After nearly 300 years resting in Davy Jones' Locker, two cannons were recovered from the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of the fearsome pirate Edward Teach, commonly known as Blackbeard, according to the Jacksonville Daily News.
The Queen Anne's Revenge started life as a French slave ship named La Concorde until it was captured by Blackbeard on November 28, 1717. With a crew of only 23 sailors thanks to an outbreak of dysentery the French ship gave up without a fight to Blackbeard and his force of 150 pirates. Blackbeard only had the ship for a short time before it ran aground off the coast of North Carolina in 1718, where it remains until this day, according to the QARonline, the website for the museum dedicated to the ship.
A $450,000 expedition effort had hoped to be able to recover all eight cannon from the shipwreck this month. Until Thursday the effort had been severely hampered by bad weather that made diving conditions unsafe. The goal is to have all of the ships artifacts removed by the end of the year, reports the Associated Press.
State archaeologist Steve Claggett told the Jacksonville Daily News about how raising the two cannons eased the frustration he had with the weather previously.
"The straps (to lift them) were on and they had just been sitting there on the ocean floor, but the weather kept them from bringing them up," Claggett said. "We're all lucky to be able to be here to witness this. This day is very satisfying."
North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Secretary Susan Kluttz was witnessing her first cannon-raising and spoke with the Jacksonville Daily News about how exciting the experience had been.
"I'm so proud for North Carolina," Kluttz said. "This is such an incredible historic day for our state, and a thrill for me to see something come up from the ocean for the first time in nearly 300 years."
Researchers have identified 27 cannons at the site of the wreck, so far 15 have been raised. Each cannon is able to tell researchers a little bit more about the events that led to the Queen Anne's Revenge's shipwreck. Especially telling is which cannons were loaded and where they were positioned on the ship.
"Each one is unique," conservator Sarah Watkins-Kenney told the Jacksonville Daily News about the cannons. "If all the guns were loaded and ready to go, that's different than if they weren't."
