Divers Find Possible Confederate Boat Near Lowry Park in Florida
At low tide, the Hillsborough River recedes enough to reveal wood beams poking through the water.
To the untrained eye, the barnacle-encrusted wood appears to be nothing more than a neglected boat mooring.
"It looks like an old dock," said Tom Wagner, spokesman for the Florida Aquarium in downtown Tampa.
The beams could be part of something far more interesting.
The planks are the remains of a ship between 80 and 100 feet long, Wagner said. A team of divers and underwater archaeologists from the aquarium that discovered the wreck near Lowry Park Zoo think it could be a sunken Confederate vessel.
Archaeologists are taking measurements and checking nautical records. Wagner said the find could be the first Confederate blockade runner, a ship designed to outrun the Union blockade of Tampa Bay, found in Florida.
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To the untrained eye, the barnacle-encrusted wood appears to be nothing more than a neglected boat mooring.
"It looks like an old dock," said Tom Wagner, spokesman for the Florida Aquarium in downtown Tampa.
The beams could be part of something far more interesting.
The planks are the remains of a ship between 80 and 100 feet long, Wagner said. A team of divers and underwater archaeologists from the aquarium that discovered the wreck near Lowry Park Zoo think it could be a sunken Confederate vessel.
Archaeologists are taking measurements and checking nautical records. Wagner said the find could be the first Confederate blockade runner, a ship designed to outrun the Union blockade of Tampa Bay, found in Florida.