2004 Diving Season - Page 2 of 4

1st August

Another beautiful day. Diving began during the morning easterly tide run continuing to uncover timber after timber in the eastern section of our 16m long trench. At present the type and amount of timber is not easy to interpret, there is only one easily identifiable timber, a large wooden knee and planks which formed parts of cabins, bevelled edged partitioning. The rest appear to be a mixture of planks together with logs. A number of the planks were tagged this morning. The push is to try and take the rest of the area down to the same depth as the slot with the stem timber from 2003. Peter Magowan has found another three in-situ frame like elements at ninety degrees to the stem, also running west parallel to the other six, making nine frames in total. This is still the most exciting area. He has just brought up the sole of a Tudor shoe from just above the structure. Our interpretation at present is that these represent frames or cant frames broken away from the stem and falling away to the west. We are beginning to uncover inner planking which cover these longitudinally. The sizes of the frames and the spacing are all in keeping with the rest of the hull.

Stephen Foote, a professional film cameraman who worked with us between '79 and '82, joined us today. He will work with us whenever he can to get as much surface footage as possible about the different operations.

Many more timbers are being uncovered in the north east and south east sectors, visible objects not yet recovered include rigging elements. We may recover some of these tomorrow. A whale has just been seen between us and the Isle of Wight, we have dispatched our small ship’s tender with an intrepid team to go and photograph it.

2nd August

Diving continued today taking all the trenches down to the same level. It is nearly the top of the Spring Tides, with 1.6 knot tides during the hour after high water, consequently visibility is low and filming is not worthwhile. Attention to the tides now is more vital than ever, and moving fragile objects is restricted to slack water periods. Underwater in the strong tides it feels as though we are flying at times!!!

We are finding a mixture of objects associated with the timbers, the most exciting of which is a gunner’s tool - a copper alloy priming wire. These were used to ‘prick’ the cartridges containing gunpowder and clean the vents to allow the faster burning priming powder to ignite the main charge. We do not have very many of these in the collection, this is the fifth. This was found at the northern edge of the large stem timber, T49. Today the sandbags and membrane protecting this timber over the winter were partially removed so that we can see how the ten frames which lie just west of it are associated.

A pulley block found in the north-east sector of the grid has just been placed in a basket to be lifted later tonight. Several more large planks have been noted on the far east side of the trench together with corroding iron (possibly shot) and more small lead shot containing iron dice used with the swivel guns (the bases). These are probably just on the eastern edge of previous excavations. We are noting this edge by the change in sediments and a marked change in objects - with modern items and excavation debris (the odd fin, knife, scaffold pole, numbered tag and trowel) within looser deposits and none within the more compact sediments to the north and east. It is now just after 20.00 and diving is scheduled to continue until 22.00.

3rd August

We are continuing to excavate all four areas within the 16 x 4 metre grid. Keeping the area level is difficult, as there are many more timbers in the eastern section at present and these need time to be investigated. An important current task is to tag everything so we can lift all loose timbers and gain access to the more coherent structure that may lie beneath. Positions are fixed as soon as anything is exposed using the Sonardyne ultra-short base line positioning system with diver-mounted beacons. Final positions are obtained using the Sonardyne Fusion fixed by the acoustic pole “Mr Sticky” prior to lifting out of the trench and placing in the cargo basket for lifting. All numbers placed on timbers are relayed to the diving supervisor over the comms from the diver, and appended to the ‘live’ site plan.

Two computer monitors enable both the project surveyor and the diving supervisor to watch the positions of the divers as they move around the site. This is done by relating their actual positions as currently logged over a backdrop of the topography of the site, the grid, the bell and other key features. In bad visibility this helps with directing the divers from the bell onto the desired portion of the site.

We are getting to the stage now when the large cargo basket is nearly full enough to lift and this is planned for early tomorrow. There are several large portions of concretion, indicating either large iron objects or conglomerates of smaller iron objects together. These are partially obscured by timbers and we all have our own ideas of what each might contain... Perhaps tomorrow will reveal the true nature of one of these. Iron objects we would expect to find in this area include wrought iron guns such as swivel guns and possibly larger wrought iron guns on wooden sledges. A stone shot for one of these (a fowler) was recovered last night, and two smaller composite shot of lead and iron for swivel guns have already been recovered.

4th August

Another beautiful day, unfortunately not paralleled by conditions underwater. The spring tides have churned up the seabed and filled all the areas within the grid with weed. This has also stuck to the framework of the grid, making it quite dark inside. The visibility is poor.

The amount of timber we are uncovering around the stem timber continues to be impressive in both size of timbers, condition and number. This timber found in 2003 and the associated elements uncovered this year to the west take up much of the western portion of our 16 x 4 metre gridded area. We have cut a straight face in line with the northern portion of our grid, and can demonstrate the layers downwards and backwards in time from modern to Tudor and even the exposed and ‘scoured’ areas within the Tudor sediments.

The mass of timbers to the north- east still continue to emerge from the gloom. These include moulded blinds, possibly for the upper deck in the bow castle and partitioning intriguingly cut to fit around structural elements which are either no longer present or which haven’t been recovered yet. Much of today was spent in putting the surveyed timber from the north east sector into the large cargo basket. This resulted in a large number of timbers, which are now soaking in a ‘pond’ we have created on deck. It is nearly 20.00, the last divers are half way into their two hour dive and are hooking up the full (again) cargo basket for lifting. We are measuring, photographing and tracing these timbers before wrapping them for transportation ashore. Tomorrow we are expecting a film crew from BBC Timewatch and four representatives from one of our sponsors, Sonardyne International.

5th August

Today was extremely busy. Representatives from Sonardyne came to look at how we are managing their two systems, and the BBC filmed some footage for their forthcoming ‘Timewatch’ programme. The ship was extremely full.
Excavation concentrated on our large stem timber, still exposing associated structure both east and west of it. This is now a considerable area.

The recovery of timbers has slowed down as we have recovered most of those timbers which were loose, and we are still processing the remains of the two large loads brought up yesterday. Two dives today were taken up with video recording, one of the sediments showing the range from modern layers down to the undisturbed Tudor levels containing the stem timber, and one (currently being undertaken) recording the large stem timber and associated frames.

We have some excellent finds within the 18th and 19th century layers, including one complete ceramic bottle inscribed ‘ LIDBETTERS, St Mary’s Street, PORTSMOUTH’. We are intrigued as to what this might have contained, and would like to know more about this Company, and whether they are still in existence.

We are nearly half way through our diving period now and are considering whether to move the grid, or merely add trenches off the grid to explore the extent of known timbers. Our trenches are so deep in places that our diving time has had to be shortened to accommodate this increased depth.

We are trying to prioritise a list of anomalies to investigate using the information gained in surveys by Andrews last year and Wessex Archaeology.

One extremely eroded fragment of a hub from a spoked wheel for one of the large wrought iron guns was recovered today. Spare wheels were found on the orlop deck (the first deck above the hold, mostly for storage) in the bow in the area just south of the portion of the ship where the timbers began to show erosion and which was subsequently cut off.

 

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