Shoals Club Wreck

On 2/16/2022, Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) staff visited Bald Head Island to investigate a wooden wreck that had eroded out of the dune in front of the Shoals Club. The wreck fragment measured about 65 ft in length by 11 ft max width and was positioned with the long axis running perpendicular to the dune in a N/S orientation. It was not clear what type of vessel the irregularly shaped wreckage originally was. It exhibited a heavily built keelson of four 12-inch squared timbers and sister of two similar squared timbers, all fastened together by massive 1.5-inch iron drift pins with washers under the mushroomed head. This structure was fastened to athwartship running floors beneath the keelson structure. These were squarely cut on the west side of the “keelson structure” (KS) about 4’ at the extreme south end of the vessel running to flush at the extreme north end. This model was constructed by David Cranford and Stephen Atkinson with 446 photos using Agisoft Metashape software. (Credit: NCDNCR/OSA)