Explorer Says He Found Pirate Ships, Treasure Fleet Of French Warships Sank In 1678 Off Venezuela
More than three centuries after a fleet of French warships and pirate ships struck a coral reef off Venezuela and sank, an American explorer thinks he has found part of the wreckage and its treasures.
If so, it would be only the second documented discovery of a pirate shipwreck in the world, said the finder, Barry Clifford, of Cape Cod, Mass.
Clifford said he found the wreckage of two ships under 30 feet of water on a four-day expedition this week. The team included Maxwell Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, and two of his college chums - the sons of authors Norman Mailer and Stanley Karnow, both named Michael.
“We weren’t sure we were going to find anything at all, and when I got to the other side of the reef it was like a shipwreck graveyard,” said Clifford, a full-time salvager with a special interest in pirate ships. “Cannons were lying all over the place.”
Clifford thinks the wrecks were part of a fleet of 35 French warships and pirate ships sailing past Las Aves Islands off Venezuela’s coast in May 1678 on a mission to conquer the Dutch island of Curacao.
He said one probably is a French warship and might even be the flagship Le Terrible that was commanded by a French count. It was surrounded by bronze cannons, jars, buttons and tangled pieces of ornate bronze that might be from the count’s cabin.
The identity of the other vessel is unclear, although Clifford thinks it may be a pirate ship because it was surrounded by iron cannons.
Kenneth Kinkor, an expert on pirates who works with Clifford, said the disaster occurred when the count’s ship hit a coral reef in heavy seas and fired cannons as a warning.
The other captains mistakenly thought it was a signal that the Dutch were attacking and rushed toward Le Terrible, crashing into the reefs themselves.
Up to 18 ships laden with bronze cannons, swords, gold and silver sank and about 500 men drowned.
Ten of the ships that sank probably were French warships, three or four were pirate ships and the identity of the others is not clear from historical records, Kinkor said.
About 1,200 men made it to bug-infested Las Aves Islands. Over the next three months, about half died from hunger and disease. The rest were taken prisoner by the Dutch and exchanged for Dutch prisoners.
Clifford said there is little doubt the ships belong to the fleet because there are no records of another major sinking in the area other than a 17th-century pearl ship from nearby Margarita Island, two modern freighters and a modern sailboat.
He said he expects to be able to locate the other ships in the fleet fairly easily since they sank within a half-mile of one another. He plans to return to Venezuela in August with large research vessels.
“It would be very exciting” if the wreckages were from the fleet, David Cordingly, one of the top pirate experts in the world, said in a telephone interview from London. “All these wrecks that involve ships of that period tend to be accompanied by a considerable amount of treasure.”
Clifford was led to the wreck site by Venezuelan explorer Charles Brewer Carias, who said he first saw some of the ships 32 years ago. A Venezuelan conch fisherman who told Clifford he has seen hundreds of “pipes” - probably cannons - on the sea floor also helped guide him.
The exploration dive itself nearly ended in disaster when Clifford, Kennedy, the fisherman and Venezuelan explorer Charles Brewer-Carias were battered by strong currents when they swam over razor-sharp coral reefs in shallow water to reach the wrecks.
The waters were infested with sharks and barracudas, including one who bit part of the stairs off the stern of one of their boats, Clifford said.
Clifford found the first documented wreckage of a pirate ship in 1984, when he discovered the Whydah off Cape Cod.
Last year, explorers claimed they found the wreck of Blackbeard’s ship off the coast of North Carolina. But Clifford and other shipwreck-hunters doubt the vessel is the Queen Anne’s Revenge.