untrained eye, some artifacts would appear inconsequential. Riess mentioned, for example, that blueberries and potatoes preserved for hundreds of years beneath the ocean's silt looked like shriveled black balls until magnified beneath a microscope. These details add to our knowledge of what kinds of food were eaten on a ship that sailed 300 years ago.
"The problem about taking artifacts off a ship and putting them on the mantle is that you lose the context in which they were found and what they were associated with," Abbass said.
Archaeologists steer away from diving enthusiasts like Dan Berg, a Long Island resident with 2,000 shipwreck dives and 10 related books to his credit. While museums will not accept his finds, Berg still displays his personal collection of dishware, gun powder canisters, and other shipwreck artifacts in his home and at scuba conferences. Berg's investigation of shipwrecks in Long Island waters may provide the most complete accounting of shipwrecks in the region, but his research techniques are considered unethical by some archaeologists. Berg argues that shipwrecks will be lost to natural elements unless rescued by people like him. "All these wrecks are sinking in the sand," he said. "We want to save artifacts from these wrecks before the burial process happens."
Maritime archaeologists' purist approach to shipwreck recovery polarizes them from other groups using the resource, Hoagland said. He suggested that resource managers consider all possible options to determine whether a shipwreck should be salvaged, studied for its historic value, opened as an underwater preserve, or some combination of all three. The exorbitant costs (exceeding several million dollars in some cases) of identification, recovery, and preservation of a single shipwreck mean compromise is often inevitable. Federal courts now provide monetary incentives to commercial salvagers who work with archaeologists during the salvaging of historic shipwrecks. And recreational divers are more frequently teaming up with archaeologists to preserve shipwrecks.
A regional trend uniting divers and archaeologists may have been sparked with the discovery of the Land Tortoise Radeau, the oldest intact warship in North America, by a group of Lake George sport divers. Led by Joseph Zarzynski, a middle school American history teacher, the group of sport divers named itself Bateaux Below, Inc., after the French word bateaux, for boats. Bateaux Below's mission is to train divers in proper archaeological techniques, and to inventory shipwrecks in the lake for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Bateaux Below also hosts "Shipwreck Weekend," cosponsored by New York Sea Grant, to bring divers, historians, and archaeologists together each year for a conference on the latest shipwreck research and preservation efforts.
"There's a saying in diving: Take only photographs and leave only bubbles," said Bateaux Below's leader, "and that is the message we're trying to get out."
The Radeau, a British floating artillery platform from the French and Indian War, was found in Lake George during an advanced dive to 107 feet using side scan sonar, Zarzynski said. Since it was the only one of its kind ever discovered, its preservation became all the more critical, explained Abbass, who was called in to be project archaeologist for the Radeau. Working with state officials, Bateaux Below helped establish the Submerged Heritage Preserves Program, which paved the way for the opening of Lake George's first underwater preserves. Under controlled conditions, scuba divers are now able to tour around the Radeau and a fleet of seven other 1758 bateaux, which the British used to move troops and weapons.
Along Lake Ontario, similar underwater resource management education efforts are being organized by David White, New York Sea Grant Extension specialist, and diving enthusiast Philip Church, who directs the Oswego Maritime Foundation's Submerged Cultural Resource Program.
"Shipwrecks are in danger from two species: man, who wants to salvage the wrecks, and the zebra mussel, which has begun colonizing on them," said White.
While zebra mussels are an exotic nuisance species disrupting the Great Lakes ecosystem, their filter feeding activities have a positive effect on water clarity. Sport divers, who once could see only a few feet below the surface, can now see dozens of feet to the bottom. Interest in shipwreck diving has increased as a result. White has organized several marine archaeology workshops to train volunteer divers in proper shipwreck etiquette. (A recent Sea Grant workshop at the Niagara Falls Aquarium drew more than 120 diving enthusiasts.) Some of these divers have assisted the Oswego Maritime Foundation in the documentation of more than 160 shipwrecks in the lake.
The shipwreck preservation efforts in New York inspired Abbass to start RIMAP in 1992 with start-up funds from Rhode Island Sea Grant. In four years, RIMAP has trained more than 100 volunteer sport divers to survey Rhode Island's underwater resources to create a database of all the shipwrecks they discover. At Brenton Cove in Newport Harbor, RIMAP has identified a boat graveyard with four potentially historic vessels thought to be the slave ship Gem, the British brig Bessie Rogers, the coal barge Condor, and the rumrunner Viola. Brenton Cove could open as Rhode Island's first shipwreck preserve if efforts by RIMAP and state officials are successful, said Charlotte Taylor, Rhode Island's state underwater archaeology specialist.
Other states in the Northeast still lag behind New York and Rhode Island in their efforts to protect their underwater maritime resources. More than 7,000 ships lost due to faulty navigation, bad weather, or battle are estimated to lie off the coast of Maine and New Hampshire, yet no formal survey has been conducted, said Riess. Best known for his excavation of an 18th century merchant ship found around New York City's South Street Seaport, Riess started a major project to locate the Penobscot Expedition. This large American Revolutionary War fleet, which consisted of more than 40 ships, was attacked by the British on the Penobscot River along the coast of Maine in 1779.
Riess is now working on a Sea Grant proposal with Abbass to train volunteer sport divers to assist with shipwreck surveys throughout the region. In Connecticut, where no specific legislation is in place to protect underwater resources, a regional program of this nature would be beneficial, said Nicholas Bellantoni, Connecticut's state archaeologist.
When shipwrecks of historic importance, like the RMS Titanic, are discovered, the debate over ownership flares up, dramatizing the global interest in shipwrecks. The famous British luxury liner, which sank 800 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1912, was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard, a WHOI geologist. Ballard proclaimed the Titanic a memorial to those who perished in the sinking. The RMS Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986 was enacted, but it was meant only to discourage - not prohibit - salvage by U.S. citizens. Since then, the French government and a U.S. salvaging company have salvaged the Titanic, and artifacts from jewelry to coal have been auctioned off.
The ethical questions associated with the discovery and commercial salvaging of the Titanic prompted Ballard and other researchers at WHOI's Marine Policy Center to organize shipwreck management summits during 1992 and 1993, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Sea Grant College Program. The meetings centered on the ethical question of whether scientists who develop deep ocean recovery technologies for use in oil and gas development, or for recovery of wrecked cargo - including black boxes lost in airplane crashes - should be held responsible for the potential misuse of this technology.
"Similar to the atom bomb, but clearly not of the same import," Hoagland said, "deep ocean technology has the potential to be used to destroy the publicly valued attributes of shipwrecks."
Ocean engineers are not legally liable for the way their inventions are used, nor did scientists at the WHOI meetings believe they should be. Instead, they discussed the moral dilemma ocean engineers confront with their powerful inventions: How can they possibly anticipate all the ways the technology might be used? Should standards be created restricting certain technological applications? What constitutes proper behavior? Some meeting participants felt engineers should have the responsibility to consult with archaeologists and historians about how to use the technology.
Despite recent strides in state shipwreck management, the debate over ownership and exploitation of the resource is as heated as ever. Last year, looters tried to steal two cannon port lids off the Radeau, calling into question whether the underwater preserve was worth keeping open.
"To me it's a major crime," said Riess, who thinks rare ships like the Radeau should be off limits to the public. "It's like someone breaking into the state museum."
Similar to Yosemite or streams full of salmon, some shipwrecks have a 'nonmarket value,' which can be measured against the value of commercial goods, such as gold. Those individuals who consider only the market value derived from the commercial salvage of shipwrecks ignore nonmarket attributes that could generate greater public gains, Hoagland said.
"But the conflict between science and profit continues to hang like an albatross around the shoulders of all parties involved with this resource," said Gregg Stemm, a founder and former director of Seahawk Deep Ocean Technology. Stemm argues in the March/April 1996 issue of Ocean News and Technology for an approach called "nautical commercial archaeology" that recognizes the right for shipwreck salvagers to make a profit while adhering to strict scientific guidelines.
In contrast to diving enthusiasts and commercial salvagers like Berg and Stemm, archaeologists like Riess continue to believe shipwrecks are better left untouched. Even if the public never visits an historic shipwreck site, or even if the ship is kept in a museum or dormant under the silt for later study of its data and artifacts, everyone benefits from keeping it in the public domain, Riess said.
Julie Zeidner is Communicator for New York Sea Grant.
Related sites:
Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project
Wisconsin's Lake Superior Shipwrecks
Minnesota's Historic Shipwrecks
USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
