VERGENNES, Vt. (WCAX) – Flooding upended Vermonters’ summers last year, including research under the surface of Lake Champlain. But the shipwreck scans are now back on track.
Last summer, after July’s flooding, Lake Champlain’s waters were high. And researchers trying to get below the surface to study shipwrecks on the lake floor ran into too much silt to see. That’s what Lake Champlain Maritime Museum’s Chris Sabick told me last September after their 3D shipwreck mapping had stalled.
“We have continued to do some diving in the lake but there’s not much to see right now because of all that runoff,” Sabick said then.
Fortunately, this summer– and knock on wood– the weather has been better for exploring shipwrecks, allowing them to get to some research they couldn’t do last summer.
“We have good visibility at the moment, though, obviously, that can change pretty rapidly depending on what conditions are like for the rest of the summer,” Sabick said.
This year, Sabick says they’re full steam ahead. They’re doing 3D modeling on the Phoenix shipwreck which sank in 1819 on Colchester Shoal, and working with partners on the battlefield for the 1776 Battle of Valcour Bay.
“Looking for some artifacts that may have fallen off of the Philadelphia, the gunboat Philadelphia, when it was razed in 1934,” Sabick said.
He says they’re prioritizing shipwreck mapping and trying to get models done early in case Mother Nature unleashes her wrath again.
“We’ll just see. What’s considered normal these days is hard to say, I guess, but a little more stability in the weather pattern would be appreciated so we can get all this great work done,” Sabick said.
They were able to get some work done last summer despite the flooding, like research in Panton’s Arnold’s Bay aimed at unearthing new information about the aftermath of the Battle of Valcour Island when Benedict Arnold ditched his ships, including his flagship, the Rogue Alley Congress.
Sabick says that project is wrapping up, but they hope to continue it because, as with many archaeological projects, he says they generated more questions than answers.