Quote: (Originally Posted by
stevechesh)
No survey will determine the name of this wreck in my opinion. It will be determined by the cargo alone, or a lucky find like a builders plate. That said, i don't think a survey is a bad idea, but if it was my project, i wouldn't get too hung up on the in depth measurement details.
I'd agree that a survey won't tell us what the wreck is. However, creating a map of the site allows us to record the other features, helps to navigate round the area, explain the site to new team members, and provide a focal point for a display/presentation of the project work.
Quote:
However, no sailing ship in the world had a 40 metre beam - You'd be looking at really no more than 10 metre beam maximum, but realistically, anything between 4 and 8 metres would be about right for a sailing ship of this time.
The extent of the site we looked at was about 40m accross - this includes certain items of cargo and rigging to the East of the main wreckage. The smaller wreckage extends well beyond that.
I'm not too hung up on exact depths. However, although the height above the sea bed won't really tell us that much in a lot of cases, it would be quite significant if trying to plot data points on distance measurements alone - the wreck sticks up about 3m or so - which is significant in the context of measurements accross a 4-10m beam (I would think that ignoring it would lead to much greater inaccuracies than chosing the less accurate method).
Quote: (Originally Posted by neilh)
presumably this is a problem that NAS would also encounter, especially around the UK. Are they interested in your findings and techniques on this project or is it more the case that typical NAS projects have enough funding and time available for it not to matter
The NAS did seem quite interested in what we were planning on doing and also in discussing how we felt (even last winter before really starting on the site) how we might need to adapt some of the techniques discussed. I think though, that the NAS is generally going to want to encourage people towards accurate survey techniques - after all it's what they're about. We have a limited time on the site (due to relatively short bottom times imposed by conditions and relatively few trips per year imposed by weather, costs etc) a more simple survey in conjunction with other activities seems a more appropriate use of this time. I think time is a more limiting factor on our dives than on many other sites the NAS might work on, both in terms of bottom time per dive and also number of dives per year. One is also clearly slower when swimming/turning etc if in doubles plus 3 stages than if just in a single.
David