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Timbers From A Shipwreck Appear At Cape Lookout

Cape Lookout National Seashore

The coast of North Carolina is giving up some of its treasures… large timbers thought to be from a century old shipwreck have appeared on Cape Lookout National Seashore, and archeologists are narrowing down where the pieces may have come from.

The coast of North Carolina is a harsh environment, converging currents and shoaling along the Outer Banks make navigating treacherous.  Earning its nickname “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the seafloor of eastern Carolina is littered with some 600 shipwrecks, including the infamous pirate Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, the Civil War ironclad the USS Monitor, and the HMS Bounty, which sank during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.  Park Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore Pat Kenney says it’s not uncommon for pieces of shipwrecks to wash up on the shore or to be uncovered. 

“In the history of the park, we’ve had pieces of a shipwreck come up on the beach.  Staff informed me that they’ve had a piece that drifted basically the whole length of Core Banks and then ended up in the Cape Lookout bight and kept appearing on the beach in various locations.”

Last month, a call came into the Park that two large pieces of timber were discovered beached along Cape Lookout seashore.

“On December 28th actually, one of our rangers was out on patrol along the beach just south of the lighthouse, about a mile south of the lighthouse on the ocean beach.   Our staff investigated that, some basic documentation of these early observations.  But people felt like it was a piece of a shipwreck.”

Credit Cape Lookout National Seashore

Two large timbers about 40 feet by 60 feet were found on the shore.  Three days later, two more pieces about 37 feet long were found within 100 meters of the original site.  Steven Neshkoff, with the Interpretation Division at Cape Lookout National Seashore, says it’s not known how the timbers came to their current resting place.

“Maybe it came out of one of the shoals out there and it busted loose and showed up here.”

Some believe that the shipwreck pieces washed ashore during a winter storm, but Neshkoff says it’s more likely that the wreck has been buried beneath the sand.

“There wasn’t a lot of deterioration, it was well preserved. Definitely some rust parts on there, you can see some pins and areas where metal was attached.  You can definitely tell it’s been sitting under the sand or sitting out somewhere.”

Neshkoff sent photographs of the timbers to the North Carolina Division of Cultural Resources Underwater Archeology Branch where they estimated them to be from the mid 1800’s to the early 20th century.  Assistant State Archeologist with the Underwater Archeology Branch Nathan Henry is tasked with finding the origin of the timbers.  On Thursday, he thought he found a match.

“I was so close, I had the perfect candidate and I looked a little further into the record and found that it had been completely salvaged.  So it’s unlikely it’s that one.”

Identifying what type of ship these timbers came from can be a lengthy process, pouring over historical documents detailing known shipwrecks that have occurred off Cape Lookout and trying to find a match.  Nathan says it’s like a treasure hunt.

“these are just big pieces of timber fastened together in a certain way.  We know it’s a shipwreck when we see it, we can tell it from a pier or something like that. And you look at the size of the timbers and kind of base it on that to how big the ship would be and look into our archives and see if there’s anything that’s a match.”

As of Friday morning, he is working on another possible lead.

“I have another real good possibility called the Belle O’Neil that went down in that same vicinity there that it may be.”

Credit Cape Lookout National Seashore

The schooner Belle O’Neill sank two and a half miles off the Cape Lookout coast on February 3rd, 1909 after the crew discovered that the vessel was taking on water.  While the cargo and ship were lost at sea, the crew paddled safely to land.  Nathan says records show the size of the Belle O’Neill – 142 feet long and 35 feet wide- corresponds to the timbers found on the shore, and that the pieces have most likely been buried for a while.

“There’s usually some indication of marine growth or stuff like that would indicate that it would have been out in the water as opposed to under the beach sand.”

If the pieces of timber are from the Belle O’Neill, Nathan says the best way to preserve them is to leave them right where they are.

“One of the worst things you can do is bring them out of the water and dry them out.  That’s almost the death nail to it unless you spend large amounts of money to preserve these timbers.  We know where they’re at if we ever need to look at them to do some more study on them.”

There is no reason to excavate the pieces of timber because they only represent a small portion of the vessel.

“It wouldn’t look anything like a full ship, something that could be displayed as say a museum piece, it’s more of a study piece right now.”

The shipwreck pieces now are mostly covered by sand and the sea.  Cape Lookout’s Steven Neshkoff says only about 10% of the timbers are exposed.

“You wouldn’t even notice it if you weren’t looking because it’s really in the low tide zone.  So we only had like maybe a few hour window just when it was out of the water to take a really good look at it before the water started coming up on top of it so the northeast winds were coming through back in December and basically skimmed away the sand to really put it out there in the open, but now it’s being recovered again.”

The North Carolina Underwater Archeology Branch is currently involved with preserving artifacts from what’s thought to be the pirate Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge so they aren’t able to survey the timbers just yet.  Neshkoff says they plan to visit the site later this year, and we hope to be there.

Jared Brumbaugh is the Assistant General Manager for Public Radio East. An Eastern North Carolina native, Jared began his professional public radio career at Public Radio East while he was a student at Craven Community College earning his degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. During his 15+ years at Public Radio East, he has served as an award-winning journalist, producer, and on-air host. When not at the station, Jared enjoys hiking, traveling, and honing his culinary skills.