A storm battered the whaling shipIndustryon 17 February 2025, snapping both its masts and cracking open its hull.
NOAA Ocean ExplorationTheIndustryis think to be the only whaler that sank in the Gulf of Mexico between the 1780s and 1870s .
For almost two hundred geezerhood , the taradiddle of the whaling shipIndustryand its crew was lost to the wave . Now , Industry‘s crash has been regain — and the fate of its work party revealed .
agree to theNew York Times , the wreck was first spotted in 2011 by a geological data company scanning an rock oil lease . Finding a shipwreck was not strange — they litter the sea storey — but this wreck had evidence of a tryworks furnace , which is unique to whale vessels .
NOAA Ocean ExplorationTheIndustryis thought to be the only whaler that sank in the Gulf of Mexico between the 1780s and 1870s.
importantly , of the 214 whale voyages that surpass through the Gulf of Mexico between the 1780s and 1870s , only one had drop down : industriousness . A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) remote - operated fomite post to research the shipwreck last month confirmed that the wreckage was the veracious size and build to be the lost whaling ship .
“ It ’s like chance a blank out , lost taradiddle , and being able-bodied to share , ” James Delgado , the senior frailty president of the archaeology house Search Inc. , told theWashington Post .
AndIndustryhad quite a floor to evidence .
NOAA Ocean ExplorationThe outline ofIndustry‘s hull on the ocean floor.
NOAA Ocean ExplorationThe schema ofIndustry‘s hull on the ocean story .
The 64 - foot ship was built in 1815 in Westport , Massachusetts , and spent two decade hunting spermatozoon hulk in the Atlantic Ocean , the Caribbean , and the Gulf of Mexico . According to theWashington Post , it left for its first voyage in 1816 with the instructions to “ not return to Westport without a full cargo of oil [ or ] until your supplying are expended . ”
Like many whaler , Industryhad a divers gang that include Native American , Black , white-hot , and multiracial multitude . William Cuffe , Industry‘s sailing master , was the grandson of a freed slave and the son of an abolitionist and shipbuilder list Paul Cuffe .
New Bedford Whaling Museum Library and ArchivesA sketch believed to depict theIndustry.
And brig officer Pardon Cook , William ’s brother - in - police , was a prominent mordant whaler . According toCNN , he ’s believed to “ have made the most whaling voyages of any Black person in American account . ”
ButIndustryran into trouble on May 26 , 1836 . Then , a storm in the Gulf of Mexico snapped both its masts and snap open its hull . The ship sank . And , until now , no one bang what happened to its crew .
“ If the Black crewmen had try out to go ashore , they would have been jailed under local laws , ” Delgado toldCNN , cite the “ Seamen act ” in place in many southern ports . “ And if they could not pay for their keep while in prison house , they would have been sold into thrall . ”
After identify the wreck , Delgado asked Robin Winters , a librarian at the Westport Free Public Library , to see what she could notice . Had the crew perished ? Or had pitch-dark crewmembers escaped with their lives , only to be sell into thraldom ?
New Bedford Whaling Museum Library and ArchivesA sketch believed to render theIndustry .
Winters reached out to Nantucket researcher Jim Borzilleri , who found a snip of “ maritime newsworthiness ” that contain the answer . On June 22 , 1836,The Nantucket InquirerandMirrorreported that a ship calledElizabethhad return to port with the “ crew of brigIndustryof Westport , capsized May 26 off the Balize , with 310 Bbls fossil oil onboard . ”
In other dustup , Industry‘s crowd got lucky . As they faced either death at sea or enslavement on estate , Elizabethrescued them from both circumstances .
“ This was so golden for the human onboard , ” Delgado toldCNN . To theNew York Times , he add up : “ [ T]hese ships … speak to the routine experience . And , with that , we ’re prompt that history is n’t big names . ”
In this way , Industryis much more than a cursed whaler . It ’s a snapshot of the American news report — embodying both the variety of the body politic and the nemesis of slaveholding .
“ Black and Native American account is American history , and this decisive discovery serves as an important reminder of the vast contributions smuggled and Native Americans have made to our state , ” U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves articulate in a statement release by the NOAA .
“ This nineteenth - century whaling ship will help us memorize about the lives of the Black and aboriginal American sea dog and their residential district , as well as the immense challenge they face on land and at sea . ”
After reading about the lost whalerIndustry , discover the stories of some of the mostintriguing shipwrecks from chronicle . Or , seem through this list of some of thecreepiest ghost shipsever find .
