Galleon yields 'great' finds

The wreck has been surveyed and excavated this year off Nagua, near the entrance of the Boba River. It has been dated to the 1690s.

Francis Soto, Technical Director at Dominican Underwater Heritage, told the daily Listin Diario newspaper that the wreck has yielded a “variety of pieces” amounting to “a great discovery”.

Finds include sword sheaths and handles, a pistol, other military hardware, silverware, silver coins and bronze candlesticks.

Personal effects include varied ornaments, buckles and a number of jewels, including an eight-diamond ring.

Items which might have helped to identify the vessel, but which so far have not done so, are a bell dated 1693 and plates with manufacturers’ crests including lions, castles and fleurs-de-lis (stylized lilies or irises).

Found in a deck timber is the inscription “Soli Deo Gloria” (“Glory Only to God”). It is being researched as a possible ship’s name, although its role as a mantra is the other clear possibility.

Interesting navigational finds have been the ship’s compass, sounding lines for determining water depth, and equipment used to measure speed.

In the late 17th century, navigators determined ship’s speed by casting from the stern a weighted wooden panel. An attached line carried regularly spaced knots.

By counting the number of knots which ran out over the stern in a given time, usually a 30-second period measured by sand glass, speed could be calculated.

The technique is how ship’s speed, in nautical miles per hour, came to be termed “knots”.

Working with Dominican Underwater Heritage has been a team of researchers from US-based Marine Exploration, which specialises in professional marine archaeological services.

The bell was found and raised back in 1983, but it was not until this year that full-blown survey and excavation of the wreck’s structure and contents took place.