Queen Anne's Revenge's Anchor To Be Raised Today

Courtesy of Queen Anne's Revenge Project and The News & Observer


Archaeologists plan to raise one of Blackbeard's anchors one last time today, yanking one huge pirate artifact from the sea floor in hopes of getting at some of the tiniest.

By chance, the operation to lift the largest artifact yet recovered from the wreck of the notorious pirate's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, comes just in time to draw attention to a new exhibit about the ship scheduled to open in two weeks at the nearby state maritime museum in Beaufort.


The nearly 3,000-pound anchor was among four carried aboard the ship. To safely position it for lifting today, divers used air bags to float it off the bottom Wednesday and shifted it just off the wreck site, which lies off Atlantic Beach.



Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/05/27/1229606/rising-popular-tide-lifts-blackbeards.html#ixzz1NYZGNjjX

Divers had planned to recover the second-largest artifact on what's believed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge but discovered it was too well-attached to other items in the ballast pile, said project manager Mark Wilde-Ramsing. Instead, they pulled up another anchor that is the third-largest artifact and likely was the typical anchor for the ship.

-snip-

The anchor is 11 feet, 4 inches long with arms that are 7 feet, 7 inches across. It was covered with concretion -- a mixture of shells, sand and other debris attracted by the leaching wrought iron -- and a few sea squirts. Its weight was estimated at 2,500 pounds to 3,000 pounds.

The anchor's size is typical for a ship the size of the Queen Anne's Revenge, while the two other anchors probably were used in emergencies, such as storms, Wilde-Ramsing said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-naw-blackbeard-anchor-20110527,0,6892753.story