Inside Angra Bay, Azores islands, Portugal, 2 wrecks have been located in an area where a breakwater is going to be built. The construction is now stopped and, since the 1st of April, a team has been conducting rescue archaeology on both of them. Wrecks have been named Angra C and Angra D.
 

Contacts:
Paulo Monteiro
Centro de Arqueologia Subaquatica dos Açores
Porto de Pipas
9700 Angra do Heroismo
Azores - Portugal

Email: arqueologiasub@mail.telepac.pt
Site:  Centro de Arqueologia Subaquática dos Açores
 
 

Fragment of ceramic, recovered from Angra D
 

                                        Angra C wreck

    Angra C is a segment of a ship's hull, measuring 15 meters in length and 6,5 meters wide, maximum, mostly of European white oak. It is heavily treenailed, (circa 1300 trunnels observed at ceiling plank level) and has iron bolts through floors and keel. At the NE end, the ship narrows down to what might be the sternpost. There, in an extension of 5,5 meters long to 75 cm wide, there's a rising wood, notched to receive the floors. Below this deadwood, part of the keel is missing.
 Tug boat and  the barge with the crane that suspended a high power dredge that
excavated a 2 meter deep trench around Angra C wreck. On the foreground, the now stopped
breakwater and, in the water, the buoys that define the archaeological field - Photo Paulo Monteiro
 Overview of Angra C - photo by Francisco Alves
 
    Keel survives in a length of 10,5 meters, ending at both ends in a three planned scarf. Obviously, the violence of the grounding broke the keel at the weakest points, the scarfs. Part of the keelson - which is notched to fit in the floors - is pinned bellow the wreck.

    Frame dimensions are typically 35 cm sided, by 25 molded. Most of the floors have a central limber hole, resting above the deadwood or above the keel, and the majority of them has been notched in order for the keelson to fit over them. Floors are spaced at circa 35 cm.
 

Photography on Angra C - Photo by Francisco Alves
    Some of the floor timbers are connected to the first futtocks by dovetail joints. Limber boards are present as well as a hole carved in between two ceiling planks, believed to be where the pump well was inserted.
 
 Photomosaic of Angra C - Peter Waddell
 
    Ceiling planks ends are scarfed with flat, horizontal scarfs rather than butt joints. The hull has a double row of outboard planks, each 8 cm thick. No signs of sheeting were discovered although lead was used in one instance to make repairment  . The bottom of the ship is rather flat, rising only to an angle of circa 25º at the floor-1st futtock joint.     Artifacts raised include a copper cauldron, an octagonal piece of wood found in between the frames believed to be a base for another pump well, several dozens fragments of ceramic, bones and other organic material (fruit pits, seeds, cereal, straw, leaves) and a dozen boots and shoe leather soles.
 
    After the registry was done, the ship was dismantled, in an operation coordinated by Peter Waddell, from Parks Canada. All ceiling planks, frames and outboard planks, as well as the keel and the rising wood have been recovered and are in the process of being reburied at another location, so as to allow the construction of the breakwater. Later on, all pieces will be recovered and registration will take place, on land.

Mario Baeta, dismantling the floors of Angra C - photo Paulo Monteiro
Archaeologists Erik Phaneuf, Federica Callegari and Catarina Garcia trace the outside planking details
Photo by Paulo Monteiro
 

    Angra D measures 29 meters in length and has a maximum beam of 6.10 meters. Surviving timbers include keelson, 9 floor riders, bow knees, and the sternpost assembly, as well as the rudder remains. The wreck was very heavily ballasted and several tons of rocks were removed.
 
  Towards the tail section - photo by Paulo Monteiro
 
    The wreck is listing to starboard, where 4,5 meters of hull has survived, with only 2,5 meters of the portside breadth surviving at the mast step.
 
Preliminary sketch of Angra D - drawing by Paulo Monteiro

    Articulated remains of the stern measure 7,5 meters long to 4,5 meters high on the sternpost. No skeg is apparent. Sixteen frames were recorded in the tail section, as well as several cant frames, deadwood and outboard planking.

Detail of the floor riders

    The stern section, which is resting at an angle of 20º, is massively sheathed in lead, so much that you cant actually see any timbers. Three iron gudgeons are in situ, while some planks resting besides the sternpost lead us to believe that they form part of the rudder. Some iron concretions (pintles?), on those planks, support that theory.

Diver Rui Teixeira inspects the sternpost of Angra D - Photo Peter Waddell

No treenails are apparent, and construction relies heavily on iron nailing. What appears to be dovetail scarfs were noticed, as well as the master frame, slightly abeam to the mast step, although the eroded condition of the 1st futtocks and the presence of complete ceiling planking and floor riders make it difficult to examine those details.

Detail of rider over stringer - Photo by Paulo  Monteiro

    The keelson is notched to fit over the floors and it measures (right behind the mast step) 28 cm sided and 32 cm molded (total height where it is not notched) and it features at least two keyed hook scarfs.

 
Keelson scarf - Photo by Paulo Monteiro

    The keelson then enlarges to 46 cm sided, in order to form the mast step, which has a trunnel hole at the center of the cavity and, to the bow area, two chocks, one on top of the other, inside the mast step. There are two pump wells, one in each side of the keelson, at the stern extremity of the mast step.

Mast step - Photo by Paulo Monteiro
 
Mast step - drawing by Joao Vaz

   Surviving vertical structure includes a pump well, fitted around the main mast step, at least two bulkheads (or shot locker?), several stanchions in situ, and three berthing deck beams, on the starboard side of the wreck. The hull is heavily sheathed in lead strips, some of which show weave impression from textile cloth, that might have been pressed between the lead and the hull.
 
     The floor riders average 40 cm molded by 25 in sided thickness, and are, in general, spaced apart 1.5 meters. There are at least 3 footwales, also embraced by the floor riders, and two of them unite with the keelson, at the bow section. Outboard planking averages 5 to 8 cm thick Floor frames, amidships, have a sided thickness of 20 cm.

                  Stanchion - Photo by Paulo Monteiro
 
    Artifacts recovered up to now include a stone cannon ball, a brass ring bolt, turtle shell(?), lead shot (circa 2 cm in diameter), several rims and shreds of olive jars (glazed on the inside and unglazed – one of the rims had the “IHS” sign from the Jesuits Society, very much like the one found at the Atocha), rope, two staved buckets, one with the rope handle still attached, several wicker baskets (with the remains of fish bones), animal bones, cockroach wings, raisins, coconut shell, almonds, several barrel staves and bottoms, a two block pulley, fishing weights, several wodden powder flasks, a copper decanter?, a religious image carved in resin, white and blue porcelain shreds and mercury (of which about 2 cm3 have been recovered).
Decks beam, on the starboard side of the hull - Photo by Paulo Monteiro

 One of the two buckets recovered so far. This one has been found with the rope handle still in situ
Photo by Miguel Aleluia
 

Archaeological Team

From Portugal:

    Francisco Alves
    Catarina Garcia
    Paulo Monteiro
    Rui Teixeira
    Hugo Brito
    Joao Vaz
    Miguel Correia
    Madalena Correia
    Miguel Aleluia
    Paulo Rodrigues

From Catalunya

    David Heredia
    Paco Romero
    Xavi Aguelo

From France

    Joao Alves

From Canada

    Erik Phaneuf

From Italy

    Federica Callegari

Consultants

Peter Waddel - Parks Canada
Erik Rieth - CNRS
 
 

  To the Azorean Center for Underwater Archaeology  1