A warship from 1715 has been identified in the Baltic. - video

Yesterday the Scandinavian media were abuzz with the news that the wreck of a Dutch warship which sank in the waters of the Gulf of Finland in 1715 has been identified! The group responsible for the exploration and identification is SubZone, otherwise well known to our readers from its previous discoveries or the presence of some of its members at the Baltictech conference.

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The identified wreck is the frigate ‘Huis te Warmelo’, built in Medemblik in 1708 and flying the flag of West Friesland. The ship measured 38.1 metres long and 10.8 metres wide. Made of wood, the sailing ship had three masts and was equipped with 40 to 44 guns. There were 130 sailors on board. They all died on 25 August 1715, when the ship ran aground and then sank in the deep waters of the Gulf of Finland. Today, the wreck of the vessel rests vertically on its keel at a depth of about 62 metres.

The SubZone team, in a prepared press release entitled “Yes, we have found it” (The SubZone team has prepared a press release entitled “Yes, we have found it”, pointing out the sensational state of preservation of the vessel, and we enclose photos and a video taken during the dive to confirm these words. Regular readers of our website will certainly not be surprised by the condition of the ship. The waters of the Baltic Sea are known for their sensational influence on wooden wrecks. This is a result of, among others, low temperatures, minimal access to light and very low salinity.

As we can read among the available information, the cannons are still on board, as they were 300 years ago (!) (this can also be seen in the attached photo/video documentation), and the ship itself is one of the best preserved Dutch vessels of this period in general.

Finding the wreck

The Finnish Maritime Service, while conducting routine operations, found the wreck of “Huis te Warmelo” about 10 years ago. However, it was only in 2014 that underwater archaeologists and a team of technical divers were able to dive the site to explore and collect documentation on the vessel. Among other things, the dive revealed that one of the three masts is still in place. Flooding onto the rocks and damage to the hull below the waterline was also assumed to be the most likely cause of the sinking. The next step taken by the Finns was to try to restore the identity of the wreck, which was given the working name “Kalbådagrund gunship”. To this end, a search was launched in Swedish and Russian archives. When it became clear that the ship that had been found did not belong to these countries, the information about its discovery was shared with other countries.

Unit identification

At the end of 2015, there was a sharp turnaround and efforts to identify the wreck gained momentum. All thanks to Medemblik historian Peter Swart, who found an old map indicating the position of the maritime disaster. The map also bore the inscription ‘hier is het Noord-Hollands oorlogschip op gebleven 1715’, which can be translated as ‘here lies the North Holland warship of 1715’. Combined with the information that the Dutch fleet lost only one warship in that year, the matter was heading for a simple explanation. Information such as dimensions, armament and construction characteristic of Dutch vessels made it 95% likely that we were dealing with the wreck of the frigate ‘Huis te Warmelo’, according to the SubZone research team.

Final confirmation of identity

This summer is expected to see the final act that will definitively confirm the identity of the found ship. The Finnish diving group SubZone will once again dive into the waters of the Gulf of Finland to provide irrefutable evidence that the 35-metre wreck is the Dutch frigate of Medemblik. For this purpose, among other things, wood samples will be taken to determine its age, but also all structural and gunnery details will be documented. A 3D model of the entire wreck will also be created. However, the greatest expectations are connected with the stern of the sunken ship. The traditionally highly decorative part may turn out to be the one which is decisive in the final confirmation of the ship’s name.

Source: SubZone press release