[FT. OCRACOKE] [CRISSIE WRIGHT] [SUGAR SHIP] [W.E. HUTTON]
[THE PAPOOSE] [OLIVE THURLOW] [BLACKBEARD'S QAR]
[PEVENSEY] [CORE BANKS SURVEY]

The Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge
Shipwreck Project


Be sure to see our divers in the Discovery Channel Program:
"The Search for Blackbeard's Treasure"

SIDCO's 2000 Dive Season Work on "QAR"

Cannon C20 is found!

After careful excavation in the area of the magnetic signature developed using our Schonstedt GAU-30 (see graphic below), cannon # C20 was located exactly where our equipment said it would be! Several more signatures have been indicated on the WNW corner of the QAR site. Basically our system has proven that an effective electronic survey CAN be done on a site, without disturbing the first grain of sand! Well done, all around!

SIDCO Trustee Rick Allen and SIDCO President Rob Smith pose with members of an ABC Good Morning America production crew after the "first ever" LIVE DIVE from the QAR wreck site. Rick and Rob handled the live video footage taken from the site and broadcasted live via satellite to Time Square in NYC. The show was seen on October 10, 2000. Also on the crew was long-time friend of SIDCO, Julip Gillman-Bryant, of the North Carolina Underwater Archaeology Unit, Dr. George Shannon of the NCMM, and Bobby Purifoy of Olympus Dive Center.

SIDCO's 1999 Dives on the "QAR"
 

In June of the '99 dive season, SIDCO participated in a joint operation with the NC Underwater Archaeology Unit, the NC Maritime Museum, Intersal Inc, the University of North Carolina, East Carolina University and others to create a precision magnetometer survey of the wreck site thought to be the flagship of Blackbeard the pirate. Using SIDCO's Schonstedt GAU-30 gradiometer/ magnetometer and Intersal's Geometrics magnetometer, the team used the towfish of these units on sleds to move the detecting units in a precise grid to make readings every 2.5 feet. Divers placed the units on a grid marker and then swam away while surface teams measured and recorded the data. The results are now posted and get ready because THEY ARE EXCELLENT!

This is a graphical display of the exact magnetometer survey we accomplished in June 1999. An original site map of the "Queen Anne's Revenge" wreck site is overlaid by a color chart showing the gravametric "hits" and their intensity. Red denotes the stronger Negative magnetic poles of the artifacts and dark blue shows the Positive poles. The portion shown strongly suggest the presents of possibly two more cannon buried and previously un-discovered. These will be "ground truthed" during the next scheduled expedition.

As seen above, Don Sien of Schonstedt Instruments Co., presented SIDCO with a donated GAU-30 magnetometer/ gradiometer and a ga-72cd locator. The unit in the picture was the very same unit used to find the Confederate Submarine CSS Hunley. Don went back to Schonstedt and built us a new one incorporating some changes to make the unit more effective. Obviously, it worked! See Cannon # C20 above...!

Here is a link to the Queen Anne's revenge site maintained by the North Carolina
Department of Cultural Resources' Division of Archives and History.