{"id":1986,"date":"2022-03-25T22:38:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T22:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/noaa-search-inc-find-westport-whaler-shipwreck-in-gulf-of-mexico-the-providence-journal\/"},"modified":"2022-03-25T22:38:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T22:38:36","slug":"noaa-search-inc-find-westport-whaler-shipwreck-in-gulf-of-mexico-the-providence-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/25\/noaa-search-inc-find-westport-whaler-shipwreck-in-gulf-of-mexico-the-providence-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"NOAA, SEARCH Inc find Westport whaler shipwreck in Gulf of Mexico – The Providence Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have discovered the wreck of the only whaling ship known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> announced on Wednesday.\u00a0
A team of federal and private experts last month confirmed that the shipwreck<\/a> lying more than a mile deep off the coast of Louisiana\u00a0is almost certainly Industry, a two-masted wooden brig that was built in 1815 and sailed out of Westport, Massachusetts.\u00a0
The 64-foot-long ship was hunting for sperm whales about 70 miles from the\u00a0mouth of the Mississippi River\u00a0on May 26, 1836, when a squall\u00a0struck, snapping both masts and tearing open the\u00a0hull. The crew of 15, which included men from Massachusetts and probably\u00a0some from Rhode Island, was rescued from the capsized ship by another Westport whaler and returned home safely.
The wreck was first spotted by a contractor for an oil\u00a0company in 2011 and viewed again in 2017, but it had never been fully examined or identified until a NOAA\u00a0research ship homeported in Newport visited the site in February.\u00a0
On Feb. 25, the\u00a0team from the Okeanos Explorer<\/a> piloted a\u00a0remotely operated vehicle\u00a06,000 feet below the surface\u00a0to view the wreck. The video it\u00a0collected was transmitted in real time\u00a0to researchers\u00a0on shore from the private archeology firm SEARCH Inc.<\/a> and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which have been working together on a project to identify 19th-century shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0
They\u00a0were able to identify the wreck as Industry based on a combination of factors, including telltale images of the ship\u2019s tryworks<\/a>, a cast iron stove with a pair of large kettles used to render whale blubber into oil, that was unique to whalers.\u00a0
\u201cWhaling was America\u2019s first great global industry,\u201d said James Delgado, an archeologist and senior vice president of SEARCH Inc. \u201cLike other shipwrecks, this one has its own unique story that makes it important.\u201d\u00a0
Westport whaler:<\/strong>Journal provides a unique look into the life of Westport residents during the 1830s<\/a>
The whaling industry was one of the largest drivers of the American economy during its heyday in the early to mid-19th century. Sailing out of such southern New England ports as Nantucket, Newport and especially New Bedford, ships hunted whales primarily for their oil, which\u00a0was used to light lamps in an age before fossil fuels.\u00a0 \u00a0
They targeted sperm whales<\/a> for the waxy substance in their heads known as spermaceti, which produced the highest-quality candles of the time. Whaling ships\u00a0hunted for the large mammals\u00a0in the Gulf of Mexico until the end of the 19th century, with one prime area around the Mississippi Delta. \u00a0
All told, an estimated 1,179 sperm whales were killed by whalers in the Gulf, according to a study coauthored by Judith Lund, former curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum<\/a>.\u00a0
These days, sperm whales are protected under the Endangered Species Act, and the Gulf\u00a0population is currently believed to number\u00a01,180 whales, according to NOAA<\/a><\/a>.\u00a0
The extent of the industry\u2019s reach\u00a0has been widely documented \u2014 ships sailed across the globe, from the Southern Ocean to the Arctic, in search of the valuable prey. But the reliance for a time on hunting grounds in the Gulf was little understood until the 2011 paper that Lund helped write<\/a>.\u00a0
\u201cIt’s an interesting story when we find things like this,\u201d she said of the discovery of Industry. \u201cThere are so few whaling wrecks that have been found. And this could be among the earliest.\u201d\u00a0
Is the James Cook shipwreck in Newport Harbor:<\/strong>Australians say yes, RI group says not so fast<\/a>
Industry went after\u00a0whales across the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico for\u00a0nearly 20 years.
Of 214 recorded whaling voyages to the Gulf from 1788 to 1878, it’s\u00a0the only ship known to have been lost there.\u00a0
Although the crew was known\u00a0to have survived, it was unclear what exactly happened to them. But with the help of a colleague in Nantucket, Robin Winters, a librarian at the Westport Free Public Library, recently got hold of a brief from the Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror<\/a> published about a month after the storm\u00a0that reported the brig\u00a0Elizabeth had picked up the crew and brought them back north.
It took nearly six months of searching through archives to find what little information there is on their fate, Winters\u00a0said.
“I was jumping up and down when we found the article,” she said.
The crew\u2019s rescue at sea, as opposed to their attempting to reach land in Louisiana or Mississippi,\u00a0would have been fortunate for a group\u00a0that likely included Black people and Native Americans. Whaling and other maritime industries of the Northern states had diverse workforces and offered people of color opportunities\u00a0that weren\u2019t available on land<\/a>. Escaped\u00a0slaves were known to work aboard whaling ships, said Lund, who oversees an online whaling database<\/a>.\u00a0
\u201cOnce you\u2019re outside on the ocean, you\u2019re free,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re much more easily accepted as a member of the crew. With 15 men on a ship together, you had to work together towards a common goal.\u201d\u00a0
But if Black crew members\u00a0from the wrecked ship had tried to go ashore in New Orleans or another nearby port, they would have been jailed and possibly sold into slavery<\/a>. Southern states had adopted laws to keep free Black sailors from shore on the belief that they would inspire slave insurrections<\/a>. Only one of the hundreds of whaling voyages documented by Lund and her coauthors\u00a0recorded a stop\u00a0in New Orleans.\u00a0\u00a0
\u201cIt would have been a tough decision to try and row for shore,\u201d Delgado said of Industry\u2019s crew. \u201cThey were lucky that they didn\u2019t have to make that choice.\u201d\u00a0
The crew list for Industry\u2019s final voyage was lost when the ship went down, but documents from previous voyages collected by the New Bedford Whaling Museum<\/a> show that members came from Tiverton, Little Compton, Dartmouth, Westport and other communities along the coastline from southern Massachusetts into Rhode Island.\u00a0
The lists also describe men\u00a0of different races.\u00a0They\u00a0included family members of Paul Cuffe, a famed Westport mariner<\/a> whose father was a freed slave and mother a Wampanoag Indian.
Cuffe, sometimes spelled Cuffee, was a onetime whaling captain who became one of the wealthiest people of color in the United States at the time and a leader of the effort to create a colony for freed slaves in Sierra Leone in Africa.\u00a0
Cuffe\u2019s son William was a navigator on Industry, and his son-in-law Pardon Cook<\/a>, who is believed to have made the most whaling voyages of any Black person in American history, was an officer. Cuffe was also a partner in other ventures with Isaac Cory Sr. and the Cory family, of Westport, who built and owned Industry.\u00a0
“The news of this discovery is exciting, as it allows us to explore the early relationships of the men who worked on these ships, which is a lesson for us today as we deal with diversity, equity\u00a0and inclusion in the workplace.” Carl J. Cruz, a New Bedford-based historian and descendant of the Cuffe family, said in a statement.\u00a0
Time Lapse:<\/strong>Shipwrecks from the region’s past<\/a>
Delgado, along with colleagues Michael Brennan, also of SEARCH, and Scott Sorset, marine archeologist for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, had long suspected that the wreck off Louisiana was Industry, but they needed to take a closer look to be sure.\u00a0
As it so happened\u00a0the Okeanos Explorer was in the Gulf in February, testing new equipment, and NOAA contacted the researchers for coordinates of shipwrecks to examine.
The NOAA ship\u2019s team was not only able to get high-resolution video of the tryworks and the wreck as a whole. It was also able to measure what was left of the ship and match its size \u2014 64 feet long by 20 feet wide \u2014 to what was recorded in historical documents.
The hull form\u00a0is also consistent\u00a0for a ship of its era, and the lack of copper fastenings or sheathing was the norm for one built by a small facility like the now-defunct Cory Shipyard in Westport.\u00a0
In addition, they confirmed that the Gulf\u2019s Loop Current<\/a> could have carried the wreck to its current resting place, about 72 nautical miles from Industry\u2019s last recorded location while it was still afloat\u00a0near the mouth of the Mississippi.\u00a0
After its hull was breached, Industry\u00a0drifted on the surface, giving the crew enough time to abandon ship\u00a0and allowing another whaler to salvage 230 barrels of oil from its stores, some rigging and one of four anchors. With the oil casks removed, the ship lost buoyancy, which probably caused it to finally sink.\u00a0
Videos and photos gathered at the site show a clear outline of the hull in the sediment. Portions of the frame are visible, but there\u2019s not much left of the wooden structure above the mudline. Three anchors are positioned around the wreck along with liquor bottles and ballast stones. The name of the maker of the tryworks, cast on its iron face,\u00a0is corroded but still legible: G\u00a0& W\u00a0ASHBRIDGE.\u00a0
Delgado\u00a0has explored many\u00a0wrecks<\/a>, including\u00a0the Titanic, the USS Monitor and, most recently, the Clotilda, the last ship known to have brought enslaved people to America. He says he will seek to have Industry\u2019s final resting place listed on the National Register of Historic Places.\u00a0
\u201cI think the discovery is significant because as we continue to explore the oceans we add to the amazing exhibits in the museum of the sea,” he said.<\/p>\n

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Researchers have discovered the wreck of the only whaling ship known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Wednesday.\u00a0A team of federal and private experts last month confirmed that the shipwreck lying more than a mile deep off the coast of Louisiana\u00a0is almost certainly Industry, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}