Team Examining Gulf Shipwreck Find Two Others-- Part 2

The ships initially explored had six cannons and may have had two masts.  They were copper-clad, 84-feet long with a 26-foot beam.

The survey was done because in 2011, Shell Oil notified the Interior Department that they were going to drill in the area.

OTHER HISTORIC SHIPWRECKS FOUND IN THE AREA

 In 1995, after a ten year search, archaeologists of the Texas Historic Commission found one of French explorer LaSalle's vessels in a coastal bay between Galveston and Corpus Christi.  The LaBelle sank in a storm in 1686.

--Cooter

The Wreck of LaSalle's Ship, La Belle-- Part 2

Jan. 1685-- After five months, LaSalle lands just west of the Mississippi River. Incertain of his location, he sails west and mistakes Matagorda Bay as the western arm of the river. The land was described as having lots of bison, fish and fowl.

Jan. 1686-- A north wind blows La Belle across the bay and she runs aground stern first and sinks.

March 1867-- LaSalle is murdered by his own men near the Trinity River in Texas.

THE COFFERDAM

A $1.4 million dollar cofferdam around the little La Belle was huge compared to the little shop. It consisted of two concentric octagonal walls of interlocking steel plates sunk 40 feet below the bay floor and rising to about 6 feet above the water.

Always Interested in Sunken Ships. --Cooter

The Wreck of LaSalle's Ship, La Belle-- Part 1

From the May 1992 National Geographic Magazine.

I'd heard of the explorer LaSalle and knew he sailed for France, but beyond that didn't know a lot about him.

On July 24, 1684, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle sailed from France to the New World with four ships and 300 men and women with the intention of establishing a colony and port at the mouth of the Mississippi River to establish permanent French domination of the waterway.

Earlier, he had become the first European to travel the length of the Mississippi, but he was not so successful this time, overshooting the river by 400 miles, losing his ship, the Belle, and his whole settlement.

The wreck of his 45-ton barque longue ship has been discovered in 1995 in Matagorda Bay, Texas, in 12 feet of water and excavated. Shrimpers had snagged their nets on the wreck for decades. A cofferdam was built around it and water pumped out, making it the first dry-land excavation of an offshore wreck in the Western hemisphere.

Always Interested in Discovered Shipwrecks. --Cooter

The mud in the bay has preserved the wreck more than could be hoped for.