Research vessel finds two wrecks
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
For 200 years, the reefs and shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have been a seething graveyard for shipping. Every year, scientists find additional victims, and this year they found two more.
Photo by Robert Schwemmer
The previously unknown shipwreck sites were found during a one-month maritime survey, a multipurpose research cruise that ended when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Hi'ialakai pulled into Honolulu Harbor yesterday afternoon.
NOAA diver John Brooks photographs the bow of one of many ships that have gone aground and sunk in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
"I feel like I'm about the luckiest maritime archaeologist in the world right now because I work out here and get to see these sights," Hans Van Tilburg, maritime heritage coordinator with the National Marine Sanctuary Program, said after descending the gangway and giving his wife, Maria DaSilva, a kiss.
The lost ships included a modern-day vessel whose shaft and propeller and fiberglass-hull parts were found on Pearl and Hermes Atoll, and a World War II-era barge at French Frigate Shoals. The marine archaeology team also surveyed previously located wrecks, notably at Kure and Pearl and Hermes.
At Kure, the condition of the wrecks speaks to the ferocity of the ocean on this northernmost speck of the Hawaiian Archipelago. Many vessels have ended their voyaging on Kure's reefs. The atoll's highest point is just a few feet above sea level, and its shoreline surf can be identified only when ships are almost upon it.
"We looked at one wreck that had been lifted into the lagoon by a storm you would not want to see up there," Van Tilburg said.
It's a mystery wreck, though apparently fairly modern. Van Tilburg said he doesn't know the identity of the steel ship or the fate of its crew.
The team studied another known wreck believed to be that of the Parker, a whaler that crashed into the Kure reef in 1842. Cannons, anchors and other evidence of the shipwreck had been found on a previous survey of Kure.
"We saw more of it. It was a tremendous storm that broke the back of that ship and drove its bow into the atoll," he said. The ship was so seriously smashed that the crew of the Parker had to scavenge parts from another shipwreck as they set up their survival camp.
Divers at Kure also found chunks of coal at the southwestern end of the island. Van Tilburg said he hopes the coal may lead to the wreckage of another ship on Kure, the coal-carrier Dunnottar Castle that went down in 1886 while hauling a load of Australian coal across the Pacific.
The largest atoll in the archipelago is Pearl and Hermes, which takes its name from two British whaling ships that were working the central Pacific whale pods in 1822. One was the Philadelphia-built Pearl, and the other the Montreal-built Hermes.
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"They were sailing together. One went aground on the reef and the other went to the rescue," Van Tilburg said. Their remains were found last year, about a quarter-mile apart.
The federal government's research ship Hi'ialakai, returning from a 25-day research voyage in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands during which it discovered two shipwrecks, tied up yesterday at Pier 11.
"Every sand channel and puka in the reef holds pieces of these ships," Van Tilburg said. "We found a good selection of all the equipment: try-pots (big iron cauldrons used to melt down whale fat), anchors, cannons, hull sheathing. ... Everything we saw corresponds to what you'd expect from an early 1800s whaler."
Not far away, this year's survey found the propeller and shaft of a previously unknown shipwreck. Van Tilburg said his best guess is that it's from a fiberglass vessel called the Mimi that was reported to have gone aground at Pearl and Hermes in 1989.
He said the possible Mimi wreckage and the finding of a 60-year-old barge in waters off French Frigate Shoals is in some ways less interesting than sites dating back nearly two centuries, but all are valuable parts of Hawai'i's maritime heritage.
"These ships are like time capsules that tell us about our Pacific and Hawai'i history. Each shipwreck holds secrets and stories that contribute to our sense of history in a vivid way," he said.
The marine archaeological team had permits to take small items, including copper fittings, bricks, glass samples, and pieces of wood, that will help identify the ships. Those items, once the studies are done, will be turned over to the Bishop Museum, he said.
Van Tilburg's team included National Marine Sanctuary Program intern Kelly Gleason, NOAA Maritime Heritage Program manager John Broadwater, and maritime historians Tane Casserley of the Maritime Heritage Program and Bob Schwemmer of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
They were accompanied by John Brooks and John Lindsay of the NOAA Ocean Media Center, who did high-definition video recording of the wreck sites.
Randall Kosaki, chief scientist aboard the vessel, said fish specimens, coral samples and data soon available from sharks tagged during the voyage will help scientists better understand how the ecosystems in the archipelago interact.
New maps created using the Hi'ialakai's multibeam sonar system have transformed points on a grid to detailed reliefs of the ocean floor.
Advertiser staff writer Karen Blakeman contributed to this report. Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
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