photo by deborah marx
Vicar of Bray remains unvisited and undocumented. George Belcher’s visit disclosed significant changes in the vessel since 1979, including the collapse of portions of the hull, and the seeming disappearance of the port hull between the waterline and the main deck. His visit and those observations sparked our recent project. As we made our preparation to go, we received reports that the remaining above-water parts of Vicar of Bray had broken apart during a storm and collapsed into the water. One deck beam floated ashore and was recovered by staff from the Falkland Islands Museum. A few months later, in February 2017, our team from Washington, DC; Duxbury, Massachusetts; Austin, Texas; and San Francisco assembled in Punta Arenas,
34
Chile. There, we were joined by Robert Delgado, a long-standing supporter of his son’s archaeological endeavors. We then flew to the wind-swept Falklands, where we were joined by local historian and wreck-diver David Eynon. We met with John Smith, former director and historian of the Falkland Islands Museum; with Governor-General Colin Roberts; and with Andrea Barlow, the current director of the Historic Dockyard Museum, (formerly the Stanley Islands Museum) and Alison Barton, museum manager. Our group then journeyed by Land Rover out of Stanley to Goose Green. Gearing up in our dry suits, we waded into the cold waters of the South Atlantic and spent the next few days documenting Vicar of Bray’s toppled upper and lower hull sec-
tions. Vicar of Bray is not dead yet. The vessel has undergone a metamorphosis into what we’d all call an amazingly well-preserved shipwreck. The lower hull is solid, intact above the turn of the bilge and still sheathed. No longer rising above the water, Vicar of Bray has nonetheless survived. The upper structure that had recently collapsed was still all there, lying on top of the lower hull. What is missing are the timbers “between wind and water” that once connected the upper works to the rest of the hull—the decks and the masts. Comparing what we saw with other wooden shipwrecks we’ve examined around the world in more temperate environments, what we can say is that the processes by which Vicar of Bray went from ship to hulk, and from hulk to shipwreck, reflect the influence of both environment and people. When the owners of Vicar of Bray, by then a hulk, moved the ship from Port Stanley to Goose Green, they scuttled the old barque in place. Set into the bottom and with the sea running in and out of the lower hold, Vicar of Bray would have deteriorated quickly in warmer waters rife with wood-eating marine organisms. Thanks to effects of climate change, these worms have since infiltrated Stanley Harbor, but they are not yet at Goose Green, only sixty miles away. Fortunately, the protected cove in which Vicar lies protects the timbers from prevailing wind-driven waves, but wave action from passing vessels still jostles the hull, as do floating debris and boats that bump into it from the occasional use of the adjoining wharf. Additionally, dry rot and generations of birds depositing guano into the upper works weakened Vicar of Bray until, at last, the eroded frames, exposed to the sea, could hold no more. Vicar of Bray’s longevity is also hypothesized to be a result of the extensive wrought-iron hanging, lodging, and other knee components and supports that made it so strong and successful during its working life. In other parts of the world where we have dived on wreck sites of ships similar A portion of Vicar of Bray’s hull planking and frames that once rose above the water line have collapsed onto its lower hull. Bent— yet unbroken—malleable iron frames keep the pieces from drifting away. SEA HISTORY 162, SPRING 2018