Royal Captain (ship)
The Royal Captain was a ship of the British East India Company . It sank in the South China Sea off the coast of the Philippines on December 17, 1773 . The three-master had an overall length of 143 feet (43.6 meters), a width of 36 feet (11 meters) and was armed with 20 9-pound and 6 4-pound cannons.
history
The royal captain expired on 11 October 1772 from the pile and took effect on December 16, 1772 their first trip to China on.
Loaded with tea and over 100,000 pieces of porcelain, the Royal Captain was on her way from Canton to Balambangan Island, where Alexander Dalrymple had built a free port on behalf of the British East India Company in the first half of the 18th century . On the night of December 17, 1773, she ran into a reef and had to be evacuated after several unsuccessful attempts to free her. Of the 106 people on board, three sailors died because they refused to leave the ship.
Captain Edward Berrow and his crew managed to save some valuable items from the ship, including the logbook. However, a large part of the cargo sank together with the ship in the sea.
In 1999, the Far Eastern Foundation for Nautical Archeology (FEFNA) under the direction of the French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio in collaboration with the Philippine National Museum located the wreck at position 9 ° 2 ′ 8.2 ″ N , 116 ° 38 ′ 10.2 ″ E Discovered at a depth of 350 meters. Two submersibles were used for the excavation work to retrieve the sunken artifacts (including the ship's bell, which had sunk to a depth of 470 meters). Finds from the wreck are exhibited today in the National Museum of the Philippines in Manila.
Documentary film
- The Royal Captain's Treasure , Discovery Channel
swell
- Franck Goddio et al., Royal Captain, a ship lost in the abyss , Periplus Publishing, London 2000, ISBN 1-902699-19-X
Web links
- Museum of the Filipino People, Manila
- Franck Goddio homepage
- http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?139245