An incredible discovery on the beach in Daytona Beach Shores — an old shipwreck, likely dating back centuries, exposed by severe erosion after Tropical Storm Nicole.An archaeological team brought in by the state was on-site on Tuesday. “It’s a wooden-hulled shipwreck. It was held together with wooden pegs and also with iron fasteners,” said Chuck Meide, director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program. Archeologists carefully worked around a structure that surfaced at low tide when mountains of sand washed away in the storm. Many first thought it could be an old dock or pier because it was parallel. Instead, after uncovering about 20 feet of the debris field, the experts believe it’s a merchant or cargo ship dating back to the 1800s.“If it was coming from the Caribbean it could have been fruit. It could have been lumber. If it was coming from the Gulf of Mexico, it could have been manufactured goods,” Meide said. The team believes the wooden sailing ship’s full length is probably 80 to 100 feet and 20 to 25 feet wide. They’ve found frames, or rather ribs of the vessel, ceiling planking and timbers that would have run its length.It’s not an effort to dig the ship up. It likely wouldn’t survive that. Instead, archeologists want to photograph, measure and document it for history. It will be reburied in high tide where it will remain under the sand where it wrecked.The unprecedented erosion that undermined so many oceanfront properties blew out sand dunes and crushed sea walls has been astonishing to locals. But it’s also opened a window into the past and many made the arduous trek to get to the beach to see it firsthand.“If something good could come out of those two horrible hurricanes we had, I’ll take it — and it’s history,” resident Dean Coleman said. “I love history and something that’s not been discovered is almost like finding history for the first time, which I think it is,” resident Barry Chantler said. No one can remember the ship being previously exposed. And so far, the team hasn’t found any record of a shipwreck at the site but they’ll dig in deeper with the newly acquired data.“It’s just exciting when you are going out to the beach and unexpectedly there’s this shipwreck, this relic of the past,” he said. Secretary of State Cord Byrd visited the site on Tuesday. He said it’s an important historical find but also commented on the critical erosion that exposed it, saying the state is committed to building the beach back.
An incredible discovery on the beach in Daytona Beach Shores — an old shipwreck, likely dating back centuries, exposed by severe erosion after Tropical Storm Nicole.
An archaeological team brought in by the state was on-site on Tuesday.
“It’s a wooden-hulled shipwreck. It was held together with wooden pegs and also with iron fasteners,” said Chuck Meide, director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program.
Archeologists carefully worked around a structure that surfaced at low tide when mountains of sand washed away in the storm. Many first thought it could be an old dock or pier because it was parallel. Instead, after uncovering about 20 feet of the debris field, the experts believe it’s a merchant or cargo ship dating back to the 1800s.
“If it was coming from the Caribbean it could have been fruit. It could have been lumber. If it was coming from the Gulf of Mexico, it could have been manufactured goods,” Meide said.
The team believes the wooden sailing ship’s full length is probably 80 to 100 feet and 20 to 25 feet wide. They’ve found frames, or rather ribs of the vessel, ceiling planking and timbers that would have run its length.
It’s not an effort to dig the ship up. It likely wouldn’t survive that. Instead, archeologists want to photograph, measure and document it for history. It will be reburied in high tide where it will remain under the sand where it wrecked.
The unprecedented erosion that undermined so many oceanfront properties blew out sand dunes and crushed sea walls has been astonishing to locals. But it’s also opened a window into the past and many made the arduous trek to get to the beach to see it firsthand.
“If something good could come out of those two horrible hurricanes we had, I’ll take it — and it’s history,” resident Dean Coleman said.
“I love history and something that’s not been discovered is almost like finding history for the first time, which I think it is,” resident Barry Chantler said.
No one can remember the ship being previously exposed. And so far, the team hasn’t found any record of a shipwreck at the site but they’ll dig in deeper with the newly acquired data.
“It’s just exciting when you are going out to the beach and unexpectedly there’s this shipwreck, this relic of the past,” he said.
Secretary of State Cord Byrd visited the site on Tuesday. He said it’s an important historical find but also commented on the critical erosion that exposed it, saying the state is committed to building the beach back.