Wreck of 18th-Century Warship Discovered in Florida Keys

An 18th-century warship has been discovered in the waters surrounding Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys.

The remains of the British ship, the HMS Tyger, were analyzed within the boundaries of the national park. From their observations, archeologists confirmed that the wreck was the warship long suspected to have sunk here.

Their findings were published in The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. The Tyger was built in 1647 and sank in 1742 after it ran aground on reefs around Dry Tortugas and the ship became stuck, the study said.

At the time of its sinking, the ship had been on patrol during the War of Jenkins' Ear, which occurred between Britain and Spain from 1739 to 1748. The remains were first found in 1993 but were not confirmed to be the Tyger until now.

The most recent analyses of the wreck site gave "definitive evidence" that this was the long-lost warship, the National Park Service said in a statement.

The site was surveyed in 2021 by archeologists from Dry Tortugas National Park and the National Park Service's Submerged Resources Center and Southeast Archeological Center.

They discovered an abundance of evidence, including five cannons 500 yards from the original wreck and logbooks that detailed how the ship ran aground, the study reported.

The logbooks say that when the ship ran aground, the crew "lightened her forward" and briefly refloated the vessel before it sank in shallow water. It also appears that the cannons were British and had been thrown overboard when the ship first ran aground on the reefs.

All of these finds provide evidence of the HMS Tyger.

"Archeological finds are exciting, but connecting those finds to the historical record helps us tell the stories of the people that came before us and the events they experienced," Dry Tortugas Park Manager James Crutchfield said in a statement. "This particular story is one of perseverance and survival. National parks help to protect these untold stories as they come to light."

Following the wreck, the 300 members of the vessel spent 66 days stranded on Garden Key, which at the time was a deserted island, according to the National Park Service.

They suffered from severe heat, mosquitoes and thirst while trying to escape and even built vessels from the driftwood of the wreckage.

During their escape attempts, they also tried to find any Spanish vessels in the area. Eventually, they burned the Tyger's remains to ensure it did not fall into the hands of the Spanish. Their makeshift vessels were then used to travel through enemy waters in a 700-mile journey to Port Royal in Jamaica, the National Park Service said.

"This discovery highlights the importance of preservation in place as future generations of archeologists, armed with more advanced technologies and research tools, are able to reexamine sites and make new discoveries," Josh Marano, the maritime archeologist who led the team that made the discovery, said in a statement.

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