Exhibit will highlight work by Mystic-based deep-sea exploration and engineering firm
Mystic — Last month, the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, which has offices at Mystic Seaport Museum and a design and manufacturing facility at Quonset Point, R.I., played a central role in the discovery of the wreck of the only whaling ship known to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.
GFOE founder Dave Lovalvo said Monday that his firm designed, built and operated the underwater vehicles used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Okeanos Explorer that found the wreck of the Industry last month. In addition, GFOE also filmed the wreck and operated the telepresence technology, which uses satellites to transmit live images and videos.
Lovalvo said his organization was testing out a new camera system it developed with Canon on a shakedown cruise before this year's fieldwork began, as well as technology that allow it to operate underwater robots and vehicles from its Quonset Point facility, when it found the wreck of the Industry, which sank in 1836.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had identified the target as a possible shipwreck in 2011 while surveying for oil leases, which is why the Okeanos Explorer went to the site. It found the wreck in 6,000 feet of water about 70 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
"We were hoping it was a shipwreck," Lovalvo said. "Once we filmed what was there and gave it to the archaeologists, they were able to identify it."
An exhibit about GFOE's role in the discovery of the wreck is now slated to open in the Clift Block Building at Mystic Seaport in May. In addition, visitors will be able to watch a livestream of GFOE's May expedition, called "Valor in the Atlantic," on an 85-inch monitor.
That expedition will explore historic shipwrecks from the U.S. Civil War, such as the ironclad USS Monitor, as well as wrecks from World War I and the World War II Battle of the Atlantic, in which German U-boats attacked Allied merchant vessels resulting in a large number of WWII shipwrecks along North Carolina's Outer Banks.
The remotely operated vehicles also will film the wide variety of fish that occupy the wrecks to help determine the importance of shipwrecks as habitats for marine life.
Other monitors in the exhibit will feature video of discoveries from GFOE's other expeditions, as well as its exploration of hydrothermal vents in Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park.
After completing its work in and around the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary of North Carolina, GFOE will travel with the Okeanos Explorer to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge off the Azores to explore hydrothermal vents that spew out 600-degree gases and minerals that result in a wide variety of coral, plants and other marine life in the area.
GFOE then will head to the California coast followed by Alaska in 2023 and the western Pacific in 2024. All those expeditions will use telepresence and satellite technology to stream videos, so scientists around the world can participate in real time.
Lovalvo said his firm continues to design new equipment and camera systems and autonomous technology.
"We're involved in anything and everything that goes in deep water," he said.
GFOE was not the only southeastern Connecticut organization involved in the search for the Industry. Research provided by Paul O'Pecko, Mystic Seaport's vice president of collections and research, also played a role in the discovery.
O'Pecko provided the discovery team with documents from the time period that provided additional context about the other types of maritime business going on in the Gulf of Mexico at the time, such as what types of vessels were used in the coasting trade and what they might be carrying. He also spent time with maritime archaeologist James P. Delgado on the museum's Charles W. Morgan, the world's last surviving wooden whaling ship, to document its tryworks, the brickwork holding the pots for boiling whale fat into oil, and other details of the ship to help identify the wreck in the Gulf of Mexico as a whaler. The detailed report about the discovery includes many references to Mystic Seaport and photos of the Morgan's tryworks.
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