ATLANTIC BEACH, North Carolina (24 May 2005) -- Tom and Kim Bennett have been big believers in the Queen Anne's Revenge Project for several years now. The Morehead City motel owners even provided free rooms to state underwater archaeologists who came to town for diving expeditions. But since the shipwreck was discovered in 1996, they had never gotten to see those divers bring up a cannon . . .until Tuesday. The couple and their son, Thomas, watched from their private boat as a six-foot-long gun was hauled from the water. "Good Lord look at that old thing," Kim Bennett said, joining in a round of applause as the divers pulled what was estimated to be a 700-pound to 800-pound artifact to the deck of the research vessel Martech owned by Cape Fear Community College. "Think of the history, how long that's been down there," she said. "This is so cool." Archaeologists believe the weapon had been on the ocean floor for 287 years. It was the fifth cannon raised from the site, they think is the wrecked remains of the pirate Blackbeard's flagship that ran aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718. Divers had planned to retrieve a second cannon from the site later in the day, but had problems with the wench on the research vessel they were using, said Richard Lawrence, head of the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. "We had it on the surface with the lift bags and just weren't able to get it out of the water," Lawrence said. The 8-foot-long cannon, a six-pounder (meaning it would have shot a 6-pound cannonball), weighed probably three times that of the smaller one, said David Moore, nautical archaeologist and maritime historian with the N.C. Maritime Museum. QAR Project Director Mark Wilde-Ramsing said he hoped the divers could still get the second cannon out before the month-long expedition ends this week. The sheer weight of the cannon is one reason Moore thinks it may have been part of the original armament on board La Concorde when it was taken by pirates in 1717. "We know she was carrying 14 (guns) when Blackbeard captured her," Moore said. | | A six-foot cannon that fired a four-pound ball breaks the surface at Beaufort Inlet as it is recovered from what is likely the Queen Anne's Revenge, flagship of the pirate Blackbeard. (Chuck Beckley) Historical records document that Blackbeard renamed the vessel Queen Anne's Revenge and increased the firepower to 40 guns as he began to take more prizes. "We suspect that the guns he added from that point on were probably the smaller, 3-to-4-pounders and even some rail guns," Moore said. They would have been easier to move from one ship to another, Moore said. About 18 of the 24 cannons found on the shipwreck are the larger cannons, Moore said. The smaller cannon raised Tuesday, which probably shot a 4-pound cannonball, is likely a sister gun to an English-made cannon already retrieved from the site, Wilde-Ramsing said. Using electrolysis, conservators have found the makers mark "IF" on that cannon which indicates it was made by Major John Fuller in a Heathfield furnace between 1694 and 1722, Nathan Henry, a state archaeological conservator, said at a recent symposium on the shipwreck. The smaller cannon went on public display in the parking lot of Fort Macon State Park for about an hour before it was taken to the QAR conservation lab in Greenville. There it will be cleaned and preserved in a process that could take more than three years, Wilde-Ramsing said. |
