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Marine Archaeology: The Search for the Bonhomme Richard

The Ocean Technology Foundation’s search for the Bonhomme Richard has been led by Melissa Ryan, President of MMC, since the project’s inception in 2005.

Depiction of the Battle of Flamborough Head, by Dean Mosher.

Depiction of the Battle of Flamborough Head, by Dean Mosher.

 

She manages all aspects of this multi-year, multi-national search for this historic wreck, which was the  flagship of U.S. Naval hero John Paul Jones.  She liaises with U.S., French, and British Navies as well as academia and private industry to establish partnerships and technology transfer opportunities. She also interfaces with U.S. and foreign Embassy staff and other high-level government officials in order to facilitate operations in foreign countries.

Over the years, the search has applied technologies such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, Remotely Operated Vehicles, magnetometers, side scan sonars, P3 Orion aircraft, the US Navy’s Submarine NR1, and deep sea divers.  View the blog for more detail on this thrilling maritime quest.  It is likely the most comprehensive marine archaeological survey being conducted, with more than 500 U.S. and French Navy personnel having participated in twelve expeditions, and hundreds more people working shoreside to make it all happen.
For more information, please visit the Bonhomme Richard Project website.  Two recent publications are available here.

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BHR Mission 2011 – on TV!

After a year in the making, and another year airing only in Canada, the 2011 Search for Bonhomme Richard is going global!  It will be featured in an episode of Mighty Ships, called “Mighty Ships: USNS Grasp” which will air on the Smithsonian Channel at:

  • 8:00pm EST Sunday 02/10
  • 11:00pm EST Sunday 02/10
  • 9:00am EST Monday 02/11

If you’re not sure whether you have the Smithsonian Channel, use the “Channel Finder” option at the top of their home page:  http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/

You can watch the trailer for the show here: http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?episode=3370276

This mission employed Navy deep-sea divers aboard the US Navy Ship GRASP (“the Navy’s Swiss army knife”) to investigate targets that were potentially the Bonhomme Richard.  The divers set records on this trip, having completed dives to 233 feet, and very few of them had ever worked in an extreme environment like the North Sea.  The producers did an excellent job of depicting what one of our BHR missions is like (ship problems, big waves, equipment failure, bad storm, adapt and overcome.)

As one of two women on board with 69 men, it was definitely an experience!  I am deeply indebted to the gallant officer who gave up his room with a private bathroom so that we ladies could live in luxury and privacy (relative terms on a ship). If I were male, I would have been in the 39-man berthing space, which looked like this:

And then there was my secret collection of Navy diver sweatshirt photos, which included this one:

I really wish I had started blogging these missions since the beginning.  Someone should really make a movie out of all this…. James Cameron, where are you?…

Hope you can tune in on Sunday. And for the record, I wasn’t crying at the end of the show, I was watching events on deck and looking into the sun, all the while being filmed and not knowing it!  But what’s TV these days without things taken out of context and made dramatic?