Blackbeard wreck yields artefacts

A team of divers are raising new artefacts from infamous pirate Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

The wreck was found a little more than a mile off a beach in North Carolina, USA in 1996 by a private salvage company.

The 300-ton vessel was a man-of-war built in England in 1710 and originally named the Concord. In short fashion she was captured by the French in 1711, modified to hold more cargo, including slaves, and renamed La Concorde de Nantes.

Sailing as a slave ship, she was captured by the pirate Captain Benjamin Hornigold in November 1717, near the island of Martinique. Hornigold turned her over to one of his men – Edward Teach, better known as fearsome pirate Blackbeard – and made him her captain.

Teach renamed her the Queen Anne’s Revenge and it served as part of a four-vessel pirate flotilla when it ran aground in 1718 beside the inlet leading to Beaufort and was abandoned.

Since the wreck’s discovery more than 15,000 artefacts have already been salvaged, including slave leg irons, a ship’s anchor, and weighing scales.

Divers are currently working to recover a 1.1-ton cannon, the 14th cannon to be preserved since the wreck was discovered.

Born in Bristol but operating in the Caribbean, Teach himself has a formidable reputation and image – cultivated largely by himself as a tool to get what he wanted without violence.

Nonetheless the Governor of Virginia ordered his demise, and an outfit of soldiers tracked him down and killed him in a close-quarter battle in 1718.