Big Catch of Cannons at Blackbeard Shipwreck Site

The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Smilax worked with personnel from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to recover five cannons and multiple barrel hoops from the Queen Anne's Revenge in Beaufort Inlet, N.C., on Monday.

The crew of the Smilax, a 100-foot inland construction tender, worked with NCDCR divers to lift the approximately one-ton cannons aboard the Smilax using a combination of flotation bags and the ship's crane.

Five cannons, four weighing 2,000 pounds and one nearly 3,000 pounds, were lifted from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. All the cast iron cannons fired six pound cannon balls, and will bring to 20 the cannons raised from the site. This will be the biggest ‘catch’ of cannons recovered at one time.

“We think the largest of the four cannons may be of Swedish origin since the only other recovered gun this size was made in Sweden,” Project Director Billy Ray Morris observes. 

Blackbeard is known to have gathered a hodge-podge of cannons from different countries as he equipped his vessel with 40 guns. To date, 29 guns have been located at the shipwreck site near Beaufort. The research team, led by the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, has recovered artifacts from 60 percent of the site, including cannons, anchors, gold dust, animal bones, lead shot, medical and scientific instruments, and much more. Altogether about 280,000 artifacts have been recovered. Full recovery is planned by 2014. An extensive Queen Anne’s Revenge exhibit is at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

The Queen Anne's Revenge was the ship of the pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, for more than a year before the ship ran aground on the shoals in the inlet.