Wreck of Canadian schooner found in Lake Ontario

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  In this undated photo provided by ShipwreckWorld.com is a mid 1800's Canadian schooner

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — After 105 years, the three masts of the Queen of the Lakes still stand erect — all the more remarkable because the 19th-century Canadian schooner has sat in the dark depths of Lake Ontario since it wrecked in 1906.

"We think it hit bow first because the bowsprit is broken off, but the rest of the ship looks pretty nice," undersea explorer Jim Kennard said Friday.

Kennard and fellow shipwreck enthusiasts Dan Scoville and Roland Stevens located the 129-foot-long vessel using side-scan sonar in 2009. They confirmed the find and captured images of it in early July using a remotely operated submersible.

Loaded with 480 tons of coal, the 53-year-old ship ran into a stiff gale in November 1906, sprung a leak and sank rapidly some 10 miles off Sodus Bay on the lake's southern shore. The crew of six clambered aboard a yawl and rowed to safety.

The ship sits on the lake bed at a depth of 200 to 300 feet. Its masts extend as much as 100 feet upward in calm, frigid waters deprived of oxygen, conditions that account for how well it's preserved.

"When you have a temperature of, like, 39 degrees and you're at a depth where there's no wave action or current, the only thing that can damage the wood would be zebra or quagga mussels as they collect and grow in big clumps and fall off," Kennard said.

The invasive mussels were not introduced to the lake system until the past 15 years or so, he said. "Years ago, all you would see on the ship was just a dusting of silt," he added.

Its rigging and sails have long since disintegrated and the large, tapered spar extending forward from the bow is gone.

But both anchors and the mussel-coated wheel are firmly in place. Cables that held the masts in place lie in coils on the deck and a steam-powered winch that might have been added in the early 1900s is visible in the bow section.

The ship was sailing from Rochester to Kingston, Canada, when it began taking on water.

"I've read the most important item on such ships was the bilge pump," Kennard said. "A vessel that old was pushing its limits. In a Northeast storm, things are really getting jostled around and, all of a sudden, the bottom fell out. The crewmen were only within 50 feet of the boat when it sank. It went down really quickly."

In 2008 in Lake Ontario, Kennard's team located the wreck of the HMS Ontario, the oldest shipwreck ever found in the Great Lakes. During the American Revolution in 1780, the 22-gun British warship was lost in a gale with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard.

Since 1970, Kennard has helped find more than 20 wrecks in the Great Lakes and about 180 others in Lake Champlain, New York's Finger Lakes and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Florida divers find new treasure from famed wreck

A large emerald ring is pictured in the hand of Sean Fisher, in this photograph

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - Divers in the Florida Keys have recovered a large emerald ring and two silver spoons believed to come from Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a shipwrecked Spanish galleon that has already yielded one of the greatest treasures ever recovered from the sea.

Employees of Mel Fisher's Treasure, the salvage company that has worked the shipwreck site since 1969, believe the latest haul signals they are close to finding the sterncastle, a key missing portion of the ship.

"The sterncastle is where the clergy and elite were with their personal items," said Sean Fisher, spokesman for the family business and grandson of its late founder, Mel Fisher.

The Atocha was headed back to Spain with a load of gold and silver from the New World when it sank and broke up in a hurricane not far from Key West in September 1622.

After a 16-year-search, Mel Fisher and his crew found the "mother lode" of the shipwreck in September 1985. They hauled up more than 40 tonnes of gold and silver, including more than 100,000 Spanish silver coins known as "Pieces of Eight," along with Colombian emeralds and other artifacts. The company estimated its worth at nearly $500 million.

Since then, Sean Fisher said the crew has made many other discoveries within a ten-mile (16-km) spread of the original site, and in a straight line.

"This tells us we are moving in the right direction," he said. "We have virgin territory around our search area and will be in there next."

After the original wreck, currents and additional hurricanes moved the broken parts around. "It broke in two and then banged around for hundreds of years and that is why what we are finding is scattered," Fisher said.

RING VALUED INITIALLY AT $500,000

He was on the company's salvage ship JB Magruder on June 23 when diver Tim Meade came up with the large square emerald mounted in a gold ring, whose worth the company estimates at $500,000.

Divers also came up with two silver spoons and other artifacts that will have to be treated at the Fisher labs in Key West before being exposed to fresh air. Unlike the gold ring, the other items are encrusted and a value can't be placed on them at this time.

"I think one item is a hinge and another is a lid, so it's possibly pieces from a jewelry box," Fisher said.

He has a copy of the Atocha's manifest and going by it, he expects to find at least 100,000 coins, 400 silver bars and personal jewelry at the sterncastle location.

"We have already found more gold than is on the manifest," he said with a smile. "There was a lot of smuggling so the clergy and nobility wouldn't have to pay the king's tax. We expect there will be many items around the sterncastle that are not on the manifest."

Fisher described the thrill of seeing and touching the treasure, and being the first person to do so in almost 400 years. "I was 15 when I found my first silver," Fisher said. "I was 17 when I first found gold. Silver is great, but gold shines, even after more than 300 years in the water."

The dive for treasure is a group effort, Fisher said. Two divers search the selected area at a time, while other crew members stay on deck. The whole crew participates and when the value of the search is determined, bonuses are given out.

Fisher said 90 percent of treasure hunting involved finding out where the treasure isn't.

"Technology has helped us above the water," he said. "Below the water our search hasn't changed much over the years."

The company uses "mailboxes," large round tubes on the stern of the salvage ship that force air below the waterline to blow away the top layer of debris and sand on the bottom.

The Magruder pulled into its slip at Safe Harbor Marina, outside Key West, last Thursday after discovering the ring and other artifacts about 35 miles away.

Fisher popped open a champagne bottle to celebrate even as the company's other 100-foot (30-meter) salvage ship, Dare, prepared to go out to continue the treasure hunt.

Each ship has a crew of six or eight and stays out about 10 days at a time, weather permitting.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)

Shipwreck find may be Blackbeard's sword

Is this the hilt of Blackbeard's sword?

It's one of the latest finds aboard the remains of the ship the Queen Anne's Revenge, known at one time to be the flagship of Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. The vessel ran aground on a North Carolina sandbar in 1718 and was abandoned; modern archaeologists have been excavating the shipwreck for more than a decade. The design and ornamentation of this newest discovery have led the researchers to believe it likely belonged to the notorious pirate himself.

Click image to see Blackbeard's recovered ornaments

NC Department of Cultural Resources

An imposing figure to begin with, according to historians, Blackbeard cultivated a ferocious appearance to seem even more menacing: a long dark beard, numerous knives, swords and pistols strapped to his chest -- even lighted fuses in his hair. In May of 1718, he used the ship to blockade the port of Charleston, S.C., and effectively hold the city hostage until he collected a considerable ransom.

[Photos: Explorers discover massive cave with room for jungle, skyscrapers]

He was eventually killed in battle off North Carolina by the Royal Navy, his head suspended from a naval sloop to warn other pirates.

[Discovery: One of the earliest photos of people]

Photos courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. For more pirate finds, visit the department's dedicated website, the Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project.

More than 1,000 dead birds fall from sky in Ark.

BEEBE, Ark. – Wildlife officials are trying to determine what caused more than 1,000 blackbirds to die and fall from the sky over an Arkansas town.

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said Saturday that it began receiving reports about the dead birds about 11:30 p.m. the previous night. The birds fell over a 1-mile area of Beebe, and an aerial survey indicated that no other dead birds were found outside of that area.

Commission ornithologist Karen Rowe said the birds showed physical trauma, and she speculated that "the flock could have been hit by lightning or high-altitude hail."

The commission said that New Year's Eve revelers shooting off fireworks in the area could have startled the birds from their roost and caused them to die from stress.

Robby King, a wildlife officer for the agency, collected about 65 dead birds, which will be sent for testing to the state Livestock and Poultry Commission lab and the National Wildlife Health Center lab in Madison, Wis.

Rowe said that similar events have occurred elsewhere and that test results "usually were inconclusive." She said she doubted the birds were poisoned.

Titanic sunk by steering mistake, author says

Reuters – The RMS Titanic in what is thought to be the last known image of the ship as she sets sail from Queenstown …

LONDON (Reuters) – The Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 because of a basic steering error, and only sank as fast as it did because an official persuaded the captain to continue sailing, an author said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Louise Patten, a writer and granddaughter of Titanic second officer Charles Lightoller, said the truth about what happened nearly 100 years ago had been hidden for fear of tarnishing the reputation of her grandfather, who later became a war hero.

Lightoller, the most senior officer to have survived the disaster, covered up the error in two inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic because he was worried it would bankrupt the ill-fated liner's owners and put his colleagues out of a job.

"They could easily have avoided the iceberg if it wasn't for the blunder," Patten told the Daily Telegraph.

Click image to see recent Titanic expedition photos

AP/Premier Exhibitions, Inc.-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

"Instead of steering Titanic safely round to the left of the iceberg, once it had been spotted dead ahead, the steersman, Robert Hitchins, had panicked and turned it the wrong way."

Patten, who made the revelations to coincide with the publication of her new novel "Good as Gold" into which her account of events are woven, said that the conversion from sail ships to steam meant there were two different steering systems.

[Video: A closer look at the Titanic disaster]

Crucially, one system meant turning the wheel one way and the other in completely the opposite direction.

Once the mistake had been made, Patten added, "they only had four minutes to change course and by the time (first officer William) Murdoch spotted Hitchins' mistake and then tried to rectify it, it was too late."

Patten's grandfather was not on watch at the time of the collision, but he was present at a final meeting of the ship's officers before the Titanic went down.

There he heard not only about the fatal mistake but also the fact that J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of Titanic's owner the White Star Line persuaded the captain to continue sailing, sinking the ship hours faster than would otherwise have happened.

"If Titanic had stood still, she would have survived at least until the rescue ship came and no one need have died," Patten said.

The RMS Titanic was the world's biggest passenger liner when it left Southampton, England, for New York on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. Four days into the trip, the ship hit an iceberg and sank, taking more than 1,500 passengers with it.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

China landslide: More than 700 people confirmed dead

The BBC's Chris Hogg decribes the devastation in Gansu province

More than 700 people are now known to have died in a massive landslide in north-west China - making it one of the deadliest incidents so far in the country's worst flooding in a decade.

A frantic search is continuing for the more than 1,000 people still missing.

Buildings were hit by a wall of mud so mighty that buildings seven storeys high crumpled like paper, says the BBC's Chris Hogg, in Gansu province.

He says rescuers are searching by hand in the remote, mountainous region.

Continue reading the main story

Related stories

• Chinese town reeling after landslide
• Aerial view: Before and after
• In pictures: China rescue effort

A 52-year-old man was pulled alive from the rubble more than 50 hours after the disaster, and other rescue teams say they have heard "very faint" signs of life elsewhere, state media reported.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao has urged rescuers to keep looking until they find every last survivor.

But as the hours pass, hopes of finding survivors diminish.

"Around me are relatives of missing people sitting dazed, shocked. Each of them has stories," our correspondent says.

One woman has lost her husband and three teenage children. Until she saw their bodies with her own eyes she did not want to believe it, he adds.

The death toll was revised upwards on Tuesday from 337, and officials say that figure is expected to rise.

The weather forecast for the coming days is for heavy rain, which could hamper humanitarian work, and there is also the possibility of further landslides, says the BBC's Michael Bristow in Beijing.

Supplies running low

The landslides in remote Zhouqu county, Gansu, were triggered by torrential rains that hit the area late on Saturday.

The thick layer of mud levelled an area 5km (3 miles) by 500m, Xinhua said.

Continue reading the main story

Zhouqu landslide in figures

• 702 people confirmed dead and more than 1,000 missing
• 45,000 people in Zhouqu county evacuated
• 7,000 soldiers, firefighters and medical staff deployed
• 300 buildings buried under mud
• 66% of county without power

• Aerial view: Before and after

Landslide debris blocked a river which then burst its banks, sending water, rocks and mud down several hillsides and on to homes.

Soldiers have blasted through the blockage on the Bailong river, lowering the water level of an unstable lake created by the landslide.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from downstream villages that could be engulfed if the natural dam bursts.

The landslides came as China was struggling with its worst flooding in a decade, with more than 2,100 people reported dead or missing and millions more displaced nationwide.

President Hu Jintao led a meeting of senior ministers on Tuesday on plans to handle the crisis, Xinhua news agency said.

More than 7,000 soldiers, firefighters and medical staff are now at the scene of the landslide.

The Chinese premier has visited Zhouqu, urging rescue workers on in their efforts and comforting those affected.

Authorities have sent tents, food and water, but some supplies were reported to be running low because roads and bridges into the area have been destroyed.