Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Raising of Queen Anne's Revenge's Anchor

On Friday May, 27th, I was honored with the opportunity to represent the Governor's Eastern Office for a special moment in history.  This is this blog post I wrote for the Governor's webpage...

In 1718, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, ship of Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, ran aground on a sandbar near Beaufort Inlet.  On Friday, May 27, 2011, the anchor of that same ship was raised from the sea floor, entering the North Carolina sun for the first time in nearly 300 years. 

The anchor broke the surface of the Atlantic Ocean a little after eleven o’clock on Friday morning.  On the scene were two ships from the Queen Anne’s Revenge Project.   One of these boats had onboard a team of divers that were responsible for first moving the anchor out of the ship wreckage, and then raising  the one ton object twenty feet to the surface with the aid of inflatables.  Having done so, divers ran a line connected from the anchor to a larger ship which was then able to hoist the anchor onto its deck.  Looking on from two boats were invited guests from pertinent North Carolina museums and agencies, as well media personnel.

The raising of the Queen Anne’s anchor is one of the high points in the midst of the larger Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR) project.  The QAR Project is a coordinated undertaking involving a number of individuals, organizations and institutions under the overall management of the Division of Archives and History's Office of State Archaeology.  The wreck was first discovered in 1996, and state planners hope to have the whole wreck brought to the surface by 2013.

For more information regarding the Queen Anne’s Revenge Project, please visit its website at http://www.qaronline.org/. 

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