The province’s archaeology department is hoping to identify a shipwreck recently uncovered by erosion near Cape Ray.
A huge intact portion of the hull of a wooden sailing ship suddenly showed up on the beach at Cheesman’s Cove.
Provincial Archaeologist Jamie Brake says teams will be getting out to the wreck in the coming days, but there is a complicating factor.
Photo Credit: Gordon Blackmore and Vanessa Hodder
He says the wreck is fully underwater except at lowest tide, so they only have around an hour a day to survey it. That hour is currently while the sun is down, meaning they have to wait for the tide to correspond with daylight hours before they can get work done.
Brake says the plan when they arrive is to use a drone to get high quality aerial images, collect wood samples from the wreck, and comb the beach for any artifacts.
He says the species and age of the wood may be able to tell them where the ship came from and how old it is. Then they can compare that to archival records to try to identify the specific ship.
Photo Credit: Gordon Blackmore and Vanessa Hodder
