How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed
On 19 July 1545, English and French
fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in
the area of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle
of Wight. Among the English vessels was a warship by the name of Mary
Rose. Built in Portsmouth some 35 years earlier, she had had a
long and successful fighting career, and was a favourite of King
Henry VIII. Accounts of what happened to the ship vary:
while witnesses agree that she was not hit by the French, some
maintain that she was outdated, overladen and sailing too low in the
water, others that she was mishandled by undisciplined crew. What is
undisputed, however, is that the Mary Rose sank into the Solent that day,
taking at least 500 men with her. After the battle, attempts were
made to recover the ship, but these failed.
The Mary Rose came to rest on the
seabed, lying on her starboard (right) side at an angle of approximately
60 degrees. The hull (the body of the ship) acted as a trap for the
sand and mud carried by Solent currents. As a result, the
starboard side filled rapidly, leaving the exposed port (left) side
to be eroded by marine organisms and mechanical degradation. Because
of the way the ship sank, nearly all of the starboard half survived intact.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the entire site became
covered with a layer of hard grey clay, which minimised further
erosion.
Then, on 16 June 1836, some fishermen
in the Solent found that their equipment was caught on an underwater
obstruction, which turned out to be the Mary Rose. Diver John Deane
happened to be exploring another sunken ship nearby, and the
fishermen approached him, asking him to free their gear. Deane
dived down, and found the equipment caught on a timber protruding
slightly from the seabed. Exploring further, he uncovered several
other timbers and a bronze gun. Deane continued diving on the site
intermittently until 1840, recovering several more guns, two bows,
various timbers, part of a pump and various other small finds.
The Mary Rose then faded into obscurity
for another hundred years. But in 1965, military historian and amateur
diver Alexander McKee, in conjunction with the British Sub-Aqua Club,
initiated a project called ‘Solent Ships’. While on paper this was a
plan to examine a number of known wrecks in the Solent, what
McKee really hoped for was to find the Mary Rose. Ordinary search
techniques proved unsatisfactory, so McKee entered into collaboration
with Harold E. Edgerton, professor of electrical engineering at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1967, Edgerton’s side-scan sonar
systems revealed a large, unusually shaped object, which McKee
believed was the Mary Rose.
Further excavations revealed stray
pieces of timber and an iron gun. But the climax to the operation came
when, on 5 May 1971, part of the ship’s frame was uncovered. McKee
and his team now knew for certain that they had found the wreck, but
were as yet unaware that it also housed a treasure trove
of beautifully preserved artefacts. Interest ^ in the project grew,
and in 1979, The Mary Rose Trust was formed, with Prince Charles as
its President and Dr Margaret Rule its Archaeological Director.
The decision whether or not to salvage the wreck was not an easy one,
although an excavation in 1978 had shown that it might be possible to
raise the hull. While the original aim was to raise the hull if
at all feasible, the operation was not given the go-ahead until
January 1982, when all the necessary information was available.
An important factor in trying to salvage
the Mary Rose was that the remaining hull was an open shell. This led to
an important decision being taken: namely to carry out the lifting
operation in three very distinct stages. The hull was attached to a
lifting frame via a network of bolts and lifting wires. The problem of the
hull being sucked back downwards into the mud was overcome by using
12 hydraulic jacks. These raised it a few centimetres over a period
of several days, as the lifting frame rose slowly up its four legs. It was
only when the hull was hanging freely from the lifting frame, clear
of the seabed and the suction effect of the surrounding mud, that the
salvage operation progressed to the second stage. In this stage, the
lifting frame was fixed to a hook attached to a crane, and the hull
was lifted completely clear of the seabed and transferred underwater
into the lifting cradle. This required precise positioning to locate
the legs into the stabbing guides’ of the lifting cradle. The lifting
cradle was designed to fit the hull jusing archaeological
survey drawings, and was fitted with air bags to provide additional
cushioning for the hull’s delicate timber framework. The third
and final stage was to lift the entire structure into the air, by
which time the hull was also supported from below. Finally, on
11 October 1982, millions of people around the world held their
breath as the timber skeleton of the Mary Rose was lifted clear of
the water, ready to be returned home to Portsmouth.
Questions
1-4
Do the
following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
Write
TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN on your answer sheet.
1. There is some doubt about what
caused the Mary Rose to sink.
2. The Mary Rose was the only ship to
sink in the battle of 19 July 1545.
3. Most of one side of the Mary Rose lay undamaged under the sea.
4. Alexander McKee knew that the wreck would contain many valuable historical objects.
Questions 5-8
Look at the following statements and the list of dates below.
Match each statement with the correct date, A-G.
List of Dates
A 1836 B 1840 C 1965 D 1967 E 1971 F 1979 G 1982
5. A research for the Mary Rose was launched.
6. One person's exploration of the Mary Rose site stopped.
7. It was agreed that the hull of the Mary Rose should be raised.
8. The site of the Mary Rose was found by chance.
Questions 9-13
Label the diagram below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage.
