The Search For the Atocha "Mother Lode"
 

This is a report of the verbatim discussions between Dr. Eugene Lyon, Mr. Duncan Mathewson and Dr. Ray McAllister, who got together one day in 1976 to see if the documentation saved from the wrecks of the 1622 Plate Fleet would shed any light on the next place to look for the "mother lode". McAllister was to try and provide estimates of possible drift patterns based on wind records from the logs of the lost galleons. From these we hoped to be able to pinpoint the direction in which the wreck would have been blown after striking the reef. It was a good, and I hope interesting, exercise but drew the wrong conclusions for the "mother lode" was discovered well to the east. I hope you enjoy the exercise. This is about the closest most of you will get to a real treasure hunt!

The Spanish brazas (arms) have the same derivation as the English fathom and various Scandinavian favms, etc. It is the distance between the outstretched arms of a Spanish sailor as he pulls line out of a coil. The Spaniard was usually slightly smaller than a Nordic sailor and the braza is somewhat shorter than a 6 foot fathom.

References to the "Bank of Spain" refer to the area in the Quicksands, a shallow sandy area on modern charts, where the salvors found some 6000 coins and other artifacts. The coins caused them to refer to the site as the "Bank of Spain"!

ATOCHA DATA EVALUATION REPORT

Mathewson: The purpose of this report is to record and review all of the available archaeological, historical, meteorological, and remote sensing data so that we will better understand what we know and what we don't know about the site. O.K., let's start with the historical stuff.

Lyon: I am going to speak partly of the ATOCHA and partly of the MARCARITA because of the intertwined survivors' story with references of one to the other and what we know from the documentation. I can give citations but a lot of this is part of the record, so I won't give these here unless it is essential. I will simply speak of the parties involved. The storm which appears not to have been tremendously large or powerful, perhaps with winds of not much more than 60 m.p.h., was from the south. It pushed the 1622 flota north on the southerly wind.

ROSARIO, ATOCHA, and MARGARITA reports all read the same. They crossed the outer reef, they attempted to anchor, their anchor lines dragged and they were lost. In regard to the ROSARIO, she dragged and was eventually lost in the Dry Tortugas, virtually leaving her high and dry when the water went down The MARGARITA was battered by sizable seas and was lost in 5 - 6 brazas of water (27 - 30 feet) (Brazas or arms =5.48 feet.) Captain deLugo notes that ATOCHA was 1 league east of MARGARITA and he saw her (ATOCHA) sink suddenly. The English narrative, (based on the survivors report and Spanish documentation) describes how ATOCHA struck a rise and went beyond a short distance and sank suddenly. Out of 265 people on board, only 5 survived.

Gaspar de Vargas reports the finding of the ship after the storm with her hatches still battened down and the decks still intact, indicating that the people may have been trapped below the decks. Vargas reports on 25 September, 1622, when he found the ATOCHA, located in 10 arms (54 feet) of water with the mizzen mast protruding from the water, that the hatches were secured and there was no way he could break into the silver store room. He was only able to recover two cannons.

He left the site to return to Havana to get instruments and petards to break his way into the hull. This is the data that is available up to the time of the second hurricane, which hit 5 October 1622 - one month after the first. Vargas had been working on his own ship, the ROSARIO, during the interim. This he salvaged completely. The second storm produced a substantial rise of water in the Dry Tortugas and endangered the people who were salvaging the ROSARlO. After the second storm, Vargas returned to the sinking site of the ATOCHA and found the wreck had "been undone" by this second storm. Bits and pieces of the wreck were found later scattered.

The testimony of Vargas, concerning his operation from January 1623 - June 1623 is important as is the collateral operations of Cardona sent by the viceroy of New Spain with a black diving crew from Acapulco and Pueblo de los Angelos in Mexico. These testimonies state that ATOCHA was lost in 9 arms (about 48 feet) of water which is something less than the original estimate of Vargas. The Vargas' testimony included his letter of 9 January, 1623, in which he describes sending divers down in the place he had marked the ship and where he had previously removed the two pieces of artillery on September 26, 1622. This means that he was searching in the deep water. He was searching this area on January 3, and up to January 8, when the drag caught... "A diver was sent down and he came up stating that the ship was there..." Another diver was sent down and it seemed to be rocks to him... another diver went down to confirm whether this was the ship... Vargas goes on to say, "I came to search for the Almirante and am certain that it is what I say because it is in the same place which I marked (as mentioned above) and in a little less than 10 arms (54 feet). Within the area that the drag was caught is an area of 7 1/2 arms (about 40 feet) which could be the length (width?) of a ship. Sounding within this area of 7 1/2 arms of the deep sea I brought up no sand or mud or rock. It was clean. This is the truth as I tell you."

Mathewson: 7 1/2 arms and he brought up nothing. Can we assume that area must have been bedrock? McAllister: ... or ballast?

Lyon: It could have been ballast. If he had sounded 7 1/2 arms in an area where there should have been 10 arms, he might have been hitting the ballast pile with timber. A sounding lead would have brought up something if it had struck a natural bottom.

Lyon: They were using grappling drags with a system of pulling lines... Let me continue.

Mathewson: Go ahead.

Lyon: A letter from the governor of Havana, relating to the Vargas salvage during the winter of 1622 - 1623, states that Vargas found two pieces of bar silver, a chest of reales, some cannon balls, muskets, and the rudder of a ship, and nothing more

Mathewson: At what depth was that?

Lyon: It was not specified.

McAllister: Is there anything else we can use as a guide to the area?

Lyon: Yes, there is. There is a statement of work of April - June of Vargas contained in this same letter in which it is stated that Vargas is defeated by the sand. In April the sand drifted over the wreck which was then located in 10 arms of water.

Mathewson: What is their word for "sand" ?

Lyon: "arena"

Mathewson: There is no mistake that this reference really means sand?

Lyon: No. They clearly mean sand.

Mathewson: The sand was then obstructing Vargas' salvage,

Lyon: The depth of sand was 1 arm (5.4 feet). Then he relates in a letter dated June 1623 that another braza (5.4 feet) of sand drifts over the site.

Mathewson: So over 10 feet of sand had drifted over the site Vargas was working between April - June 1623.

Lyon: THEY are estimating in June 1623 that the wreck Is under about 10 feet of sand and is still in about 54 feet of water. This doesn't make sense to me. If the sand drifted in, the water depth should have been diminished.

Mathewson: O.K. let's go back to the documentation.

Lyon: Vargas is defeated in his salvage attempt. He spent substantial funds and had a law suit. He never found the ATOCHA or the MARGARITA. He left the ATOCHA site buoyed. He had the services of Cardona, a skilled engineer, whose journal is explicit where he states that the Almirante was in 9 arms... Let me make that clear. The same 1623 Vargas letter states that one arm of sand drifted over the wreck in 10 arms of water. Then the letter states by June another arm of sand had drifted over. I am assuming that they were continuing to work in the deep water area.

Mathewson: That means that there is 10 feet of deposit over the wreck in about 5O feet of water.

Lyon: Let me go back to the description of the wreck break up and the assumptions about it that were made at that time concerning the findings of the bow and front sections on a key. From the letters of January 1623, it is stated that the ship broke up in the second storm in such a way that they found her bow section on a key (not stated). This was the ship 1/8th of the way back from the stem, including the whole sides with both wales. The wales on the construction plan of the ATOCHA are located immediately above and below the gun ports. Since both wales had been found they assumed that both the gundeck and the weatherdeck had been carried away, and that all that would remain of the ship in deep water, where they assumed the remains were to be found, would be the "plan", or the lower round hull of the timbers and the keel, with the heavier material, the silver, copper, and other things of weight. So the mass of the weight would be out in the deeper water.

Mathewson: So they are assuming that the "plant" with all the heavy cargo is where she originally sank.

Lyon: Yes ... Cardona prepared a map which has never been located. In 1625, a small ship is lost, attempting to re-buoy the ATOCHA site. Early in May of 1626, Melian readies his expedition with his diving bell. The bell was paid for in 1629, after he had used it. Melian's purpose was to search for both galleons. Using the bell and dragging between both boats a line weighted with shot and carrying grapples, he found the MARGARITA in early June 1626. Several different sources describe Melian's working in sand and working in relatively shallow water depths (about 5 arms of water). He mentions shifting sand while they are working. The salvage papers itemize the things that were found and how they were found and we have letters which describe the break up of the MARGARITA. There were large quantities of ballast in one locality with 350 silver ingots, some 35,000 pesos of coins at this first location. He salvaged this rapidly in July and August of 1626. Either that fall or the next summer he found a "spot or chunk" of more ballast with 37 ingots and some 3700 pesos in a location west of the main find of the MARGARITA.

Mathewson: So that was west of the earlier finds.

Lyon: He was searching diligently at the same time for the ATOCHA but never found it. In 1629 - 1630 another dig on the MARGARITA finds 1500 coins and some 5 ingots.

Mathewson: Is there any mention of the ballast in this later find?

Lyon: I recall none ... After this there is the 1639 mention of the Indians on Marquesas Keys. They are thought to know where the hull is. Melian's assistant gets another contract in 1642 - 1643. In the meantime Melian reports that traces of the ATOCHA have been found in shallow water and a hatch cover which is assumed belonged to the ATOCHA is recovered. The only depth which is given is equivalent to about 24 feet. The next thing we hear is that a ship is sent out from Havana with a lot of supplies. Melian dies in the Yucatan in 1644. In 1688, the House of Trade shows that the ATOCHA had not yet been found. That's it.

Mathewson: That's good.

McAllister: Were there any comments on the bottom type during Melian's salvage?

Lyon: There is something I didn't mention and that is Cardona's report that MARGARITA was lost on a "rocky reef". Otherwise the only mention of the bottom type is sand, sand, and sand.

Mathewson: How about the depth of the sand in the area of the ballast pile of the MARGARITA?

Lyon: I never remember seeing any mention of sand depth in relation to the MARGARITA site.

Mathewson: All right, let's briefly review: We think that the ship is coming in from the south, in winds of perhaps 50-60 mph. Certainly no more than that. Perhaps the storm is dying down somewhat. The waves would be breaking on both the outer reef and the patch reef. What at kind of sea would that produce?

McAllister: If the wind is coming out of the south, she had a pretty good fetch with the Straits of Florida.

Mathewson: The winds would be moving counter clockwise.

McAllister: Let's try to re-create the storm as best we can.

Lyon: We know that the wind shift during the night of September 5/6 was south.

McAllister: All right. That means that this center moved roughly from the southeast to the northwest which would bring the storm into this area.

Lyon: That squares with John Cryer's assessment of the storm.

McAllister: If the winds are moving south, by morning the winds would have shifted over to the southwest.

Lyon: The big description we get of the wind is on Monday, the day before the ships are lost. The wind is strong out of the northeast, forcing them to take a new tack.

McAllister: Let's cut a disk to represent the storm.

Lyon: First there is a mention of winds coming out of the northeast and then the south. The winds are south in the night which means that when they approached the outer reef, the wind may have already shifted to the southwest. In any case it would not have shifted to the southeast.

Mathewson: All right, what does this tell us concerning the direction of the approach?

McAllister: It tells us that we can not count on the southeast wind.

Lyon: It doesn't look as if the ship came in from the southeast unless the storm made some weird turn.

McAllister: You don't get normally much of a recurve in storm tracks in the trade winds, You are more likely to get that up further north.

Lyon: It is more likely to get recurves in October.

Mathewson: All right, what does all this tell us about our search priorities for the "Mother Load"?

McAllister: It tells us that the winds at the time of the sinking were probably out of the south or southwest.

Mathewson: That mean that the ship hit coming out of the south or southwest... O K, let's review the other points arising out of the documentation. She hit a rise and went a short distance then sank in 54 feet of water.

Lyon: Right.

Mathewson: She went down suddenly.

Lyon: Right

Mathewson: She sank more or less intact.

Lyon: Right.

Mathewson: The second storm affected the Dry Tortugas, but we don't have any real data on the wind direction and velocity.

Lyon: Only that it also struck Havana,

Mathewson: That means that it is a pretty good size storm, or the track crossed over both places.

McAllister: Any hurricane that hit Havana would also have hit the Dry Tortugas as a hurricane is hundreds of miles across.

Mathewson: The salvage report indicated that ATOCHA was sitting in 9 or 10 arms of water.

Lyon: Right.

Mathewson: Vargas was searching in the deep water when he recovered the two cannons.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: The 7 1/2 arms sounding lead brought up "nothing" in 1623.

Lyon: The letter describes the use of a sounding lead to get bottom characteristics.

McAllister: This suggests that the lead must have hit ballast, timbers or something otherwise the fellow would have brought up something.

Mathewson: "Nothing" might also indicate nothing of interest (i.e., evidence of the wreck) All right let's go on ... two silver bars, coins, and rudder were found, but no area was specified.

McAllister: Could this be MARGARITA material?

Lyon: This is definitely AT0CHA material.

Mathewson: One arm of sand stopped Vargas' salvage of the AT0CHA.

McAllister: This measurement, as Gene has pointed out is only a very rough guide.

Mathewson: All these measurements must be considered relative.

McAllister: In this case, all this could mean that some sand shifted over the site. It could have not been more than six inches or so.

Mathewson: They were in 10 arms of water when the first sand covered the site. In June more sand (another arm) moved in to cover the wreck. This resulted in two arms of overburden on top of the area they were working, in 50 feet of water.

McAllister: Were they working to expose a piece of the wreck when the sand moved in?

Lyon: I don't know. It doesn't read as if they were working a known pile anything of this nature. They found pieces and bits in this area. That's all I know.

McAllister: Working with free divers, it would have been most difficult for them to accurately judge the depth of the sand. An arm of sand estimated in this fashion seems to be very tenuous peg on which to hang much on.

Mathewson: The important point here is not the arm of sand itself, but the build up of overburden within three months. it is not important whether it one arm or two - but simply that there is rapid build up.

McAllister: That type of build up is unlikely to have occurred with the fine silt found in the deeper areas inside the patch reef.

Mathewson: I agree. But we must not forget that we have about one arm (about 4 feet) of loose unconsolidated material over the compact clay layer. One point we must not overlook is that what the Indian divers are describing as sand, modern day geologists might refer to as sandy silt. I think we should be very careful when we talk about depths. We must remember that they are only relative depths, and when we talk about descriptions, these are very relative accounts about what people thought was happening.

Lyon: Gaspar de Vargas was a marine expert and master pilot. This man represented the most advanced salvage expertise in his day. He was expected to have some precision in his reports.

McAllister: This sand movement sounds like what is going on today in the Quicksands.

Mathewson: All right, let's get back to the review of the documentation.. The bow section 1/8th of the way back from the stem, with two wales, found on a key indicates that two decks were broken off.

Lyon: Correct.

McAllister: This would indicate ballast, silver, copper and the guns should be still where she sank.

Mathewson: Right. We only have one half of the cannons.

Lyon: The guns were all on the gun deck, the 2nd deck down.

McAllister: She could have lost some of the guns with the wales, but some could still be with the ballast.

Mathewson: That's right. The remaining guns should be near the ballast pile... let's go on.. Melian fails to find the ATOCHA, but finds the MARGARITA, in sand, no specified depth - but in water depth recorded as 5 arms (about 27 ft.) The only mention of sand is to drifting sand while he is working.

Lyon: Correct.

McAllister: Do we know from the records whether he was really working the MARGARITA from identification numbers from silver ingots and the like?

Lyon: The whole silver bar list has been recorded and there is no doubt that he was working the MARGARITA and not the ATOCHA. Nothing was found from the ATOCHA by Melian.

Mathewson: He found in one place large quantities of ballast, ingots, coins, and another spot west of earlier find spot which produced more ballast and ingots.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: In 1630 searching for the MARGARITA, they find more coins, ingots but there was no mention of ballast.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: In 1639, Indians on Marquesas Keys indicate that they know where the ATOCHA's hull is.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: In 1640, a hatch cover was found in 24 ft. of water, assumed to be from the ATOCHA.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: In 1644, Melian dies and by 1688, ATOCHA was still listed as lost.

Lyon: Correct.

Mathewson: Does this accurately summarize what information we have from the documentation?

Lyon: Yes.

Mathewson: There appears to be three possibilities as to where the main part of the wreck might lie. 1) It could be inside the outer reef and possibly just outside the patch reef. 2) Or between the patch reef and the Quicksands, or 3) In the shallow area in the Quicksands.

McAllister: Which is too shallow.

Mathewson: Now, let's take these three possibilities and look at them step by step in terms of what we know. First of all, we know she must have come in from the South or Southwest where she hit a high rise.

Lyon: I don't think she would have a draft of more than 15' maximum. Unfortunately, the only dimension we have is the depth of hold, and this does not give us the draft - the data never gives us a draft. The data gives us the "depth of hold" as the dimension between the keel, or actually, the flooring over the keel timbers and the gun deck.

McAllister: We don't know how far the gun deck was out of the water, but it had to be 3-4 feet.

Lyon: That makes sense - I think we could build a model using the length of the rudder post and the stem that would give us a draft, but the document's do not give us a draft. I would estimate a draft of less than 15'.

Mathewson: Where on the outer reef are possible places that she might have hit: assuming we have a 50-60 m.p.h. wind and 15'- 20' wave height?

McAllister: In a small hurricane, I've watched our 45' second reef (Boca Raton) break with a wind of 50 knots. I would say 20' seas on the outer reef might be a reasonable guesstimate.

Lyon: We have 5 areas on the chart where she could have possibly hit.

Mathewson: We can rule out anything East of Marquesas Rock.

Lyon: If we had the wind we believe we had, we can rule out anything which lies east of a line drawn south of the shallow point on the patch reef. (82o 20').

McAllister: There are then only 3 possible points West of (82o 20') she could have hit on.

Mathewson: These appear to be the 3 possible points West of (82o 20').

Lyon: But these are fairly deep.

Mathewson: Are there any areas in Hawk's Channel we should consider? What is the bottom like?

McAllister: Hardpan.

Mathewson: Agreed?

Lyon: Rocky.

Mathewson: The ATOCHA tried to anchor - but couldn't, she was dragging, so it is probably largely hardpan.

McAllister: Did it say that she was trying to anchor?

Mathewson: The MARGARITA was.

McAllister: Oh, the MARGARITA ...

Mathewson: We can assume that whatever happened to the MARGARITA was basically also happening to the ATOCHA.

McAllister: The bottom maybe soft sand.

Mathewson: Perhaps, hardpan with a veneer of soft sand. In any case, there are no areas in Hawks Channel where she could have hit, so we've eliminated Hawks Channel. Then we come to the outer patch reef and we have no evidence so far of anything at all on that outer patch reef. Now we inside that outer patch reef and we find the cannons and we go beyond the cannons into the Quicksands and we find over 500 yards of materials strewn out in a very narrow SE-NW corridor 25 yards or so; these deposits start petering out from an impact zone on the edge of the shallow sands - ballast, everything peters out as you go to the NW, away from the "Bank of Spain".

McAllister: There are cannon in here, and some stuff on the coral flat, but not a whole lot until you get up in the Quicksands. The bulk of the stuff has been recovered so far in the Quicksands then.

Mathewson: Correct.

Lyon: Just let me point out that this NW-SE line where the materials have been found is at variance with the known wind direction of the first storm.

McAllister: However, if the second storm broke it up, it need not have come from the same direction as the first storm.

Mathewson: When we are referring to the Quicksands scatter patterns, we're talking about the second storm in which we have already concluded we have very little data. Now here is the outer patch reef - here is the cannon, located on the interface between the deep mud and the hardpan. The Bank of Spain is our point of impact, where we have the great bulk of coins, ingots, etc.

McAllister: Determined by the fact that there was a lot of break up evidence on the edge of the Quicksands.

Mathewson: Right. There is definite impact there. Now as you go further to the NW, toward the galleon anchor, the deposit thins out. When you get beyond the galleon anchor, there is still shipwreck material present but it is very thin and high up in section; it's not low down as it is in the SE part of the corridor. There is very little ballast as it begins to pinch out before the galleon anchor. We get very little ballast, both in size and quantity in the NW, although there is some treasure.

McAllister: Show me the ballast on the map.

Mathewson: The major concentration of the ballast is right here in the Bank of Spain, the point of impact.

McAllister: The amount of ballast implies a substantial chunk of the keel must have come up here and hit in the second storm that distributed material out towards the NW.

Mathewson: Correct.

McAllister: And yet, the fact that you didn't find 900 silver bars in the Bank of Spain says that a large chunk of the ship must have been left behind -where did the manifest show that they loaded the silver? Forward or aft, or through out?

Lyon: The documentation only states that there was a "Panole de Plata' - which was in the construction contract. You have these 2 main decks, the weather deck and the gun deck and a rocker keel. In the construction contract it states that there were "panoles" which opened down from the gun deck - in other documentation it states that the "panole de plata" was supposed to be aft - that's all that is known.

McAllister: But it is reasonable to assume the silver was probably aft and it was & pretty low down in the copper, too?

Lyon: The copper was evenly distributed. The way she was constructed she had a "granel" or small board cover for the keel and those side frames; We know she had 34 frames. Then we know that the tobacco was loaded in this area at Cartagena and when they came to Havana they had to offload the tobacco and distribute the ingot copper, which was some 583 ingots, or about 15 tons. Then they had to replace the tobacco somewhere. The gun deck did not permit this, with all the people crammed on this deck. The guns spread as we know they were, (the gunports were spread all along this whole deck area), did not permit substantial lading on this deck. Whatever cargo lading was done, as well as supplies, was done in orlop or in the hold below the gun deck. So what you've got to have here is essentially a heavy mass of material bound on top of this orlop. That is underneath the gundeck.

McAllister: Now this says to me that the keel must have broken somewhere. But you didn't find many silver bars when you were digging up that ballast; also you didn't find copper, and what did you find?

Lyon: We found 1/2 an ingot in the Quicksands and another part of an ingot by the cannon. We know that she broke 1/8 of the way back, that much we've been told.

McAllister: So she may have broken along the gun deck, but we don't know for sure that she didn't break in some other way.

Lyon: We don't know.

McAllister: And something has to account for the amount of ballast in the Quicksands.

Mathewson: A guesstimate of about 80 tons of ballast in the Quicksands seems reasonable.

McAllister: But very little silver.

Lyon: Which is about 25% of her total ballast.

McAllister: And no copper.

Lyon: I would say a little bit more ballast than that. I would say we are looking for about 80-l00 tons of ballast where she sank, or about 60% of the total. We don't really know the proper ratio between ballast and ship weight and capacity. A 600 ton vessel might have perhaps 200 tons of ballast, but we do know that when they had heavy cargo, they cut back on the ballast, and we do have a very heavy cargo.

McAllister: But this still says that only a part of the ship's structure hit the Quicksands.

Mathewson: Yes, let's just briefly summarize what we have so far. These are the 3 high points W of 82o 20'; she might have hit on the outer reef.

McAllister: What do we know about these ship's ability to sail across the wind? for example, if the wind was from the south, what could they make; could they sail 20 degrees to the wind, or 40 degrees to the wind?

Lyon: They are not sailing at this point, and they haven't been sailing for days.

McAllister: They are under bare spars, being blown by the wind ...

Lyon: MARGARITA tries to raise a sail; ATOCHA had lost all her masts, except her mizzen, probably ATOCHA is under no sail at all, she still has a rudder because they find it, but she's just a hull.

McAllister: We've got the stream going this way at 3-4 knots.

Lyon: Setting east, essentially.

McAllister: Right. And we've got some reef patches up in here, and we've got the winds from the south and she's doing this probably about like that. I assume she sails like hell with high forecastle and high sterncastle.

Lyon: When she had her sails, she could sail pretty well before the wind, best off the wind, at a broad reach, into the wind, rather poorly.

McAllister: Now without sails, effectively she is being driven by the high forecastle and sterncastle.

Lyon: Freeboard is a sail.

McAllister: O.K. She is being driven by the wind from the south, and if she is coming from the south and the stream is setting her this way, so she's making good a course like this ...

Lyon: Until you get to the reef and get out of the stream...

McAllister: Right, and that's why I've begun to straighten it out a little bit up in here - yet there is a pretty good current up to here - I would guess.

Lyon: I have an old chart of this area, 1862 - Spanish chart: has a relation along here which says when the wind is strong NE, then there is counter current or a strong rip right along this reef and they warn people to watch out for it.

Mathewson: It's marked here, strong rip along here, too, and I'm wondering whether this rip could have affected the drift of material.

McAllister: Of course, what does a rip mean - a rip means you probably have water coming off the banks and running into the wind, or you could have water coming off the banks and running into the general flow of the current and either one will give you a rip. But what I'm driving at is, if she's coming from the south, we don't want to draw a line coming like this. If she was making good a course like this, she's really coming from the SW, and I think we ought to be considering the pronounced possibility that she was coming from the SW.

Lyon: Southwest course - right - everything begins to point that way

Mathewson: All right that's a very good observation, now we are really concerned with the ship coming from the southwest and not the southeast.

Lyon: You're basing this on the fact that with her freeboard and the wave action and the winds from the southwest, she would have been coming in more along this line.

McAllister: The waves we haven't really considered too much in this.

Lyon: The waves are probably following the wind and change later, right?

McAllister: Right, and she probably is surfing a little on the waves, too, which could further the same situation, but you've got the Gulfstream variance.

Lyon: But you're saying the Gulfstream is so strong that it would set if she were carrying a due south course it would still bring her in SW.

McAllister: Yeah, right, if the wind were blowing here south she would still come in from the SW.

Lyon: To that we add the possibility at this stage of the storm that the winds are more likely to be SW than due south.

McAllister: Yeah. In that case instead of coming in like this, she's probably coming, in more like this, which starts to make this area down in here look more attractive.

Mathewson: We can assume as the ship comes in from the SW area, if she does hit the patch reef, she might have hit it on the SW end of it.

McAllister: Right. If she hits at all out here on the outer reef, she's still under the influence of the Gulfstream until she almost is on the reef. But inside the outer reef, a great deal would depend upon what the tide was doing; of course, with the wind from the south, you're blowing water up on to here, but unless you have a very strong - say a spring tide, the tide coming off here isn't going to be very pronounced in this area.

Lyon: So the important factor at this stage of the storm inside the outer reef, is going to be the wind and wave direction.

McAllister: Right.

Mathewson: Right. So the tide effect is minimal.

Lyon: There must have been a very high hurricane tide.

McAllister: If she gets in this area and breaks up by the patch reef as she did at a later time, then either the other storm or the tide must have had a strong effect on distributing the remains of the break up.

Lyon: If you can assume an impact area up here you could swing this in the proper direction and get a good idea which areas along the patch reef should be searched.

McAllister: Unless there is an impact area on the outer reef.

Mathewson: Of course, we're assuming this chart is accurate.

McAllister: It's not that far off. For navigation, they don't worry about little details.

Mathewson: Let's focus in on the chart of the site, going from the patch reef to the shallow Quicksands. We're coming from the southwest, now assume that she comes in and she hits the SW part of the patch reef. There appear to be several separate high points on the patch reef. One point is as close to the water surface as 13 feet. McLean is going to chart it for us on the map - so we have at least two points. Assuming it comes from the southwest, let's say it hits the SW reef. That will be on the first hit (then from an English account) she makes a last to anchor - then she slips off, and sinks in the area between the patch reef and the Quicksands. Then if that is the case, the spread we have in the Quicksands is coming from the second storm break up, which is coming from a different direction, it is the 2nd storm which picks up the ship, breaks it up, spreads the contents out in the Quicksands from a southeasterly direction.

McAllister: There should be meteorological records in Havana or didn't they keep those kind of records

Mathewson: No.

Lyon: Here is a letter stating that there was a severe storm in Havana. Many buildings were flattened, there was a lot of damage inland, that's all. I've gone through a 1968 reference, recording hurricanes from 1492 to 18OO; there is no record of this storm, or the ones in 1715 and 1733, so it's very spotty to begin with. I'm going to go back to Dunn and Miller's 1964 report and see what they say about Atlantic hurricanes. I'm going to go back to look "Betsy"," Donna", and the Labor Day 1935 hurricane, and see whether or not these 3 hurricanes, which crossed very close to us, right across the middle keys, might provide any useful comparable data.

McAllister: Remember the scale of that - there's 300 miles between the tracks of those.

Mathewson: Right, and they're giant hurricanes.

McAllister: 300 miles in either direction changes the entire wind direction and everything else, A hurricane can be moving forward at 20 knots and the winds over here are 125 m/p/h same direction, so you have 145 and in this area say 125 knots - subtract 20 - so you have 105 and the wind is blowing away from the beach, so its blowing the water out to sea; over here its blowing the water on to the beach, so here you get the storm surge and obliteration and here you get low winds and the water blowing away.

Mathewson: What can we conclude about all this?

McAllister: First we ought to consider the possibility that she hit here-here-or here on the outer reef, and fell into Hawk's Channel, 54 feet, and later was broken up by another storm. If the second storm brought her up like this, maybe she hit one of these and sunk in here and the next storm came and blew her up this way and she became unstable - that's when she started to dump cannon.

Mathewson: That is a consideration, but I think highly unlikely.

Lyon: Unless its a skip, you've got a blank space from the SE line, after the cannon we don't have any material from ATOCHA.

McAllister: But if she's picked by the second storm with a relatively stable keel, she could skip for miles - until something happened to trip her. Her trail would therefore be very faint.

Lyon: How could that hull, as heavy as it was, and full of water be picked up by anything - with something like 140 tons of copper, ballast, ingots?

McAllister: Some of that stuff is still out there - maybe it was only 60-80 tons plus cannons, plus chests of treasure, which may have been up high. Was the treasure low, too?

Lyon: No, very likely the gold was in the silver master's room, which was in the sterncastle, fairly high, above or on the level of the quarter deck.

McAllister: It's not unreasonable that the coins would have come up with it.

Lyon: Not unreasonable - to explain , but the bars of silver is difficult.

McAllister: Now suppose she broke off and the silver storage area is down deep in here and was left behind along with a significant amount of the ballast and a significant amount of copper and suppose she broke off in such a way as to pick up some of the ballast in the forward end, plus the guns, which I understand from the account, are probably forward guns...

Lyon: It's just an assumption - a general detail account of Garcia Palasques explains that they staggered the guns, one of the heavy weight next to one of lighter weight - and the gun ports went right up to the bow. The very heaviest guns were amidships, and from that point aft and forward they alternated heavy and light.

Mathewson: We don't have the two 2-ton culebrinos yet.

Lyon: In MARGARITA, the silver master did have, illicitly, some bars of silver in his cabin, because his chest was found floating - If you found a lot of ingots you'd have to be looking at the main deposit.

Mathewson: You believe the 6,000 odd coins from the Bank of Spain came from 2 chests?

Lyon: The lading was usually 3,000 coins in each leather sack in a small chest. So we're basically talking about 2 chests.

McAllister: When you dug a hole with the mailbox you got a large cone and at the bottom of the cone you find all the goodies laying on hardpan. Did they sweep the area?

Lyon: They really searched that area of the "Bank of Spain".

Mathewson: During the summer of '74, Kim on the Southwind moved very methodically through the Bank of Spain, re-digging the whole east and west area, across the 25 yard corridor about 100 yards or so from the galleon anchor.

McAllister: On the second sweep, did he find anything significant?

Mathewson: No, not in the "Bank of Spain".

McAllister: On the first sweep, when they swept out to the end of the corridor on both sides of the corridor, did the stuff fail off dramatically?

Mathewson: Yes, it did.

McAllister: It was concentrated in the center of the corridor?

Mathewson: Yes, we did right angle cuts - to catch the edges on both sides of the corridor to define the ballast. The ballast is running out to the northwest. Nothing was found - some light stuff - ceramics - falling off from the main concentration. Its the concentration of heavy stuff that gives you the configuration pattern and the corridor is well defined; it starts on impact at the "Bank of Spain" - and as you go toward the northwest it thins out and this is what leads me to believe there was only one spot for the "Motherlode", and that was out in the deeper water to the southeast. Dirk went out there and found a ballast stone and eventually the cannon. There is still treasure to be found in the Quicksands. No doubt about it, but the main part of the wreck must lie to the southeast.

Lyon: There is a good chance that all the gold is there in the Quicksands because it should have been carried in the silver master's cabin, in the sterncastle.

McAllister: But in an area where we have already worked?

Mathewson: We don't know that - it is probably safe to say only that there probably would not be appreciable amounts of great concentration of silver coins in the "Bank of Spain" area. Gene has a good thought concerning the timing from the salvage camp in the Marquesas to the site of the wreck. This is important because it tends to make the outer reef and parts of Hawk's Channel too far away from the salvage camp.

McAllister: But they only had a month before the second hurricane storm hit. After the second blow this may have been the stuff they found - that they were salvaging.

Lyon: They were searching in deep water - they knew where the hull of the ATOCHA was; they knew it was confined by an area from 6-10 brazas - that's the area they were sweeping looking for ATOCHA.

McAllister: Let's go back - she hit somewhere - she sank in 54' of water. One month later she was broken up, and prior to the break up all they got were 2 cannons and they saw the decks - after that we don't know where she is, but they spent 7 years working the MARGARITA and looking for ATOCHA.

Lyon: I think its got to be in here by the patch reef, because they were examining an area that was 6 brazas (or 34'-55) in depth and you don't find that kind of area on the outer reef.

Mathewson: And the other point is they were sailing out from the salvage camp on the Marquesas, taking 3 hours sailing out and 7 hours rowing back. How could they get way out here?

McAllister: Yeah, but they only had one month to work here.

Lyon: They only worked one day out here.

McAllister: And the rest of the time they were where they found some stuff and its very likely if the hull broke up and came up here, and hit somewhere and then tumbled and scattered debris that there were floating spars with lines attached, and superstructure.

Lyon: The two areas must be the same. Where they originally found the hull and marked it and where they came back to look later. That must eliminate the outer reef. If we have just eliminated the outer reef and Hawk's Channel - now we're talking about the patch reef and the area between the patch reef and the Quicksands.

And on this note, with no good resolution of the problem we adjourned the meeting. The rest is history!



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