Diamond (ship)

Coordinates: 52°31′12″N 4°32′28″W / 52.520°N 4.541°W / 52.520; -4.541 The Diamond was a three masted square rigger. She was one of the first ships to operate a regular service for passenger and cargo between Britain and the United States of America. She was built in New York in 1823 and was later alleged to be one of the first American ships to be built with a composite (wood and iron) hull but this was without corroborated evidence. She sank en-route to Liverpool from New York on January 2, 1825 in Cardigan Bay. The wreck site was discovered in 2000 and was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 on April 1, 2002 (as a result of misinformation), the first such designation to be made by the National Assembly for Wales.

Construction and sailing life

When the Diamond was built in 1823, shipbuilding was at a time of rapid technological change. New materials and shipbuilding techniques were being used and ships of this period show many variations. The Diamond was alleged (without evidence of any kind), to be the oldest known example of a composite American hull, where a timber frame and plank construction is reinforced with iron frames. The hull was also sheathed in copper - to protect the timber planking from attack by marine organisms and reduce drag. This has proved to be totally false and without foundation. She is in fact a standard built vessel of the age constructed from white oak and locust wood sheathed in normal copper sheets fastened with copper tacks.Lloyd's register of shipping 1823-1825

At 120 ft 9inslong, she was the forerunner of the Ocean liners that would later regularly cross the Atlantic throughout the nineteenth and early/mid twentieth centuries.

Wrecking, discovery and protection

The Diamond sailed on her last voyage from New York on December 12, 1824, captained by Henry Macy. She was bound for Liverpool with about 30 passengers and a cargo of cotton, potash and apples. She also carried international mail. On January 2, 1825, she struck a notorious reef, St. Patrick's Causeway, (St. Badrig reef) in Cardigan Bay and sank in 14 meters. her masts and spars were therefore out of the water and in plain sight. Most of the passengers were saved by the lifeboats that rowed from Barmouth to save the casualties. In 2000, two local divers and amateur archaeological historians, Tony Iles and his daughter Helen, found the wreck through magnetometer survey. On diving the site, they found wooden frames reinforced with iron. They conducted a preliminary survey which showed the wreck to be in excess of 150 feet long and reported the find to CADW. They recovered Muntz Metal pins and sheathing from the wreck. Muntz metal came to be known as "Yellow Metal".^[1] Initially investigated by the Archaeological Diving Unit, in support of the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, using side-scan sonar and ROV, As a result of various erroneous claims and uncorroborated information from a 3rd party to CADW stating that the Diamond was of an early composite hulled vessel, (now proved, after eight years if intensive, painstaking and detailed research, to be false) the site was evaluated for designation under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Despite the obvious physical anomalies on the site survey with the known information of the Diamondand the disputed information of its construction. CADW erred on the side of caution, and the wreck site was designated on April 1, 2002, as the Diamond. This was the first designation in Wales since powers were devolved to the National Assembly for Wales and hence the first designation by a Welsh statutory instrument. This has prevented all recreational divers, other than those listed under the relevant licences, in diving the site or wreck.

Further investigation

Ian Cundy of the Malvern Archaeological Diving Unit was granted a licence to investigate the wreck site in July 2002. His findings cast serious doubt on whether the designated wreck site is that of the Diamond, as it appears to be that of a larger and later (unidentified) vessel. The wreck appears to be 160 ft long (49 m), and there are discrepancies between samples of the materials (timber and hull sheathing) recovered from the site and those listed as used in the Diamond. Samples stamped Muntz Metal are scattered on the site, and these were not patented until 1832, several years after the loss of the Diamond. Dendrochronological samples (2006) taken from the main ribs and professionally analysed show that the wood was still growing at the time the Diamond was wrecked (1825) and was not felled until around 1840. Cardigan Bay has been the graveyard of so many ships that identifying possible other candidates for the designated wreck site, and excluding the rest, may take some time. A full and complete

dissertation on this research has determined that this site is NOT that of the Macy's family vessel known as the Diamond (UCL 2009). The project to identify this shipwreck is still ongoing.

See also

• List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act
• Archaeology of shipwrecks
• Lloyd's register of Shipping 1823-1825

References

1. ^ McCarthy, Michael (2005). Ships' fastenings: from sewn boat to steamship. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 115. ISBN 1585444510, 9781585444519. 

• Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Annual Report 2005

retrieved 2007-07-26

• [1]
• English Heritage Maritime Archaeology Publications for ACHWS annual reports, guidance on historic wrecks and other relevant material
• Cadw website information about the protection of wrecks and other maritime sites in Wales
• Historical list of ship arrivals in Canada
• Vessel losses in Tremadog Bay and on The Causeway

External links

• Lloyd's Register
• [2]