Belfast Area High School students in Chip Lagerbom and Genna Black’s Marine Studies class recently visited a foreshore shipwreck here in Belfast as part of their unit on Maritime Archaeology. Foreshore wrecks are accessible and can be visited at low tide, according to Lagerbom.

The class arrived with an underwater metal detector to record iron ship spikes among the wooden futtocks or stringers as well as those along the keelson and keel, the backbone lengths of wood that hold a ship together. They also were responsible for photos, sketches, field notes and collection of artifacts.

Students were tasked with creating hypotheses as to the kind or type of vessel, what it was used for, its age, and its fate…how it ended up where it is. Then they are to provide evidence they researched, found, recorded or collected that supports their hypotheses as well as produce a detailed scale drawing of the wreck’s current status.

This has been an LTR or Long Term Research project visiting this particular wreck for over fifteen years and is now part of the Belfast Marine Institute’s initiative called the Floating Classroom, to get students involved in, on and under the waters of Penobscot Bay.

For more information or to contact the Belfast Marine Institute visit (https://bahsmarineinstitute.rsu71.org/).