A pair of divers have made an extraordinary discovery uncovered a ship belived to have been lost at sea 129 years ago.
The Escuriel dissapeared off the coast of Portreath in 1895, and has not been documented since.
She got into difficulty not far from Portreath with 20 crew on board. A life boat was launched and came to the ship’s aid.
However, not all of its crew could be saved, Cornwall Live reports.
Now, more than a century on, the shipwreck remains unphotographed and undocumented.
But keen diver Rachael Edmuns has told of how she thinks that she, and a fellow explorer, stumbled upon what they believed to be the Escuriel’s anchor this summer.
After more diving, they now believe they have also found the main wreck itself.
Rachael said: « I don’t believe anyone has taken pictures or documented it. We found the anchor a few weeks before finding the wreck. It’s still intact and covers a lot of the sea bed. »
The duo first uncovered the anchor back in May, but then struggled to find it on returning to the scene.
Later, though, they were able to return and take photos of it.
Susequently, in August, they came across what they believe to be the ship’s wreckage, and captured some amazing photos of it, as well as the surrounding sea life.
SS Escurial was an iron-built schooner-rigged screw steamer built by Alex Stephens of Lighthouse, Govan, for Raeburn and Verel of Glasgow in 1879.
On January 25, 1895, the vessel was outward bound from Cardiff.
It was carting 1,350 tons of coal for the Adriatic port of Fiume. But the weather was described as bitterly cold, and there was a threat of snow.
Unfortuntely, she suffered a fateful engine room leak that ended in the sinking.
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