Monday, August 22, 2011

August 20th & 21st - Anchor Recording Part III


This weekend saw me as one of twelve trainees headed down to Chatham Royal Dockyard for an Anchor recording course run by Mark Beatie-Edwards of NAS and Gordon Le Pard, Maritime Archaeologist for Dorset County Council.

The course was a first for the NAS and follows on from the launch of the Big Anchor Project a few years ago, www.biganchorproject.com

We started off with the most basic of anchors, the stone anchor, in its many different forms from a simple block of stone through the introduction of a hole for a rope, to development of additional wooden arms to increase gripping power and far more complicated and ingenious killicks.

We then covered the more familiar stocked anchors working through the medieval "long shank" anchors to the traditional Admiralty pattern type. The importance of types of stock were also explored, metal or wooden, and what they meant for the archaeologist.

Finally the development of the stockless anchor was discussed and the differences between the most common types - Halls and Byers.



Sunday was a chance to put our knowledge onto practice with tour around the docks to identify the many different anchors on display (over 50) and start the recording process, making sure we gained as much experience as possible.

With so many anchors on display it was a busy morning and we looked at everything from a five metre tall long shank to a metal stocked bower from the Cutty Sark.

Of course recording information is of no use unless people can access it and this is what the Big Anchor Project is all about - an online database of anchors from around the world, on ships, in museums, underwater or just as a garden decoration!

We managed to add about another 20 records to the database over the weekend bringing its total to nearly 500.

The weekend gave me some valuable insights into anchor construction and use and I can't help but see anchors everywhere now!

The course certainly enthused me about the Big Anchor Project and I and a number of other participants are already planning some work so see what we can add to the database over the next few months.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Norfolk Survey Weekend - 14th August

Sunday saw us back on the North Norfolk coast on another sunny day with two new wrecks (well new to me anyway) to take a look at.

First was a quick trip to Hunstanton to review the situation with the Sheraton. The Sheraton has been the site of some significant survey work over the least few years and the subject of a number of NAS Part II's as well. We weren't planning on any additional survey work but for those of us who'd not had a chance to see her before it was a great opportunity to see how all the hard work of previous years translated when confronted by the real thing.

The months of weather since last seasons survey had certainly had their impact and a number of new objects had clearly been uncovered and will need future survey work.


Unfortunately time constraints meant we had no more than time for a quick look around before headed off to Holme Next The Sea about 4 miles to the west.

This was the site of our proper survey work for the day, the Vina. The Vina was a barque strandard in the intertidal zone around 1883 and a surprisping amount is still to be found. as can be seen in the picture of the substantial boiler

Having left the total station survey equipment behind due to our limited sucess on the Saturday (and the long treck and waist deep wade required to reach the site), we were on manual measurments for this survey...

Having lost Chris and Ben from the Saturday we'd also gained Jezz and having worked with him in the past we'd soon set out a baseline and Gary marked up the detail points for measurement. While Jezz, Nicola and I started recording transects, Mark started on the sketches and Simon and Pat were on photo recording duty as well as fielding the many questions for interested beach goers who had swam the channel to see what we were up to.

Unfortantly the tidal situation meant we couldn't spend as long on the wreck as it deservered but we still obtained a wealth of information to enable us to comence drafting the inital survey.

After what seemed like a much longer treck back to the car park than it had been out and a quick debriefing and plans for the next steps for each of us it was back home for a much earned beer.

There is now more information on the NAS East Anglia site following the survey weekend - feel free to take a look at
http://sites.google.com/site/naseastanglia/home

Keep an eye for future updates next weekend as 20th/21st August is the Anchor recording course.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Norfolk Survey Weekend - August 13th 2011


My first time back doing any NAS work for a while saw me up near my own neck of the woods for a weekend surveying some intertidal wrecks on the North Norfolk beaches.

It was also my first real piece of survey work since commencing the scholarship - this is what all the courses to date have been about

Organised by Simon Draper, the Saturday saw us off Holme-next-the-Sea with two wrecks to look at; the Vicuna and an unknown ship just a few hundred metres away.

To take account of the tides seven of us; Gary, Chris, Nicola, Ben, Mark, Pat and myself; met in the Norfolk Wildlife Trust car park at a very civilised 10:30 (to make best advantage of low tide) for briefing and role allocation. Then it was off to the beach to locate the survey targets and start the field work.

We started on the unknown wreck as it's position on the beach meant it was uncovered first, however it still required a little help to assist in draining of the scour around the hull.


Then it was on to the process of laying out a baseline and marking and measuring detail points and sketching and photographing their positions and taking small wood samples for identification - all familiar tasks from my Intro and Part 1 courses.

We also made use of "Total Station" to obtain detailed measurements with mixed success.

Because of tide restrictions and to make sure we covered as much ground as possible half the group headed over to the Vicuna and a potential fish trap set up alongside to repeat the process and cover, in more detail, some of the points of interest that had been noted during last years survey but which there had been insufficient time to record.

So now I've lots of data to write up and ensure we have a proper consolidated record. but before that we have tomorrow with the Sheraton and the Vina.

If you are interested in learning more about previous surveys of these vessels take a look at the NAS Eastern Region site at for more details http://sites.google.com/site/naseastanglia/home


More updates tomorrow...