MYSTIC, Conn., USA – A group of researchers will travel from Connecticut and Virginia to North Carolina this week to map the wreck of the USS Monitor, the famed Civil War gunboat that sank in a storm during the Civil War.
The mapping project, parts of which will be broadcast live, starts Monday in the waters off Cape Hatteras, N.C.
It is expected to yield some of the most comprehensive information to date on the wreck, which is upside down on the ocean floor.
Dwight Coleman, director of research at the institute, said the details will be valuable as experts determine how to best preserve that wreck and others like it.
“There’s not too much information we’ll learn archaeologically, but it’s nice to document it for the future,” he told The Day of New London.
At a time when many ships were still being made of wood, the ironclad USS Monitor was the most advanced naval vessel of its time, featuring innovations such as a rotating gun turret and armor plating.
Best known for its battle with the Confederate ship Virginia in March 1862, it sank on Dec. 31, 1862, while heading south for further Civil War operations.
Sixteen of its 62 crewmen died. The rest were rescued by the USS Rhode Island, which had been towing the Monitor and helping evacuate the crew as the Monitor took on water.
In 1973, a Duke University team located the wreck in 230 feet of water about 16 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras.
In 1975, Congress created the nation’s first National Marine Sanctuary to protect the wreck and the area around it. That effort has led to the creation of 12 more sanctuaries.
Institute for Exploration President Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, has begun putting cameras in the sanctuaries so visitors to the aquarium and other institutions can view them.
That technology will be used to broadcast this week’s expedition to the Monitor’s site.
Coleman said mapping the Monitor will be a bit challenging because of the strong Gulf Stream currents and questionable weather.
Because of those currents, the team will not be using Hercules, the institute’s remotely operated vehicle.
Instead, the University of Rhode Island’s research vessel, Endeavor, will tow an underwater vehicle back and forth over the wreck site. That vehicle, known as Argus, will be outfitted with the cameras and sonar equipment usually found on the Hercules vehicle.
The sonar systems will provide three-dimensional images of the wreck, while high-resolution still images will be used to create a large photo mosaic of the ship.
That photo will be displayed in the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., when it opens a Monitor Center in March 2007.
Ballard and a team from the Institute for Exploration created a similar photo mosaic of the Titanic last summer.
Coleman said the Monitor site has not been remapped since divers removed artifacts from the site. In addition to documenting the wreck’s status, the work could help determine the veracity of reports that claim the well-explored wreck has been damaged by fishing gear, he said.
The Mystic Aquarium plans to offer live updates at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, and a program ranging from 30 to 60 minutes at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
The broadcasts and additional video footage from the ship’s cameras will also be available for viewing through a link on the aquarium’s Web site.
An interactive audience viewing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at Nauticus, on the downtown Norfolk waterfront.
“Most people are never going to get the chance to get out to the Monitor,” David Alberg, superintendent of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, told the Daily Press of Newport News, Va.. “So doing these Web casts is a great way to put them on board and see what we’re doing to protect this treasure.”
Source: starexponent.com
