25th September
The dive support vessel ‘Terschelling’ arrived on site bringing brilliant sunshine and fine conditions on Saturday 24th September, ready to begin the 22 day diving programme. The culmination of this will be the raising of the 10m long stem timber of the Mary Rose, exposed during two seasons of work onsite funded by the MoD in 2003 and 2004. A five metre long wrought iron anchor, associated with the stem timber, will also be raised. Following exploration beneath these features, the area will be covered with a membrane, weighted with sandbags and covered by 100 tons of sand to protect any remains for future generations.
The first task was to deploy the 10 x 2 metre steel platform built to support the stem during the lift to the surface. This was lowered to the seabed north of the site, onto flat seabed.
On Sunday the system to operate the airlifts used to remove backfill and modern sediments overlying the archaeological remains was installed, and we began to remove the protective coverings placed over the stem and anchor at the end of the 2004 dive. As we complete diving tonight (22.30), this has been achieved, and the archaeological excavation to enlarge the trench around the stem to provide access for the raising has begun in earnest. The stem is much finer at its top end and was not exposed to any depth during 2004. It is important to fully expose this as soon as possible in order to ascertain any possible points of weakness and support it accordingly.
Alex Hildred and the excavation team.
28th September
Work during the westerly tides continued on the north end of the stem trench where the stem is narrowest and closest to the surface, concentrating on looking for the area of contact with the end of the anchor. As this is being written, I can hear Peter Ewens over the diver communications stating that in enlarging the stem trench at the north he has found one of the anchor flukes at an area deeper than the stem. Hurrah, at least we now know one is there!
On the easterly tides the rest of the anchor has been uncovered by removing the remaining sandbags and membrane material and the entire shank is now exposed over its upper face. We are aiming to excavate a rectangular trench between the anchor and the stem in order to try and understand the orientation of the anchor relative to the stem and the port side frames found in 2004. Two large anchors were recovered from beneath the bow in 1982 on the starboard side, and a third anchor on the starboard side at the bow is not expected. It is therefore possible that this is a port side bow anchor, fallen towards the starboard side. This scenario could account for all the degraded and collapsed structure we found overlying and around the anchor in 2004. Our only chance at understanding where it may have originated is by recording its orientation relative to the exposed structure as much as we can before removing it.
The wind is increasing and the vessel is beginning to roll. So far we have been lucky with the weather for this time of year. It is 8pm and we have one more pair of divers due to dive tonight, two more hours work. Perhaps the second fluke will be found tonight.
Alex Hildred and everyone onboard Terschelling.
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