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Sunday, August 24, 2008

Shipwreck from 1837 discovered off Kure Atoll

The remains of a sunken British whaling ship lost for 171 years have been found off Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
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A team of maritime archaeologists discovered the shipwreck Wednesday during an exploratory dive, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration news release.

Using a hand-drawn map, a hand-held GPS, historical charts and notes, the archaeologists located the spot where the Gledstanes was thought to have sunk in 1837.

"After preliminary surface surveys, one dive and there it was," wrote Dee O'Regan of the National Maritime Historical Society in the team's daily mission blog.

Divers came upon a pile of iron ballast and some chain, which led them to a part of the reef where more pieces of the ship were found.

The artifacts — which include four massive anchors, cannons and cannonballs — are believed to belong to the Gledstanes, a British whaler lost to extremely rough seas...[Honolulu Advertiser.com]

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