Black Sea Shipwrecks

[Fluffy Fishy]

Did you guys catch this?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-25/ancient-shipwrecks-found-accidentally-during-black-sea-mapping/7962270

I have a link to the daily mail too but the article was horrible and full of daily mail level "history". Anyway it looks an interesting catch.

To me the ships appear to be a Cog, some kind of merchant vessel, the 3rd picture is too close to tell but the 4th is most certainly a Galley, its also likely to originate from Italy. I would date the finds to around c1350 and I wouldn't put it past them being the wrecks caused by a confrontation during the 3rd Venetian-Genoese war(1350-55), the other possibility is they date from either the War of Curzola (1294-99) or Byzantine-Venetian war (1296-1302) but I see these as less likely from the style of the ships.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Fluffy Fishy

[SteelSandwich]

Lets set up a fund so we can employ you over there to oversee the proper reporting of the shipwrecks^^

 

We expect a full set of reconstruction plans within a few weeks time

[Ned Loe]

Lets set up a fund so we can employ you over there to oversee the proper reporting of the shipwrecks^^

We expect a full set of reconstruction plans within a few weeks time

Enjoy funny guy;) taken straight from their office.

https://imgur.com/a/ObDLw

[_Masterviolin]

Fascinating! The pictures almost indicate a sort of "Xebex" design? The stern and the luff shape of the ship says it personally, but I think I'm in the wrong era. 

[312_JS]

Just been there a week ago!

[Fluffy Fishy]

Thanks for the pic wind

Lets set up a fund so we can employ you over there to oversee the proper reporting of the shipwrecks^^

 

We expect a full set of reconstruction plans within a few weeks time

I wasn't going to but here is what the daily mail awkwardly splurged out, while I might be wrong and I can only go on what the pictures show the designs look far too early to be ottoman era, ottoman galleys looked a lot different to Italian galleys as do the various byzantine dromons. I wouldn't complain if someone wanted to send me to the black sea on a paid expedition

if you are interested I can try put some plans to what they likely would be but wind has already covered me for the merchant vessel

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3866452/The-Black-Sea-s-dead-zone-Explorers-accidentally-graveyard-40-Ottoman-Byzantine-era-shipwrecks.html

Fascinating! The pictures almost indicate a sort of "Xebex" design? The stern and the luff shape of the ship says it personally, but I think I'm in the wrong era.

You are in the wrong era but not wrong, the xebec is a direct descendant from this kind of galley they started to appear as a compromise taking some of the advantages of round ships and combining them with the advantages of galleys and long ships so a lot of the design features are similar

[SteelSandwich]

If you have some reference plans available, that would be great!

[Fluffy Fishy]

Here are some examples, the dating is a little out but shows roughly what states the ships would have been in during the time, they are Venetian examples as thats what my resources give me so the designs are going to be fairly inaccurate but close enough to give you the rough idea of what they would look like in their prime, because of the dating the records mostly come from archeological finds, either wrecks or models, so you don't have the luxury of working with lines like you would if you were eying up the usual kind of resources we get here

This is a Logonovo, the example shown is a smaller river boat but there were sea going versions like the example wind already showed us obviously fitted to being more used to the slightly choppier waters in the Mediterranean and black seas



Again this example is slightly out, its a later variant from the 15th century, a Cocca which is a variant on a Cog, all in all it would be almost indistinguishable by the untrained eye from its ancestors being built 50-100 years before it. The major differences are that it had a slightly better keel design which helped reduce rolling. The forecastle in this example is also slightly more extravagant and pronounced than its older counterparts, although this varied from ship to ship and depend a lot on who built it and their technical abilities.



This is a prime example of a Merchant Galley from 1350, they were relatively light in construction but had lots of clever ways to tie and secure cargo onto the hull in and around various oar ports and structural fastening points, when you look at this example it shows it without its cargo so it looks fairly sparse, if you want to imagine it fully loaded you can think similarly to the ship below, but imagine it being on on a ship, not a truck

This example again, perfectly dated at around 1350 shows a war galley, the differences being that there is more cover and better observation posts, this most typically resembles what I see in the example given by the picture in the article, they were fast, light and strong, centered around crossbow combat, ramming and hand to hand fighting.



Hope this gives you a better idea of what kind of ships there are down there, if I see any more articles on the project I will try and add them here, hopefully with examples of what they would like. if I have time I will also gather a bit of art to try and show them as they were too but that might take a bit more doing. as a slight end note excuse the rushed photography and the big black square shadow that is my phone, and possibly random body parts included.

Edited October 26, 2016 by Fluffy Fishy

[Werewolf]

Man.... like ghosts on the bottom, undisturbed for centuries. That is simply amazing.