- HALIFAX - A marine archeologist
has confirmed the battered and coral-covered remains of a boat on a Haitian
reef are those of a fabled Nova Scotia ghost ship.
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- "We can safely say the final resting place of the
infamous Mary Celeste has been found," James Delgado, an archeologist
with the Vancouver Maritime Museum, said in a release yesterday.
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- Mr. Delgado was able to identify the fragmented wreck
because the wood from its decomposed hull came from tree species found
in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia forests. He cited other evidence, including
the fct the wreck was sheathed in brass, which began to replace copper
on the hulls of ships in the 1850s.
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- The cargo ship was built in 1861 in Spencer's Island,
a village on the Chignecto peninsula about 125 kilometres northwest of
Halifax. The two-masted brigantine gained notoriety after it was found
eerily empty in mid-ocean while sailing in the Azores in 1872. The fate
of the crew has never been determined.
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- The ship sailed for 12 years under different owners after
the abandonment until she got stuck on a reef at the western end of Haiti
near Port-au-Prince.
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- Mary Celeste's last captain loaded her with a cargo of
rubber boots and cat food before deliberately running her aground on Rochelais
reef and then filing an exorbitant insurance claim for an exotic cargo
that never existed.
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- When the captain tried to scuttle her on the Haitian
reef, the boat stayed afloat, permitting insurance inspectors to board
it and prove the cargo was worthless. The captain and first mate were convicted
of insurance fraud.
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- John Davis, president of the documentary film company
Eco-Nova productions, says his company knew the location of the reef from
insurance company records. The Mary Celeste was discovered partially embedded
in a small, inhabited island -- roughly the size of a football field --
created by millions of conch shells.
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- On April 7, the wreck hunters located a ship about 33
metres long and eight metres wide, almost identical to the original ship's
dimensions.
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- Last week, Mr. Delgado wrote a letter giving his professional
opinion that the ship was, indeed, the Mary Celeste, basing his conclusions
on the identification of the wood species by David Etheridge, a wood scientist
from Victoria.
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- "Delgado has staked his professional reputation
on this being the Mary Celeste," Mr. Davis said.
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- The Nova Scotian documentary-maker said he was excited
by the discovery because he'd grown up reading stories about the boat in
books about Maritime mysteries.
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- "This is the quintessential ghost ship. It's a Nova
Scotian story I've heard since I was a little kid. The mystery excites
me."
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- http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.html?f=/stories/20010807/638226.
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