Odyssey Explorer
June 12-July 11, 2004
Prior to departure, the Odyssey Explorer made a visit to the shipyard to take care of some preparatory items needed for our upcoming Sussex project, and required work to maintain our Lloyd's certification. We departed Jacksonville on the 11th of June, headed to a rendezvous with the RV Odyssey to transfer Ernie Tapanes and recently collected search data to the Explorer. We then proceeded to three different side-scan sonar targets which the RV Odyssey had located and investigated them with the ZEUS ROV.
We made another port stop to Jacksonville on the 18th to drop off Ernie and to pick up more remaining parts and do a scheduled change-out of some of our crew. We departed Jacksonville late on the 19th and headed to the Republic site. Our primary goals on this trip were to test some of the equipment which will be required for the Sussex program, and to begin the exploration of the bow area of the Republic.
We first had to carry down and place all our navigation transponders, which had been pulled to put in new batteries and service during the shipyard period. With this successfully done, we dedicated two ROV dives to collecting low-altitude high-resolution imagery to be assembled into a detailed mosaic image of the bow prior to disturbance. We proceeded then to close and secure two of the four-plexes which had been filled earlier with artifacts for recovery. We also chased down several errant coins which had escaped us earlier in the year when they fell into cracks or under timbers. In total, we did 6 four-plex launches and 7 recoveries.
Nearly 4,000 artifacts were recovered, tagged, logged, measured, and stabilized, representing the full gamut of 1865 life, from shoes to domino sets, chess pieces, combs, toothbrushes, plates and cups, utensils, food preserves, beverages, figurines, tools, ink wells and ink, pens, writing slates, cooking and serving bowls, and many, many more items.
We also used the opportunity during the artifact recovery to improve our procedures and data-logging tools in preparation for the stringent archaeological requirements we will be following on the Sussex program. This included changes made to the navigation and data-logger programs to more precisely track the location of new discoveries on the bottom.
Odyssey Explorer
July 18-July 25, 2004
The ongoing job of precisely moving through the debris on the bow of the Republic continued. Knowing that the next piece of scrap wood we picked up might be covering something very exciting is what drives us. We found an incredible variety of items in the bow area. We were fortunate to have both our archaeologists out here together, and it was exciting to see these artifacts through their eyes. Every time we brought up another four-plex full of artifacts, they worked continuously to log them in, measure, evaluate, photograph, and stabilize them. This whole process takes the archaeologists and curator assistants about 36 hours for each four-plex. And as soon as they finished one four-plex load, we brought up another one for them. We added quite a few new bottle types to our collection. Many of the bottles still contained contents from 140 years ago;. these we sealed so they wouldn't spoil.
Over the last couple of weeks we made a major effort to install a new High Definition (HD) camera on our ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle), and the pictures it has provided are spectacular. We moved it to various locations within the vehicle's frame to see the wreck from different perspectives and have been collecting imagery which will go into our exhibits, giving the viewer a real feel for what we see out here. The HD footage also provides some interesting media and broadcast opportunities.
One interesting problem we had this week was that the surface temperature of the water was so warm that it was a challenge to cool the ship and thrusters which hold our ship steady in one position. I thought about calling a swim break to end the monotony, but being in the middle of the Gulf Stream, I was afraid that people would drift too far from the ship and not be able to swim against the current. So we just put up with heat and kept a'pickin' and moving methodically through the bow section.
Odyssey Explorer
July 26-August 01, 2004
The excitement of this week was all at the beginning. On Monday, the National Geographic film team led by Jason Williams arrived to spend several days with us, primarily to film the recovery of a four-plex from the bottom filled with artifacts. They came out on a chartered "fast boat" and transferred to the Explorer with our small boat.
The ZEUS ROV was poised on deck, ready to go down and pick up the already filled and secured four-plex basket. As soon as the film team was ready we performed the recovery, and they got what they needed. They also captured the excitement of the archaeologists seeing for the first time in nearly 140 years and getting to examine a representative sample of daily life in New Orleans at the end of the Civil War.
The film team stayed with us for a couple more days, filming daily life on the Explorer. We recovered one more four-plex for them, and then transferred their team back to the "fast boat" to return to land. At this point the archaeologists cried "uncle," as two four-plexes recovered in two days meant they had days of work ahead of them to process the artifacts. So we altered modes - from artifact recovery to coal shifting. In the days of steamships, several hundred tons of coal were fed to the hungry boilers a shovelful at a time. When the ship impacted the bottom, the several hundred tons carried by the Republic ended up scattered over the top of much of the cargo in the forward cargo hold. The only way we could examine the cargo is to remove the coal, a scoop at a time, and carry it off the wreck. To do this, we have a large bucket that the ROV can carry in one arm, with a scoop built for the ROV's other arm. We sit down on the coal and scoop it into the bucket until it is full, then fly off to dump it. It is time-consuming, tedious, and seems never-ending, but it must be done to complete our job out here. At the end of this week we were still there, shoveling coal, and unfortunately suffering through some pretty bad weather. So much for the glamorous life of underwater archaeology!
Odyssey Explorer
August 02 - 08, 2004
I ended last week's summary with a report of bad weather starting. Well that bad weather turned into Hurricane Alex. Fortunately for the Explorer, Alex settled in just to the north of us and then proceeded to intensify. This was the best of all locations, as we could keep a close watch on it, and also knew that once it started to move again, it would move away from us. It kept a few of us busy keeping watch on it, while the ROV continued its work down below. We never stopped work, and actually saw relatively good conditions throughout. The one good thing about sitting next to a hurricane, is that with radar, a barometer, and visual observation, we actually had the most accurate information of anyone as to what the storm was doing. Unfortunately the storm conditions halted the recovery of artifacts to the surface. We did continue to fill the four-plex baskets on the bottom, but they will have to wait for our return next leg to be recovered. We have made progress in moving the load of coal off the bow of the wreck and found some very interesting new cargo underneath, but we still have a lot of coal to move. The week ends with a scheduled port stop to get some new equipment, some minor ship repairs, and most importantly fuel and provisions to keep us going for several weeks.
Odyssey Explorer
August 09 - 15, 2004
To show the unpredictability of the weather this time of the year, last Sunday as we were getting ready to leave the shipyard, we were happy to see that the storm which had been threatening to hit us early this week had totally dissipated, and we figured on a good solid week of work. But by the end of the week we were running from a subsequent storm, Hurricane Charley, which passed directly over the Republic site at about 0600 Saturday morning.
Charley not only managed to threaten us but also our other two bases of operation. The Tampa office had to close early and evacuate due to the threat it posed, leaving us without our usual shore support. And then as Charley tore its path across Florida, it threatened our home port of Jacksonville. Thankfully both towns were spared major damage.
The Explorer had moved off-site as the remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie went through, followed closely by Hurricane Charley. As Charley moved through, we traveled about 80 miles to the Southeast, then came back in behind it to resume work. We used the time off-site to do some work on the ROV and make some changes and improvements to the equipment, so it was not bad to get a little unplanned break. But then we came back, to move still more coal as we watched warily for more weather to develop.
Status of Excavation
An excavation status site map is available here. This map shows how much of the SS Republic shipwreck site has been excavated through August 1, 2004. The ship-shaped outline shows the approximate shape of the ship when it first hit the bottom in 1865. Over the years, the hull and deck deteriorated and collapsed outward. The dashed brown line shows the approximate location of the hull when excavation began in 2003.
The map is divided into one meter square grids. The light green areas have been excavated. The blue squares, in the middle of the ship, are the areas that are currently being excavated. There is no excavation intended in the pink areas where the boilers, machinery and paddlewheels preclude the possibility of finding artifacts of interest.
The time it takes to excavate a square meter of the shipwreck varies depending on where the excavation is taking place. Some areas of the shipwreck do not require much excavation to reach the hull - other areas that may have more cargo or more levels of excavation to complete will take longer.
Much of our time during the early summer was occupied excavating the bow section, where an amazing array of artifacts have been found and recovered. We are just getting to the area where we believe the balance of the specie, if any, would have been stored. Once that area is completely searched, if the additional specie has not been found, it leaves three possibilities. Either the additional specie was not on the ship, it is under the tons of coal near the engine compartment, or it lies in the debris field which has yet to be searched completely. If the first is true, we obviously will not find it. If it is under the coal or in the debris field, we believe we will find it.
As you can see from the site plan, the excavation that has taken place to date is extensive, requiring significantly more work than we had originally anticipated when we believed that most coins would have been located together in the stern. When only a portion of the coins we expected to be on the shipwreck were found in the stern, it caused us to look at other options for storage on the ship. We expanded our search to include other possible locations in the hold, or to find the purser's safe and strong room. The excavation required for this effort required the development of many new tools and techniques that will be useful for future projects.
While this added search has been expensive and time-consuming, we feel that the quantities of amazing and valuable artifacts that have been recovered justify the additional effort both archaeologically and economically.
You will need Adobe Acrobat to view the Excavation Status site map (pdf format). If you do not have this program, you can download a free Adobe Acrobat Reader at Adobe.com
Excavation Status site map