The search for the HMS Gaspee shipwreck begins Friday. Here's how you can watch
WARWICK — The latest search for the wreck of the HMS Gaspee is scheduled to begin Friday, and the public is invited to watch the work.
The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project will set up a research station on land near Gaspee Point on Friday, as well as position its research vessel, Norlantic, in Warwick that day.
From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, project volunteers will be at the research station to hand out literature about the search and tell visitors what is happening that day.
All work will be weather-permitting.
The Gaspee was a Royal Navy schooner enforcing British customs regulations in Narragansett Bay in 1772, and, according to Colonists, interfering with legal trade. On the afternoon of June 9, 1772, the Gaspee ran aground on what was then called Namquid Point while chasing the merchant ship Hannah up the Bay from Newport. In the early hours of the following day, a raiding party from Providence, led by the Hannah's owner, merchant John Brown, boarded the Gaspee and burned it to the waterline.
The attack on the Gaspee predated the Boston Tea Party and the Battles of Lexington and Concord in the runup to American independence.
What's left of the ship?
It is not known how much, if any, of the ship remains 250 years later. Several expeditions have searched for the ship, including a 2003 effort led by University of Rhode Island Prof. Rod Mather that found 63 "targets" with metal detectors, but little else.
The latest search is led by D.K. Abbass, of the marine archaeology project. In addition to side-scan sonar searches of the sea floor and metal-detecting magnetometers, Abbass's team will employ the latest sub-bottom profiling technology, similar to ground-penetrating radar used on land, to see what lies beneath the silty bottom.
What maritime law says: If Rhode Island finds the HMS Gaspee, do the British want it back?
The project is not expected to collect artifacts, but rather only determine whether any might be there.
In addition to searching in the water, the project will examine land-based sites near Gaspee Point.
The search is sponsored, in part, by the Providence Journal Charitable Legacy Fund.
If you want to watch
Limited parking will be available near the gate on Lane 6, which is the name of a street in Warwick. A project volunteer will be stationed near the gate from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to direct visitors to the research station.
Abbass cautions boaters to avoid the area because it could interfere with the sensitive equipment used in the search as well as pose a danger to divers examining potential research targets.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI research group to begin looking for shipwreck HMS Gaspee
