A SHIPWRECK from 300 years ago found off the Norwegian coast is no longer shrouded in mystery and found to have “ignored” British Empire laws.
The Providentz was first discovered by divers in Mandal, south Norway back in 2020 – but new research sheds light on how the ship may have sank.
It’s thought the ship from Cork, Ireland, sunk to a watery grave in 1721 when its pilot blamed a drunk and disorderly crew for the disaster.
Nobody died on the ship but it was left with a hole in her port side and eventually lost to the sea.
New analysis reveals that the Providentz’s owners probably flouted the laws of the British Empire – and blames the wreckage on the pilot rather than an inebriated crew.
The boat embarked on the final leg of its journey on November 9, 1721, leaving Mandal under the guide of a local pilot.
It was bound for Arendal, Norway, with a cargo of butter, corn, grain, and malt when it stopped near Mandal on October 16 to wait for better weather.
Archaeologist Sarah Fawsitt from the Norwegian Maritime Museum, said: “The most likely cause of the sinking was the confusion between the Norwegian pilot and the crew.
She explained: “The most likely cause of the sinking was the confusion between the Norwegian pilot and the crew.
“The pilot told the crew to steer to starboard when he should have said steer to port. The crew followed his directions and crashed into the coast.”
He then blamed their drunkenness for a lack of coordination.
Sarah added: “The crew were waiting for more favourable weather for 13 days – it is not unreasonable to expect that they were drinking during that time.
“Crossing the North Sea must have been terrifying and it is understandable that the crew would have wanted to let off some steam when they arrived in safer waters.
“My colleague, Jørgen Johannessen, has been studying this very phenomenon and has found evidence of sailors partying in other similar harbours around the Norwegian coast.”
The museum’s dendrochronological analysis – or tree ring dating – also suggests that the ship’s owners were flouting rules of the British Empire they were bound by.
The British government banned the buying of foreign ships “in an effort to stop this flow of money out of the empire”, she added.
However, British merchants tended to prefer Dutch-built vessels as they required fewer crew to sail.
But the Providentz was made with German wood, and iron bolts – a feature of Dutch shipbuilding not yet practised in the British Isles.
The ship’s owners were the Lavitts – a powerful family in Cork who Sarah suspects would have gotten away with breaking the law.
She said: “This is a significant find as we know that it was illegal at the time to buy ships outside of the empire.
“I believe the Lavitt family obtained the ship outside of the law.
“There were very strong ties between Cork and the Netherlands during this period… the potential for ties between the Netherlands and the Lavitt family is high.
“Meanwhile, the potential for the British authorities to identify their ship, sailing from Cork to Norway, seems quite unlikely.
“With the Lavitt family being one of the most important families in Cork, they wouldn’t have faced any scrutiny there.
“There is also evidence that British shipbuilders had started copying the Dutch style of building.
“So it is possible that even in a port closer to the British seat of power, it wouldn’t be possible for authorities to differentiate a British from a Dutch ship.”
Her team dated the wood from the boat to find it was only two years old at the time of the wreckage.
Sarah said: “It was known that the Providentz sank in the area, so it was the first conclusion that the divers from Mandal dive club jumped to.
“Our plan was to take some wood samples to run a dendrochronological analysis on them.
“The hope was that the year the wood was felled would be reasonably close to the year we knew the ship sank, and not later than that date of course.
“When the dates came back on the wood, they showed the ship was only two years old when it sank in 1721.”
The archaeologists used tree ringing to confirm that the boat found by divers in 2020 was the Providentz.
“Before we had even taken the boat’s wood samples, two clay pipes were found on the wreck with ‘Cork’ embossed on their sides.
“So we felt very confident at that point that is was the Providentz.”
