Wrecks in sight!
The storms that have swept the North Sea in recent weeks have brought to light a curious sight to the eyes of walkers who have ventured near Covehithe, south of Lowestoft: lying, all gutted, along the beach, a corpse presented to the wind its broken hull and its mismatched planks.
Wreck.
Frozen along the sea, it had already been seen and then lost three years ago.
The same storm also exhumed a second vessel, about 20 km further south, near Thorpeness.
According to specialists, the two ships could date from the 16th-18th centuries.
Read also: On the waves of the Baltic, archaeologists hunt wreck looters
The discovery of these wrecks stunned English walkers who were quick to report their presence.
"I thought it was just driftwood that had been washed up by the sea,"
Nicholas Mellor told the
East Anglian Daily Times
.
According to this inhabitant of the region who works in heritage conservation, these remains - revealed by the stormy stripping of the pebbles from the coast - would have
"the curve of a large boat"
.
"It's very solidly done,"
he said.
As with the Covehithe wreck, the Thorpeness wreck seems to have withstood the ravages of time and the elements rather well;
the various remains of the two vessels have also kept part of their original shape thanks to solid wooden dowels.
Detail of the structures of one of the remains of the Thorpeness wreck.
4D Heritage
"Its size blew me away
," Mike Tupper, director of the International Boatbuilding Training College in Lowestoft,
told
the BBC, who was able to observe the Thorpeness wreck.
According to the estimates of this expert in shipbuilding, the vessel was to be within 30 to 45 meters in length.
"
If we can identify the species of oak, we will have a good idea of where it was made, because at the time trees of this size - at least 150 years old - would not have they were moved very far because they were so heavy.
"
Read also: Six pirate bodies discovered in the wreckage of a ship sunk in 1717 near Cape Cod
An uncertain dating
According to specialist Andy Sherman, who works at the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network, the hull of these wrecks had been built freeboard and double bottom, which could indicate that they date from the late 16th or 19th century. early 17th century.
"
It makes the ship a little bit more load-bearing on one side and it's really, really rare
," he told the BBC after analyzing several photographs.
Although the technique is known in historical texts, there is only one known example in the British archaeological records
”.
This estimate is apparently not unanimous.
Professor of archeology at the Royal Agricultural University, Mark Horton leans more towards more recent buildings, perhaps eighteenth-century charcoal burners, of the type
of James Cook's
HMS Endeavor
.
The Covehithe wreck, more isolated and distant than that of Thorpeness, would also have some vestiges of a metal lining which covered its hull and which could be useful in its dating.
But still it would be necessary to be able to move there to excavate the two sites.
Which is currently completely unthinkable given the current health restrictions in the United Kingdom, which is just starting to emerge from a period of lockdown.
While each of these natural exhumations gradually damages the remains, all local specialists hope that the wrecks will not have disappeared again when the restrictions are lifted next, on March 29.
If they disappear again by then, they will have to wait for the next storms to perhaps see the ghost ships reappear on the Suffolk coast.
