La Belle Shipwreck

[Ed Rant]

For those of you interested in underwater archeology and historic ships in general, there is an interesting set of articles on PBS's website that is a companion piece to last night's broadcast of the recovery of La Salle's ship "La Belle" entitled "Voyage of Doom". She sank in 1686 off the Texas coast in Matagorda Bay not far from my old sailing grounds of Port Aransas and represents the oldest discovered French shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere.



cd27@txdirect.net

[Ed Haley]

The entire escavation of LaSalle's ship "La Belle" was the subject of a PBS Special (NOVA) aired last night (Wednesday). The method of escavation was very interesting. Essentially, the escavators erected a double wall around the site, filled the outer chamber between the walls with 22,000 tons of sand and then drained the inner chamber of water. They were then able to pry the ship and contents from the bay off the coast of Texas as if they were on land. Incredible artifacts were cleaned and placed in a museum for public view. Great history.
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All the time I watched the special I was amazed at the small size of the ship (51 feet). It was hardly bigger than some of the sailing vessels in my marina.



eghaley@twcny.rr.com