CAPE RAY CONUNDRUM
Gordon Blackmore from Cape Ray, Newfoundland, Canada, was surprised to spot a long shadow just off the local beach on an early morning walk on 20 January as there had definitely been nothing like it there a few days earlier. As soon as the tide had gone out, he returned to investigate with his mother Wanda. What they found was a 24-metre-long (79ft) shipwreck that had suddenly appeared in the bay; however, it was not complete, so the original ship had clearly been even longer. Called in to investigate, Neil Burgess, president of the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, deduced that the ship was likely to date from the 1800s, as its planks were held together with wooden dowels known as trunnels that were used as nails in ships from that era. He also noted that the wreck contained copper pegs, each more than two centimetres (0.8in) wide, which had also been used to fasten the hull’s planks together – again, something indicative of a 19th century origin. “It was a fairly substantial sailing ship, bigger than a schooner, I think,” Burgess said, adding that if its hull is made of oak, which has yet to be determined, the
