Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 04:43:23 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6676461.stm
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

State Sends SOS To Restore Excavated La Salle Craft

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: State Sends SOS To Restore Excavated La Salle Craft  (Read 64 times)
0 Members and 9 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« on: March 06, 2009, 09:02:18 pm »









                                      State sends SOS to restore excavated ship



                              $1 million needed for chemicals to preserve La Salle craft






By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
March 5, 2009

 
Christobal Perez Chronicle file

Doctoral student Peter Fix works on reconstructing the hull of French explorer La Salle’s ship La Belle in a specially built tank on Texas A&M University’s Riverside campus in 2001.

Share  Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzFacebookResurrected from Matagorda Bay’s murky depths, the hull of French explorer La Salle’s 17th century ship La Belle promised to be the greatest prize in the state’s excavation of one of the world’s most important shipwrecks. Now, though, efforts to save the wooden ship’s body may founder on a unique 21st century danger — the high cost of petroleum-based preservatives.

The Texas Historical Commission, which has overseen the $8 million effort to salvage and conserve the ship and its contents, sent out an SOS Tuesday.

If an additional $1 million isn’t forthcoming, a massive chunk of the ship’s hull may fall victim to microscopic organisms and decay.

“Once you start the conservation process,” said Jim Bruseth, the commission’s archaeological division director, “you simply can’t stop. Other factors come into play — bacteria that lead to deterioration.”

At issue, Bruseth said, is preservation of a 48-by-16-foot segment of the ship’s bottom.

In better days, the small supply ship, which carried tools, trade goods and foodstuffs, was 54 feet long and 17 feet wide.

Bruseth said technicians at Texas A&M University’s Conservation Research Laboratory will need the additional chemicals by year’s end.

Toni Turner, the historical commission’s Development Director, said the agency is turning to foundations that previously supported the project and the Legislature for needed funds. “It is,” she said, “a tough time to raise money.”
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2009, 09:03:48 pm »










Museum display


Plans call for eventually displaying the hull with other artifacts from the wreck at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.

More than a million items were recovered from the wreck site, which was accessed through the use of a coffer dam that held back the bay during the first phase of the late 1990s project.

La Belle sank during a winter storm in 1686, a loss that historians say ultimately doomed French colonization efforts.

La Salle and his small fleet ended up on the Texas coast after overshooting the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The ship represents a rare example of a bark longue, a French sail-powered craft of the 1600s that combined elements of Atlantic European and Mediterranean ship-building techniques.

When immersed in saltwater for long periods, Bruseth said, wood deteriorates as its cellular structure collapses. If simply air-dried, it cracks and twists.






Reinforcing the wood


By immersing the damaged wood in waxy polyethylene glycol for several years, the wood structure is reinforced. Bruseth said this step is near completion, and the wood is ready to soak for about three more years in a more concentrated polyethylene glycol solution.

The cost of the chemical has risen “astronomically,” Turner said.

“We need thousands of pounds, truckloads,” Bruseth said of the chemical powder that is mixed with water in the preservation process.




allan.turner@chron.com
« Last Edit: March 06, 2009, 09:05:20 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy