WEBVTT

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[Shannon Ricles] All right.

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Well, hi, everyone.

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Thank you so much for joining us today for our webinar,

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The Search for the USS Monitor.

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We welcome John Broadwater

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as we celebrate the 50th anniversary

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of the discovery of the Monitor in 1973.

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I'm Shannon Ricles,

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the education and outreach coordinator

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for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

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and Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary,

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and I'm gonna be one of your hosts today.

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[Mark Losavio] I'm Mark Losavio,

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the media and outreach coordinator for Monitor

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and Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary,

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and I'll be your co-host for today.

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<v ->And this is Jessie Frayser, the newest member of our team.</v>

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And now Jessie is the education

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and outreach support specialist for Monitor.

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And she just joined us last week,

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so I welcome her to our webinar series.

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Now, this webinar is brought to you

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by NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary

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in collaboration with the North Carolina

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Office of State Archaeology.

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<v ->Partnering since 1975,</v>

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NOAA and the State of North Carolina

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worked to research, honor, and protect the hallmarks of

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North Carolina's underwater cultural heritage, shipwrecks.

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These shipwrecks hold the information

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by the ever-changing technologies and cultural

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and physical landscapes.

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They serve as a uniquely accessible underwater museum

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and a memorial to generations of mariners

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who lived, died, worked, and fought off of our shores.

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This will be one of many webinars

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that we'll be hosting in the coming months and years

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for the Submerged NC Webinar series

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in collaboration with the North Carolina

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Office of State Archaeology.

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<v ->Now, Monitor is just one of 15 national marine sanctuaries</v>

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and two marine national monuments

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in the National Marine Sanctuary system.

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The system encompasses more than 620,000 square miles

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of marine in Great Lakes waters from Washington State

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to the Florida Keys and from Lake Huron to America Samoa.

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Now during the presentation,

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all attendees will be in listen only mode.

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You are welcome to type questions for the presenter

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into the question box at the bottom of the control panel

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on the right hand side of your screen.

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And this is the same area,

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you can let us know about any technical issues

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you might be having that we can help you with.

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We'll be monitoring the incoming questions

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and technical issues,

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and we'll respond just as soon as we can.

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We are recording this session,

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and we will share the recording

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with registered participants

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via the webinar archive page,

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and a URL for this page will be provided

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at the end of the presentation as well.

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<v ->So without further ado,</v>

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it is my absolute honor to welcome the former superintendent

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of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, Dr. John Broadwater.

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Take it away, and I will hand you control.

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[John Broadwater] Okay.

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Well, hello, everyone.

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Glad to have you all joining us.

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Let me see if I can get us onto my screen.

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<v Shannon>All right,</v>

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we're seeing the slideshow presentation,

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but not in slideshow mode.

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[John] Okay, we'll come up with that.

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[Shannon] There you go now.

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[John] There you go.

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[Shannon] Perfect.
[John] Okay, we're up.

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Okay, well, again, hello

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and thanks for your interest in the Monitor.

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I think this is a big job to try to squeeze into a webinar,

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but let's give it a try.

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I just wanted to warn you

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that some of this material comes from my book

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and is pretty well-researched and validated,

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but some is coming from a dim memory

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of what happened 50 years ago,

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so take that into account.

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Also, I just wanna apologize,

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trying to squeeze all this information in.

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I'm sure there are gonna be facts

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and people that don't get the recognition they deserve,

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and for that I apologize, but I'm gonna do my best.

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So I think probably most everybody tuned in

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has a pretty good idea of the significance of the Monitor,

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and why this is important,

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but I'll just give you a quick rundown.

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Monitor came so significant

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because our story begins early in the American Civil War

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because of a threat from the Confederate Navy.

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They were in the process of taking an old steamship,

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warship, US warship that had been scuttled

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and converting it to an ironclad monster

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called the CSS Virginia.

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And this is a depiction of her being converted in a dry dock

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in Portsmouth, Virginia at the Norfolk Naval Yard.

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And she put quite a fear in some of the people up north

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because it was being billed as an ironclad vessel

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that could turn away cannonballs and steam on into anything.

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And so the Navy decided they needed to do something

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to combat this new threat.

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And the Navy's answer was the USS Monitor.

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And the Monitor wasn't just any old proposal for a warship.

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In fact, she was so different.

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That's part of the reason that we're all here,

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that the Monitor was so significant.

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So why do we care so much about the Monitor?

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Well, lots of reasons but among the most important,

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Monitor's design was unique in almost every way.

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She was the prototype for all modern battleships to follow.

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Her hull was iron

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rather than the conventional wood of the day.

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Her hull was armored to a point three feet below the

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waterline, so made it very difficult for enemy shot

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to find her or find a weak spot.

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She had no mast or sails, and this was really unique.

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Up to that point,

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all warships had their primary mode of power,

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even if they had steam auxiliary,

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the primary power was sails.

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And that put you at the mercy of the weather

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when you went into an action.

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Monitor was steam-powered only.

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And her steam engine was a special type

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that the inventor John Ericsson,

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who invented the Monitor and the engine,

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it could be placed below the waterline

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where it was protected from enemy fire.

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She had an advanced screw propeller,

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which was also below the waterline and protected,

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unlike a lot of the paddle wheel steamers of the day.

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When loaded, less than two feet of her hull was exposed.

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And very uniquely the officers and crew

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all lived below the water line,

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it was almost like living in a submarine

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and very, very different from anything in the past.

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Her pilot house was a small box forward

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to the right on the slide, and it was heavily armored.

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But her most unique feature was the turret

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that sat right in the center of the ship.

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It was a cylinder 23 feet in diameter

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that could be rotated around the central pivot,

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allowing the guns to be aimed in any direction

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regardless of the heading of the ship.

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The typical warships of the day

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had to turn the entire ship to point the guns.

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And so you can see,

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this was among many, many unique features.

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And the idea of the revolving gun turret

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is still used on warships that you see today,

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so a lot of reasons to care about the Monitor.

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And part of what made her famous

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was the battle between the Virginia and the Monitor

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in Hampton Roads on March 9th, 1862.

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They battled for about four hours off and on

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and tried every angle.

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They tried shooting.

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They tried ramming

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and neither could completely overpower the other one.

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And so it essentially ended in a draw,

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but it changed the face of warfare forever.

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The sound of cannonballs bouncing harmlessly off armor

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on the other ship was the death nail

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for the wooden warship of the day,

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and neither ship fared too well for the rest of the year.

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Union troops came back into the Hampton Roads area

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and took over most of the areas

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where the Virginia could have docked.

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So she ended up being a ship without a port.

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She drew too much water to get up to Richmond.

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She was not really considered seaworthy enough to go to sea.

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And so on May 10th,

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just two months after the battle with the Monitor,

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the crew had to set her a fire and scuttle her

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near the mouth of the Elizabeth River.

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The Monitor did a little better.

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She had a really hot summer in the James River

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patrolling for the Union Navy.

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You can imagine the heat got so intense below deck,

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you had a metal ship and the heat

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and humidity of Virginia summer

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and that made for a pretty miserable cruise.

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But toward the end of the year,

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the Monitor got orders to move down

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to Beaufort, North Carolina

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to help reinforce the union blockade

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of some of the southern ports.

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Since she was so low in the water,

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her seaworthiness was always in question.

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And so it was considered important that she have a tow ship.

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And so she set off undertow

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by the side wheeler, USS Rhode Island.

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But unfortunately,

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she got caught, as so many ships have over the years,

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with a sudden gale off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

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One of the tow lines parted

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and sent Monitors sideways to the seas.

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A whole series of rescue attempts

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and recovery attempts followed.

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Most of the crew was taken off by the brave men

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who launched boats from the Rhode Island

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in these rough seas.

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But in the end,

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Monitors succumbed and sank on New Year's Eve of 1862.

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As Paymaster William Keeler wrote to his wife,

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"What the fire of the enemy failed to do,

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the elements have accomplished."

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And so sadly the Monitor was gone,

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but there were a number of searches.

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But the first question that always comes up is,

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why didn't the Navy salvage the Monitor

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if it was so important?

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Well, first of all, there's no accurate position fix.

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They'd been in the storm for several days,

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so they didn't know exactly where the ship was at the time.

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And second of all,

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they knew that it drifted in the currents

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before it actually finally sank.

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And so a good position was not available.

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But really the ultimate thing was the water was too deep.

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It was estimated to be around 300 feet deep,

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so far too deep for a salvage attempt.

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So the Monitor was lost, the war continued,

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more Monitors were built, the war ended.

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And most everybody had forgotten about the Monitor

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except for just retelling the story periodically,

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but there was never a total loss of interest

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and number of early searches took place

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before the actual discovery.

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First was the US Navy as far as we know.

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In May 1950,

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they announced that they were gonna search for the Monitor

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using the underwater object locator, Mark IV,

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we don't know exactly what that is,

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not a lot of information is available,

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but presumably some sort of sonar instrument.

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And they found several targets and one was very promising.

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They thought it looked like the right size and shape.

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But unfortunately, we haven't found any other information

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about the UOL search and the results.

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And one of the most interesting

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and one of the most famous searches

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up until recent years was Bob Marx,

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Robert Marx's expedition, the Search at Hatteras.

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He claims to have found the Monitor

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near Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in 1955,

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and I thought the story was worth a little bit more detail.

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He was a marine corporal

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stationed at Camp Lejeune in the '50s,

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and he developed a passion for finding the Monitor.

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And he's described his quest in quite a bit of detail

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in his book, "Always Another Adventure",

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which he published in 1967.

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00:13:41.912 --> 00:13:42.745
In 1954,

265
00:13:42.745 --> 00:13:45.540
Marx convinced a number of his fellow Marines

266
00:13:45.540 --> 00:13:47.760
to make weekend trips out to Hatteras,

267
00:13:47.760 --> 00:13:50.040
which wasn't too far away,

268
00:13:50.040 --> 00:13:52.830
where lots of reports suggested the Monitor lay

269
00:13:52.830 --> 00:13:56.760
in shallow water not far from Cape Hatteras Lighthouse,

270
00:13:56.760 --> 00:13:59.630
but they swam around out there

271
00:13:59.630 --> 00:14:02.283
in a number of places and found nothing.

272
00:14:03.540 --> 00:14:06.420
But there was enough interest there at Camp Lejeune

273
00:14:06.420 --> 00:14:10.110
that the officers in charge gave the team

274
00:14:10.110 --> 00:14:14.370
some extra time and leave to continue their search

275
00:14:14.370 --> 00:14:18.273
during the rest of '54 and into '55.

276
00:14:19.680 --> 00:14:23.130
At some point, Marx met a local Hatteras journalist,

277
00:14:23.130 --> 00:14:25.680
Ben Dixon MacNeill,

278
00:14:25.680 --> 00:14:28.530
who convinced him that he was on the right track

279
00:14:28.530 --> 00:14:31.530
that the Monitor lay close to Hatteras Light,

280
00:14:31.530 --> 00:14:34.980
but that it was more than a mile from the current shoreline

281
00:14:34.980 --> 00:14:36.450
and that he had seen the Monitor

282
00:14:36.450 --> 00:14:39.720
on a couple of occasions from a small airplane.

283
00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:42.510
And so they conducted a number of searches

284
00:14:42.510 --> 00:14:43.953
from a small plane.

285
00:14:45.300 --> 00:14:48.840
But one of the interesting things to note on

286
00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:53.840
this photograph is look where MacNeill is pointing.

287
00:14:54.960 --> 00:14:59.130
Here's Cape Hatteras and the shoals,

288
00:14:59.130 --> 00:15:01.320
and here's the lighthouse,

289
00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:03.150
and the area that looks like it's marked

290
00:15:03.150 --> 00:15:06.480
where they wanted to look for the Monitor,

291
00:15:06.480 --> 00:15:09.330
but actually he's got an arrow pointing out here,

292
00:15:09.330 --> 00:15:11.910
but this is darn close to where the Monitor

293
00:15:11.910 --> 00:15:12.930
was actually found.

294
00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:16.403
So what's the real story on this?

295
00:15:16.403 --> 00:15:20.673
We're not absolutely sure, but in any case,

296
00:15:22.290 --> 00:15:23.700
they did do some searching

297
00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:28.110
and then Marx enlisted another person with an airplane

298
00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:29.280
to do some more looking.

299
00:15:29.280 --> 00:15:33.000
And he reports in his book that he actually discovered

300
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:37.980
the Monitor on June 12th during an aerial survey

301
00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:39.990
near Hatteras Lighthouse.

302
00:15:39.990 --> 00:15:42.873
And here's exactly how he reports the find,

303
00:15:44.197 --> 00:15:49.197
"At exactly 11:15 AM, I saw the Monitor for the first time.

304
00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:52.860
There was no mistaking her.

305
00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:55.770
The dark oval outline of her hull,

306
00:15:55.770 --> 00:15:58.590
the circular gun turret amidships,

307
00:15:58.590 --> 00:16:01.080
and the smaller square pilothouse in her bow

308
00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:03.087
were all clearly visible."

309
00:16:03.990 --> 00:16:05.400
And this is really remarkable.

310
00:16:05.400 --> 00:16:08.880
Since we now know the Monitor lies 16 miles

311
00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:11.283
southeast of Marx's location.

312
00:16:12.510 --> 00:16:13.473
Who knows?

313
00:16:14.310 --> 00:16:17.250
A number of us have confirmed

314
00:16:17.250 --> 00:16:20.430
that there were no other Monitor type vessels

315
00:16:20.430 --> 00:16:22.650
that sank anywhere near North Carolina.

316
00:16:22.650 --> 00:16:25.690
So it was such a unique hull shape

317
00:16:27.780 --> 00:16:29.433
that leaves questions unanswered.

318
00:16:31.890 --> 00:16:33.030
Well, again,

319
00:16:33.030 --> 00:16:35.547
Marx reported this discovery to Camp Lejeune

320
00:16:35.547 --> 00:16:37.353
and that excited everybody,

321
00:16:38.280 --> 00:16:40.950
and he got even more freedom to pursue the identity.

322
00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:42.330
And Marx is quite a talker.

323
00:16:42.330 --> 00:16:45.270
He convinced LIFE Magazine to send a journalist

324
00:16:45.270 --> 00:16:47.850
and photographer to the expedition.

325
00:16:47.850 --> 00:16:49.290
And for you younger folks,

326
00:16:49.290 --> 00:16:53.070
LIFE Magazine was the magazine back then.

327
00:16:53.070 --> 00:16:55.890
And so this was quite a deal.

328
00:16:55.890 --> 00:16:59.430
And so the rest of this part of the story comes from,

329
00:16:59.430 --> 00:17:03.540
mostly from the account by life journalist, Clay Blair Jr.,

330
00:17:03.540 --> 00:17:06.780
and his book, "Diving for Pleasure and Treasure",

331
00:17:06.780 --> 00:17:09.063
which was published in 1960.

332
00:17:11.910 --> 00:17:13.770
Again, Marx being a good talker,

333
00:17:13.770 --> 00:17:17.400
he found a local coast and geodetic survey vessel

334
00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:21.630
in the area, the Stirni, and convinced the captain

335
00:17:21.630 --> 00:17:23.940
to assist them in this search.

336
00:17:23.940 --> 00:17:27.480
So some of their crew went diving for the Monitor

337
00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:30.810
and the Stirni being a survey vessel

338
00:17:30.810 --> 00:17:33.510
was able to use its equipment and personnel

339
00:17:33.510 --> 00:17:37.680
to come up with a very precise location

340
00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:40.860
of where Marx's claims that on one of his dives,

341
00:17:40.860 --> 00:17:43.800
he actually touched the Monitor's gun turret

342
00:17:43.800 --> 00:17:46.920
and there was no question the gun ports were there.

343
00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:50.730
And so they got good coordinates on this

344
00:17:50.730 --> 00:17:53.823
that proved important in future years.

345
00:17:58.350 --> 00:17:59.183
And by the way,

346
00:17:59.183 --> 00:18:03.280
no one in Marx's book or Blair's book

347
00:18:04.590 --> 00:18:07.650
made the claim that anyone else saw the turret.

348
00:18:07.650 --> 00:18:09.630
No one saw or touched the turret

349
00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:13.260
except Marx according to these accounts.

350
00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:14.730
Blair's book is pretty interesting.

351
00:18:14.730 --> 00:18:15.563
He's a journalist.

352
00:18:15.563 --> 00:18:20.510
So he describes things in a quite enjoyable fashion

353
00:18:22.230 --> 00:18:24.780
and had some very interesting photos.

354
00:18:24.780 --> 00:18:27.720
And one of my favorites being the hero pose

355
00:18:27.720 --> 00:18:32.720
with Bob Marx standing vigilantly on the rigging

356
00:18:33.030 --> 00:18:37.803
and looking out at what's being accomplished on the survey.

357
00:18:39.090 --> 00:18:41.010
Well, after a second failed attempt,

358
00:18:41.010 --> 00:18:44.190
again involving life and the Marines,

359
00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:45.540
in August,

360
00:18:45.540 --> 00:18:47.910
the team finally concluded that Marx

361
00:18:47.910 --> 00:18:49.350
had indeed seen the turret.

362
00:18:49.350 --> 00:18:51.240
He described it in such detail,

363
00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:55.856
and he had seen it from the air again in such detail,

364
00:18:55.856 --> 00:18:58.920
but before they could verify the discovery,

365
00:18:58.920 --> 00:19:02.610
a storm had shifted the sands and covered the wreck.

366
00:19:02.610 --> 00:19:03.930
Might sound implausible,

367
00:19:03.930 --> 00:19:07.200
but actually storms do shift the sands

368
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.350
around quite dramatically in the Hatteras area.

369
00:19:10.350 --> 00:19:15.350
So this was a fairly plausible explanation of what happened.

370
00:19:17.490 --> 00:19:18.780
And a lot of you know that Marx

371
00:19:18.780 --> 00:19:22.470
later became a world famous adventurer and treasure hunter,

372
00:19:22.470 --> 00:19:25.650
but he never returned to look for the Monitor.

373
00:19:25.650 --> 00:19:28.620
But his and Blair's books convinced a lot of researchers

374
00:19:28.620 --> 00:19:33.000
that the Monitor probably was there awaiting discovery.

375
00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:37.203
And this caused the launch of a number of surveys.

376
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:46.530
The most amazing series of things happened in the year 1973.

377
00:19:46.530 --> 00:19:49.803
And by this time, I was involved.

378
00:19:51.030 --> 00:19:52.830
For no apparent reason,

379
00:19:52.830 --> 00:19:56.370
at least seven different groups converged on Hatteras

380
00:19:56.370 --> 00:19:57.540
to search for the Monitor.

381
00:19:57.540 --> 00:20:00.933
And most of us were searching in the Marx area.

382
00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:06.060
In May, several midshipmen from the US Naval Academy

383
00:20:06.060 --> 00:20:11.060
dove around Hatteras as recreational dives,

384
00:20:11.220 --> 00:20:13.170
but they got fascinated by the Monitor.

385
00:20:13.170 --> 00:20:14.970
They were bitten by the bug,

386
00:20:14.970 --> 00:20:17.190
and they were inspired to develop

387
00:20:17.190 --> 00:20:19.950
an academy independence research project

388
00:20:19.950 --> 00:20:21.837
called Project Cheesebox.

389
00:20:21.837 --> 00:20:24.933
The Monitor was called the little cheesebox on a raft.

390
00:20:26.100 --> 00:20:28.590
The project was incredible.

391
00:20:28.590 --> 00:20:32.220
The midshipman did an amazing amount of research.

392
00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:35.940
They involved naval academy faculty,

393
00:20:35.940 --> 00:20:39.270
they involved other naval units who got involved.

394
00:20:39.270 --> 00:20:43.440
And a huge report was edited by Edward Miller,

395
00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:46.413
who was one of the participants and leaders.

396
00:20:48.090 --> 00:20:49.380
Well, then in July and August,

397
00:20:49.380 --> 00:20:52.560
a marine contracting company that I co-founded,

398
00:20:52.560 --> 00:20:55.290
Marine Archaeological Research Services

399
00:20:55.290 --> 00:20:58.440
teamed up with two avocational archaeology groups,

400
00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:00.930
Underwater Archaeological Associates

401
00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:03.540
and the USS Monitor Foundation

402
00:21:03.540 --> 00:21:06.660
to search the Marx location again,

403
00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:08.493
still convinced it could be there.

404
00:21:11.190 --> 00:21:13.740
Our members provided almost everything there.

405
00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:16.650
They provided boats and dive gear.

406
00:21:16.650 --> 00:21:20.190
And the head of our group, Charlie Perry,

407
00:21:20.190 --> 00:21:21.960
was a pretty amazing talker.

408
00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:24.300
He was able to convince companies

409
00:21:24.300 --> 00:21:28.050
to loan us state-of-the-art survey equipment.

410
00:21:28.050 --> 00:21:32.130
We had a client associate side scanning sonar

411
00:21:32.130 --> 00:21:37.130
and two precision magnetometers for locating metal objects.

412
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:40.650
And since I had an electronic background,

413
00:21:40.650 --> 00:21:45.240
I was sort of the obvious one to try to run the sonar.

414
00:21:45.240 --> 00:21:47.790
And so Marty Klein,

415
00:21:47.790 --> 00:21:52.560
who is the inventor of the first commercial side scan sonar,

416
00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:55.590
was generous enough to invite me up to his factory

417
00:21:55.590 --> 00:21:59.430
in New Hampshire for a very busy week of training.

418
00:21:59.430 --> 00:22:02.880
And I'm grateful to Marty to this day

419
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:06.630
for all his support getting me ready to operate

420
00:22:06.630 --> 00:22:08.433
this sonar independently.

421
00:22:10.290 --> 00:22:13.320
Well, we searched a nine square mile area,

422
00:22:13.320 --> 00:22:17.370
huge area centered on the Marx coordinates,

423
00:22:17.370 --> 00:22:18.840
but we didn't find the Monitor.

424
00:22:18.840 --> 00:22:22.890
In fact, we didn't find any wreckage of any size

425
00:22:22.890 --> 00:22:26.190
either with the sonar or the magnetometers.

426
00:22:26.190 --> 00:22:29.730
No large object, no other type of vessel,

427
00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:32.940
nothing that would indicate that any large vessel,

428
00:22:32.940 --> 00:22:37.503
much less the Monitor had ever sunk in this general area.

429
00:22:38.700 --> 00:22:40.110
So between surveys,

430
00:22:40.110 --> 00:22:43.590
we tried to console ourselves by having a little fun.

431
00:22:43.590 --> 00:22:48.450
Here, we hung Marty Klein's sonar tow fish

432
00:22:48.450 --> 00:22:52.050
on the rack that's used to usually hang your billfish

433
00:22:52.050 --> 00:22:56.670
that you just caught out in the Hatteras waters.

434
00:22:56.670 --> 00:23:01.670
And that's one of my favorite photos to remember the day.

435
00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:03.033
That's me in the center.

436
00:23:06.090 --> 00:23:07.653
But the year continues,

437
00:23:08.683 --> 00:23:12.060
we were out on our boat in July

438
00:23:12.060 --> 00:23:15.540
and a low flying plane caught our attention,

439
00:23:15.540 --> 00:23:19.620
this huge aircraft flying at a very low altitude

440
00:23:19.620 --> 00:23:20.490
shot over us.

441
00:23:20.490 --> 00:23:23.580
And several of us knew that it was a P-3 Orion,

442
00:23:23.580 --> 00:23:27.750
which was the Navy's premier submarine hunting aircraft

443
00:23:27.750 --> 00:23:29.130
at the time.

444
00:23:29.130 --> 00:23:32.610
Well, turned out it was from Squadron VXN-8

445
00:23:32.610 --> 00:23:35.460
and was actually out there to look for the Monitor

446
00:23:35.460 --> 00:23:38.433
in support of Project Cheesebox at the academy.

447
00:23:39.540 --> 00:23:40.781
We were saying,

448
00:23:40.781 --> 00:23:42.690
"Boy, now that's what we need to find the Monitor."

449
00:23:42.690 --> 00:23:44.793
Well, that's what it was there for.

450
00:23:45.900 --> 00:23:48.270
And on this, in a subsequent search,

451
00:23:48.270 --> 00:23:51.213
they recorded a number of metallic objects.

452
00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:55.920
And one, I believe probably was the Monitor.

453
00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:59.250
They had no way of verifying any of the targets at the time,

454
00:23:59.250 --> 00:24:03.270
but they reported one being of the proper orientation

455
00:24:03.270 --> 00:24:08.270
and size metallic content to be the Monitor.

456
00:24:08.907 --> 00:24:10.350
And so that's something

457
00:24:10.350 --> 00:24:14.613
that I'm not sure if anybody has positively confirmed.

458
00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:20.460
Then later in August, a former Naval Academy graduate,

459
00:24:20.460 --> 00:24:23.310
Roland Wommack firmly believed

460
00:24:23.310 --> 00:24:26.340
the Navy had discovered the Monitor back in 1950

461
00:24:26.340 --> 00:24:28.890
with their underwater object locator.

462
00:24:28.890 --> 00:24:31.830
So he announced plans to search that location,

463
00:24:31.830 --> 00:24:35.400
which he thought was in about 300 feet of water,

464
00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:39.060
way southeast of Hatteras really close,

465
00:24:39.060 --> 00:24:42.810
much closer to where the Monitor actually turned out to be.

466
00:24:42.810 --> 00:24:45.060
His team even included a diver

467
00:24:45.060 --> 00:24:48.840
who was willing to descend to the 300 foot depth

468
00:24:48.840 --> 00:24:51.633
to personally identify the Monitor.

469
00:24:52.710 --> 00:24:54.750
But they had weather and equipment problems

470
00:24:54.750 --> 00:24:57.390
that delayed their survey,

471
00:24:57.390 --> 00:25:01.050
which was probably a good thing for the diver's safety.

472
00:25:01.050 --> 00:25:06.050
And by the time they got geared up for a second survey,

473
00:25:06.510 --> 00:25:08.643
the Monitor had actually been found.

474
00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:13.263
And so that brings us to the Eastward Expedition,

475
00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:17.343
it took place from August 17th to the 31st.

476
00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:21.480
This was the expedition that discovered several wrecks,

477
00:25:21.480 --> 00:25:25.050
and eventually, they were able to prove

478
00:25:25.050 --> 00:25:27.693
that one was indeed the Monitor.

479
00:25:31.110 --> 00:25:32.950
So this was an expedition

480
00:25:33.990 --> 00:25:37.560
launched by the Duke University Marine Laboratory

481
00:25:37.560 --> 00:25:40.980
in cooperation with a couple of other agencies,

482
00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:42.120
particularly the state

483
00:25:42.120 --> 00:25:46.530
of North Carolina's Underwater Archaeology program.

484
00:25:46.530 --> 00:25:49.770
They conducted this aboard the R/V Eastward,

485
00:25:49.770 --> 00:25:54.390
which had funding from the National Science Foundation.

486
00:25:54.390 --> 00:25:58.590
The principal investigators were John Newton on the left

487
00:25:58.590 --> 00:26:02.310
who headed up this operation.

488
00:26:02.310 --> 00:26:04.500
Harold Doc Edgerton, who invented...

489
00:26:04.500 --> 00:26:07.890
He was involved in the invention of the side scan sonar

490
00:26:07.890 --> 00:26:10.413
and also invented the electronic strobe.

491
00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:14.370
Then, geologist Robert Sheridan,

492
00:26:14.370 --> 00:26:17.400
and finally the young Gordon Watts,

493
00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:19.740
who had just recently become

494
00:26:19.740 --> 00:26:22.860
North Carolina's first underwater archaeologist,

495
00:26:22.860 --> 00:26:26.130
and so he was aboard as the official archaeologist

496
00:26:26.130 --> 00:26:27.003
of the project.

497
00:26:31.050 --> 00:26:35.310
The full list of co-discoverers is way beyond this group,

498
00:26:35.310 --> 00:26:38.820
but the heart of the team shown in this picture

499
00:26:38.820 --> 00:26:42.030
was clockwise from the left is Gordon.

500
00:26:42.030 --> 00:26:45.120
And then behind Gordon, John Harris,

501
00:26:45.120 --> 00:26:48.900
who operated the television system, which was important,

502
00:26:48.900 --> 00:26:51.750
Robert Sheridan, the geologist,

503
00:26:51.750 --> 00:26:54.300
and then John Newton and his daughter Cathryn,

504
00:26:54.300 --> 00:26:57.180
who just was a freshman at Duke University

505
00:26:57.180 --> 00:27:01.080
and was able to fill an empty slot.

506
00:27:01.080 --> 00:27:03.963
And then Doc Edgerton who brought his sonar along.

507
00:27:06.360 --> 00:27:07.193
Behind the scenes,

508
00:27:07.193 --> 00:27:11.280
I just wanted to mention that during the early planning,

509
00:27:11.280 --> 00:27:14.340
Ernest Peterkin, a retired Navy captain

510
00:27:14.340 --> 00:27:16.590
from the Naval Research Center,

511
00:27:16.590 --> 00:27:21.120
took the log book from the Rhode Island, the tow ship,

512
00:27:21.120 --> 00:27:25.320
and plotted a course down the coast

513
00:27:25.320 --> 00:27:26.640
and then made some assumptions

514
00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:29.160
about where the Monitor might have actually sunk.

515
00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:33.750
And this was part of the data

516
00:27:33.750 --> 00:27:36.093
that was available to the Eastward team.

517
00:27:37.350 --> 00:27:39.420
But expedition archaeologist, Gordon Watts,

518
00:27:39.420 --> 00:27:42.570
prepared his own projected survey area,

519
00:27:42.570 --> 00:27:46.470
taking the Rhode Island's log book into account as well,

520
00:27:46.470 --> 00:27:50.640
making corrections for course, wind, seas, drift, weather,

521
00:27:50.640 --> 00:27:55.230
all those factors that can affect the location of a vessel.

522
00:27:55.230 --> 00:27:57.600
And since so much of the information relied

523
00:27:57.600 --> 00:28:00.510
on dead reckoning after they couldn't take

524
00:28:00.510 --> 00:28:02.400
visual fixes anymore,

525
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:05.790
that expanded the search area to a rectangle

526
00:28:05.790 --> 00:28:09.660
about seven and a half, 16 and a half nautical miles,

527
00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:13.140
which Gordon plotted on a NOAA navigation chart.

528
00:28:13.140 --> 00:28:16.980
And Watt's predicted that the Monitor should lie

529
00:28:16.980 --> 00:28:18.750
somewhere within that area.

530
00:28:18.750 --> 00:28:22.713
And spoiler alert, his prediction was correct.

531
00:28:25.260 --> 00:28:27.960
The first detection was on August 27th,

532
00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:31.500
the day we considered the Monitor was discovered.

533
00:28:31.500 --> 00:28:32.730
And oddly enough,

534
00:28:32.730 --> 00:28:35.373
with all this fancy electronic gear on board,

535
00:28:36.660 --> 00:28:38.730
gear designed for surveys,

536
00:28:38.730 --> 00:28:42.000
the first real indication of Monitor's location

537
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.550
was a black squiggle mark on the ship's fathometer,

538
00:28:44.550 --> 00:28:48.990
which is a device that's on most ships

539
00:28:48.990 --> 00:28:51.990
to record the vessel's depth.

540
00:28:51.990 --> 00:28:54.960
But Fred Kelly, the electronic chief,

541
00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:58.050
walked by and just happened to notice this squiggle,

542
00:28:58.050 --> 00:29:01.680
and said, "Hey, you know, we ought to check that out."

543
00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:05.910
So Eastward turned and put their sonars overboard

544
00:29:05.910 --> 00:29:08.160
and made some squiggly images

545
00:29:08.160 --> 00:29:12.840
that were a little bit more definitive

546
00:29:12.840 --> 00:29:14.430
and decided that this site

547
00:29:14.430 --> 00:29:16.877
definitely looked like a promising one.

548
00:29:16.877 --> 00:29:20.130
And so they spent much more time there

549
00:29:20.130 --> 00:29:21.573
for the next day or two.

550
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:27.000
Eastward survey equipment might be kind of laughable

551
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:28.920
by today's standards,

552
00:29:28.920 --> 00:29:32.670
but at the time, it was pretty much what was available.

553
00:29:32.670 --> 00:29:37.110
And so they surveyed the site under difficult conditions.

554
00:29:37.110 --> 00:29:38.790
The equipment had limitations

555
00:29:38.790 --> 00:29:41.580
and Hatteras is never an easy place to work

556
00:29:41.580 --> 00:29:44.070
with the seas and currents

557
00:29:44.070 --> 00:29:47.073
that are usual conditions out there.

558
00:29:48.030 --> 00:29:50.520
But they lowered, just like you see in this diagram,

559
00:29:50.520 --> 00:29:53.880
they lowered still and video cameras on cables

560
00:29:53.880 --> 00:29:57.210
and began trying to make passes over the site,

561
00:29:57.210 --> 00:30:01.050
attempting to try to figure out where those instruments were

562
00:30:01.050 --> 00:30:05.100
in relation to the Monitor and in relation to the Eastward,

563
00:30:05.100 --> 00:30:08.670
and to try to keep the cameras just above the wreck.

564
00:30:08.670 --> 00:30:11.280
But they couldn't stop, they had to stay underway.

565
00:30:11.280 --> 00:30:13.890
So it was just a series of passes

566
00:30:13.890 --> 00:30:17.670
sort of at random and using their best skills.

567
00:30:17.670 --> 00:30:19.800
And so some of the passes showed nothing.

568
00:30:19.800 --> 00:30:24.360
Others showed some pretty fuzzy video imagery,

569
00:30:26.310 --> 00:30:27.930
and unfortunately, the still camera,

570
00:30:27.930 --> 00:30:30.960
which might have come up with some better quality imagery,

571
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:32.970
was snagged on the rack and lost.

572
00:30:32.970 --> 00:30:37.260
And so they were pretty limited in the data they had

573
00:30:37.260 --> 00:30:39.003
at the end of the expedition.

574
00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:43.173
Well, Gordon Watts made copies of all this,

575
00:30:46.200 --> 00:30:50.250
and he spent the winter months of '73

576
00:30:50.250 --> 00:30:52.860
reviewing all this fuzzy video

577
00:30:52.860 --> 00:30:55.110
and trying to make sketches of what he was seeing

578
00:30:55.110 --> 00:30:57.720
and comparing his sketches to the drawings

579
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:00.240
and blueprints of the Monitor.

580
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:02.010
And at this point,

581
00:31:02.010 --> 00:31:05.550
I was very pleased to get a chance

582
00:31:05.550 --> 00:31:07.680
to have just a tiny touch.

583
00:31:07.680 --> 00:31:08.850
I wasn't on the cruise,

584
00:31:08.850 --> 00:31:13.230
but I got my little taste of the expedition

585
00:31:13.230 --> 00:31:16.500
when Gordon invited me over to his house in December

586
00:31:16.500 --> 00:31:18.243
to go over his research.

587
00:31:19.290 --> 00:31:20.828
Well, at first,

588
00:31:20.828 --> 00:31:22.687
I couldn't make much sense of the imagery

589
00:31:22.687 --> 00:31:25.350
and even of the sketches he was showing me,

590
00:31:25.350 --> 00:31:28.328
but then he pulled out another stack,

591
00:31:28.328 --> 00:31:29.878
which was his most recent work,

592
00:31:31.470 --> 00:31:33.457
and he laid all these out and said,

593
00:31:33.457 --> 00:31:36.303
"Now John, take another look at the video,

594
00:31:36.303 --> 00:31:40.830
but assume this time that the Monitor is lying upside down

595
00:31:40.830 --> 00:31:43.590
and the turret has fallen off and the Monitor

596
00:31:43.590 --> 00:31:45.700
has landed on the turret

597
00:31:45.700 --> 00:31:48.000
with the turret just partly visible."

598
00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:48.833
It was amazing.

599
00:31:48.833 --> 00:31:53.833
Everything then clicked into place.

600
00:31:53.850 --> 00:31:57.810
And it was obvious, you can see Gordon's sketches here,

601
00:31:57.810 --> 00:32:00.000
especially the one on the left

602
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:03.270
that shows how he thought the Monitor was lying

603
00:32:03.270 --> 00:32:05.040
with the turret sticking out.

604
00:32:05.040 --> 00:32:08.278
And that proved to be very, very accurate.

605
00:32:08.278 --> 00:32:10.590
And the two of us were so convinced

606
00:32:10.590 --> 00:32:13.470
that we just didn't think there was any doubt.

607
00:32:13.470 --> 00:32:15.510
So Gordon notified John Newton

608
00:32:15.510 --> 00:32:18.240
that they had indeed found the Monitor.

609
00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:21.783
And shortly after, Newton made the public announcement.

610
00:32:23.550 --> 00:32:27.540
However, when Newton and Watts presented the findings,

611
00:32:27.540 --> 00:32:29.400
they were dismayed to find out

612
00:32:29.400 --> 00:32:31.020
that there were lots of skeptics.

613
00:32:31.020 --> 00:32:35.370
People still wouldn't believe that it was the Monitor.

614
00:32:35.370 --> 00:32:38.220
But eventually, they convinced enough key people

615
00:32:38.220 --> 00:32:42.870
that the Navy became more involved, more interested,

616
00:32:42.870 --> 00:32:46.530
and they decided to give a test of one of the research ships

617
00:32:46.530 --> 00:32:49.410
that they had for evaluation and to conduct

618
00:32:49.410 --> 00:32:51.513
a more precise survey at the site.

619
00:32:52.825 --> 00:32:55.113
And that vessel was the R/V Alcoa Seaprobe,

620
00:32:56.708 --> 00:32:58.440
a ship that was truly unique

621
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:01.890
and almost as unique as the Monitor itself.

622
00:33:01.890 --> 00:33:03.930
Fitted out as a modified drill ship,

623
00:33:03.930 --> 00:33:06.870
the Seaprobe could lower an array of instruments

624
00:33:06.870 --> 00:33:11.823
on the end of a six inch drill string, drill pipe,

625
00:33:12.780 --> 00:33:16.410
lower it to the bottom and fairly deep depths

626
00:33:16.410 --> 00:33:18.783
and even lift heavy objects if needed.

627
00:33:19.890 --> 00:33:24.060
She also had this amazing set of cycloidal propellers

628
00:33:24.060 --> 00:33:28.320
which could maintain a computer system

629
00:33:28.320 --> 00:33:31.380
that could allow the ship to maintain a fixed position

630
00:33:31.380 --> 00:33:33.510
over an object on the bottom.

631
00:33:33.510 --> 00:33:35.319
This was critical.

632
00:33:35.319 --> 00:33:37.869
This expedition took place the first week in April.

633
00:33:38.820 --> 00:33:43.020
They lowered down this huge two ton instrument pod

634
00:33:43.020 --> 00:33:46.980
fitted out with lights and video and still cameras.

635
00:33:46.980 --> 00:33:49.110
And they were able to slowly make passes

636
00:33:49.110 --> 00:33:51.690
back and forth across the Monitor,

637
00:33:51.690 --> 00:33:54.060
taking pictures all the time

638
00:33:54.060 --> 00:33:58.263
and get 100% coverage of the site.

639
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:03.970
Then even more interesting

640
00:34:05.010 --> 00:34:08.310
was the way we had to do the processing.

641
00:34:08.310 --> 00:34:09.480
We literally...

642
00:34:09.480 --> 00:34:12.166
I was called on board at that time

643
00:34:12.166 --> 00:34:13.916
because I'd had darkroom experience.

644
00:34:14.820 --> 00:34:18.427
We took these rolls of 35 millimeter film,

645
00:34:18.427 --> 00:34:20.790
the size the colored slides are made from

646
00:34:20.790 --> 00:34:23.850
and processed them in the dark room

647
00:34:23.850 --> 00:34:26.130
They were all black and white.

648
00:34:26.130 --> 00:34:27.870
And so we had hundreds of these

649
00:34:27.870 --> 00:34:32.870
little black and white images of the Monitor site,

650
00:34:33.210 --> 00:34:37.729
and we contact printed them onto paper.

651
00:34:37.729 --> 00:34:42.729
So we'd have prints rather than the transparency film.

652
00:34:42.780 --> 00:34:44.880
And then we had to take scissors,

653
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:48.330
cut out these little images

654
00:34:48.330 --> 00:34:52.560
and take magic invisible tape

655
00:34:52.560 --> 00:34:56.160
and try to paste them onto a blueprint of the Monitor

656
00:34:56.160 --> 00:35:00.330
and see if we could pull this jigsaw puzzle together

657
00:35:00.330 --> 00:35:03.930
and confirm that it really was the Monitor.

658
00:35:03.930 --> 00:35:06.393
But believe it or not, crude though it was,

659
00:35:07.773 --> 00:35:10.650
we produced this very impressive and convincing,

660
00:35:10.650 --> 00:35:14.040
what we think it's impressive and convincing photo mosaic.

661
00:35:14.040 --> 00:35:16.830
And I think you can see the similarity in the shape

662
00:35:16.830 --> 00:35:18.870
with the tracing,

663
00:35:18.870 --> 00:35:23.610
that's the line drawing tracing below the mosaic.

664
00:35:23.610 --> 00:35:24.630
And maybe this'll help,

665
00:35:24.630 --> 00:35:28.263
I'll kind of superimpose the tracing over the hull.

666
00:35:29.700 --> 00:35:33.300
So at this point, it was hard for anybody to deny

667
00:35:33.300 --> 00:35:35.520
that the Monitor had been found.

668
00:35:35.520 --> 00:35:37.290
Her hull shape was totally unique.

669
00:35:37.290 --> 00:35:39.070
There were no other vessels afloat

670
00:35:40.810 --> 00:35:45.000
other than other Monitors that had this hull shape

671
00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:49.380
and that round object protruding out from the side,

672
00:35:49.380 --> 00:35:51.584
all the measurements fit.

673
00:35:51.584 --> 00:35:53.370
We were able to actually get dimensions

674
00:35:53.370 --> 00:35:56.122
and all the measurements fit the shape

675
00:35:56.122 --> 00:35:59.883
and size of the Monitor and the size of the turret.

676
00:35:59.883 --> 00:36:03.810
So at this point, they could say absolutely.

677
00:36:03.810 --> 00:36:08.810
So April 1974 was when everyone was convinced

678
00:36:08.940 --> 00:36:13.323
and excited that no doubt the Monitor has been discovered.

679
00:36:14.550 --> 00:36:17.700
Well, that sort of shifted us into another mode.

680
00:36:17.700 --> 00:36:20.150
Now, the Monitor's out there.

681
00:36:20.150 --> 00:36:21.450
We know it's the Monitor.

682
00:36:21.450 --> 00:36:25.800
It's partly damaged by the years of corrosion and collapse,

683
00:36:25.800 --> 00:36:29.160
but still largely intact.

684
00:36:29.160 --> 00:36:31.416
What can we do to protect it?

685
00:36:31.416 --> 00:36:32.520
What were the problems?

686
00:36:32.520 --> 00:36:36.329
Well, the Monitor lies outside US territorial waters.

687
00:36:36.329 --> 00:36:37.500
So our laws don't apply.

688
00:36:37.500 --> 00:36:42.500
In fact, the three mile limit was the territorial limit.

689
00:36:42.750 --> 00:36:45.663
Back then, Monitor were 16 miles offshore.

690
00:36:46.980 --> 00:36:49.792
The water depth is 240 feet,

691
00:36:49.792 --> 00:36:51.720
which is well within the capabilities

692
00:36:51.720 --> 00:36:54.630
of an advanced group of technical divers

693
00:36:54.630 --> 00:36:57.690
who had already begun collecting artifacts

694
00:36:57.690 --> 00:36:59.100
from deep water wrecks,

695
00:36:59.100 --> 00:37:02.193
and Monitor was surely to be on their list.

696
00:37:04.680 --> 00:37:07.380
And finally, the Navy didn't own the ship anymore.

697
00:37:07.380 --> 00:37:09.480
In 1953,

698
00:37:09.480 --> 00:37:11.970
they had stricken the Monitor from the Navy list,

699
00:37:11.970 --> 00:37:16.620
and so they could no longer say, "It's our ship, stay away."

700
00:37:16.620 --> 00:37:17.880
So what to do?

701
00:37:17.880 --> 00:37:22.240
Well, Monitor was very fortunate at this time

702
00:37:25.950 --> 00:37:28.623
because other things were happening in parallel.

703
00:37:30.660 --> 00:37:35.660
In 1973, the Omnibus Ocean Bill passed,

704
00:37:36.990 --> 00:37:40.500
and it created a new program

705
00:37:40.500 --> 00:37:42.630
or it made for the creation of a new program

706
00:37:42.630 --> 00:37:45.780
called the National Marine Sanctuary Program.

707
00:37:45.780 --> 00:37:49.410
And by 1975, that program had begun.

708
00:37:49.410 --> 00:37:53.431
And on January 30th of that year,

709
00:37:53.431 --> 00:37:54.720
the Monitor was designated

710
00:37:54.720 --> 00:37:58.020
the nation's First National Marine Sanctuary.

711
00:37:58.020 --> 00:38:02.070
And now, it had the benefit of federal interest

712
00:38:02.070 --> 00:38:06.303
and federal protection and management support.

713
00:38:08.730 --> 00:38:11.904
And at this point, I've just gotta stop and say,

714
00:38:11.904 --> 00:38:14.460
"Congratulations to the sanctuary program."

715
00:38:14.460 --> 00:38:16.503
I worked there for years.

716
00:38:17.730 --> 00:38:20.970
I love the program and what they've accomplished.

717
00:38:20.970 --> 00:38:24.753
And a 50-year anniversary is only the beginning.

718
00:38:25.890 --> 00:38:29.940
As you heard Shannon say in the beginning,

719
00:38:29.940 --> 00:38:32.040
the program has grown.

720
00:38:32.040 --> 00:38:37.040
Now it protects over 620,000 square miles of marine,

721
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:40.650
Great Lakes waters in 15 sanctuaries

722
00:38:40.650 --> 00:38:45.240
and two huge national monument areas.

723
00:38:45.240 --> 00:38:48.450
And so it's underwater national parks

724
00:38:48.450 --> 00:38:51.843
but all administered by NOAA.

725
00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:57.300
And there's the little Monitor on the east coast of the US.

726
00:38:57.300 --> 00:39:00.089
One of the smaller sanctuaries,

727
00:39:00.089 --> 00:39:01.260
it's the second smallest.

728
00:39:01.260 --> 00:39:03.540
And it's only a mile in diameter,

729
00:39:03.540 --> 00:39:06.093
but that was enough to protect the wreck.

730
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:12.990
Well, so that sanctuary designation

731
00:39:12.990 --> 00:39:15.450
really helped get things moving.

732
00:39:15.450 --> 00:39:19.080
The first scientific dives were organized by NOAA,

733
00:39:19.080 --> 00:39:22.050
the North Carolina Division of Archives and History,

734
00:39:22.050 --> 00:39:23.040
and a new partner,

735
00:39:23.040 --> 00:39:26.040
the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution

736
00:39:26.040 --> 00:39:27.483
at Fort Pierce, Florida.

737
00:39:28.530 --> 00:39:32.403
They were equipped to do deep ocean submersible work.

738
00:39:33.240 --> 00:39:36.390
They had human occupied submersibles

739
00:39:36.390 --> 00:39:39.003
that could actually lock divers out.

740
00:39:40.548 --> 00:39:42.990
And this you see a pilot compartment up here

741
00:39:42.990 --> 00:39:45.000
that stayed at one atmosphere.

742
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:46.560
Back here, two divers could fit

743
00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:50.790
into a very small compartment and leave the submarine

744
00:39:50.790 --> 00:39:54.480
and conduct work and come back into the sub

745
00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:57.060
for a return to the surface.

746
00:39:57.060 --> 00:40:01.440
And the center object was the first object recovered

747
00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:04.200
from the Monitor, the first object seen.

748
00:40:04.200 --> 00:40:08.218
And it was the last thing seen the night the Monitor sank,

749
00:40:08.218 --> 00:40:11.250
it's the red lens signal lantern

750
00:40:11.250 --> 00:40:14.756
that indicated that the Monitor was in distress.

751
00:40:14.756 --> 00:40:17.490
So that was quite an accomplishment.

752
00:40:17.490 --> 00:40:21.423
Here's a couple of pictures, the recovery effort.

753
00:40:23.340 --> 00:40:27.000
This, now, we've moved into 1979,

754
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:29.880
the first underwater archaeological expedition,

755
00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:31.530
same sponsors.

756
00:40:31.530 --> 00:40:34.590
And this time the archaeologists got a chance to dive,

757
00:40:34.590 --> 00:40:36.760
the previous work had been done

758
00:40:36.760 --> 00:40:39.360
by Harbor Branch commercial divers.

759
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:42.270
This time it was Gordon Watts who led the team

760
00:40:42.270 --> 00:40:44.640
and his assistant Richard Lawrence.

761
00:40:44.640 --> 00:40:46.590
And because I'd been working with Gordon

762
00:40:46.590 --> 00:40:49.080
and because I had a lot of personal

763
00:40:49.080 --> 00:40:51.210
deep water diving experience,

764
00:40:51.210 --> 00:40:54.169
I was invited to be the third diver.

765
00:40:54.169 --> 00:40:55.710
And so we got special training,

766
00:40:55.710 --> 00:40:57.420
we went out to the Monitor.

767
00:40:57.420 --> 00:41:00.600
We used the submarines again

768
00:41:00.600 --> 00:41:02.460
and just like archaeologists on land,

769
00:41:02.460 --> 00:41:06.630
we set up a grid, and we excavated up in the area

770
00:41:06.630 --> 00:41:08.970
that proved to be the officer's quarters,

771
00:41:08.970 --> 00:41:10.680
recovered a number of artifacts

772
00:41:10.680 --> 00:41:15.453
and recorded a lot of measurements and other data.

773
00:41:16.710 --> 00:41:21.030
And what we've found was the Monitor's hull

774
00:41:21.030 --> 00:41:22.020
looked pretty good,

775
00:41:22.020 --> 00:41:26.010
but we could see signs of severe deterioration.

776
00:41:26.010 --> 00:41:29.670
The hull was beginning to rust and corrode,

777
00:41:29.670 --> 00:41:32.520
especially at the points of attachment

778
00:41:32.520 --> 00:41:34.740
where the rivets and bolts were.

779
00:41:34.740 --> 00:41:39.740
And it looked like that it was going to collapse

780
00:41:39.990 --> 00:41:42.930
at some point in a catastrophic manner.

781
00:41:42.930 --> 00:41:43.763
But we needed more data on top of this,

782
00:41:43.763 --> 00:41:44.596
so more work continued.

783
00:41:47.880 --> 00:41:51.060
In 1973 or 1983,

784
00:41:51.060 --> 00:41:54.240
a group of us went back out to the Monitor

785
00:41:54.240 --> 00:41:56.223
and recovered the Monitor's anchor.

786
00:41:57.930 --> 00:41:59.250
This was for a good reason.

787
00:41:59.250 --> 00:42:01.279
We needed something...

788
00:42:01.279 --> 00:42:02.940
We needed a large iron object

789
00:42:02.940 --> 00:42:04.440
that could be put through testing

790
00:42:04.440 --> 00:42:08.160
and conservation procedures that would give us an idea

791
00:42:08.160 --> 00:42:11.370
of how badly the Monitor was deteriorated

792
00:42:11.370 --> 00:42:15.663
and what might be accomplished in the future.

793
00:42:16.955 --> 00:42:20.220
And I always put this little line drawing in

794
00:42:20.220 --> 00:42:22.980
with this diver walking out to the Monitor

795
00:42:22.980 --> 00:42:24.090
because that's me.

796
00:42:24.090 --> 00:42:26.310
I got to go out first

797
00:42:26.310 --> 00:42:29.231
and attach a lifting cable to the anchor

798
00:42:29.231 --> 00:42:34.231
and then other divers went out and finished the recovery.

799
00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:37.983
And so that was '83.

800
00:42:40.130 --> 00:42:43.500
In 1992, the anchor had been conserved.

801
00:42:43.500 --> 00:42:46.320
We had a lot more data collected.

802
00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:48.090
And in April of that year,

803
00:42:48.090 --> 00:42:51.840
I became the new superintendent of the sanctuary.

804
00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:56.290
And I was told to review all this past documentation

805
00:42:57.150 --> 00:43:01.410
and all the reports and to make recommendations to NOAA

806
00:43:01.410 --> 00:43:06.060
on what should be done, could the Monitor be recovered?

807
00:43:06.060 --> 00:43:09.633
Could it be preserved and put on permanent display?

808
00:43:10.530 --> 00:43:13.503
And so that was quite a task.

809
00:43:17.197 --> 00:43:19.530
The deterioration we knew was accelerating,

810
00:43:19.530 --> 00:43:22.773
and so we didn't know how much time we had left.

811
00:43:25.380 --> 00:43:27.960
One of the things that we did

812
00:43:27.960 --> 00:43:32.960
was to produce a plan, a long range preservation plan.

813
00:43:33.450 --> 00:43:36.840
We concluded that it was left on the sea floor.

814
00:43:36.840 --> 00:43:40.983
It was gonna continue to disintegrate at a rapid rate,

815
00:43:42.614 --> 00:43:45.720
complete recovery of the hull and contents wasn't viable,

816
00:43:45.720 --> 00:43:48.180
and this was a tough pill to swallow,

817
00:43:48.180 --> 00:43:51.060
but there just wasn't the money or the technology

818
00:43:51.060 --> 00:43:53.610
to do a complete recovery.

819
00:43:53.610 --> 00:43:56.520
So we recommended a hull stabilization

820
00:43:56.520 --> 00:43:58.590
and selective recovery of the objects

821
00:43:58.590 --> 00:44:00.873
that we thought were most important.

822
00:44:02.580 --> 00:44:06.550
This was the general plan; to recover the skeg and

823
00:44:08.280 --> 00:44:12.243
propeller, to support underneath the hull to keep it from

824
00:44:13.110 --> 00:44:14.160
collapsing, recover the engine,

825
00:44:14.160 --> 00:44:16.923
which was also unique and worthy of maintaining.

826
00:44:17.970 --> 00:44:21.240
And finally, the big project was to lift the turret

827
00:44:21.240 --> 00:44:25.113
a hundred tons plus with the guns still inside.

828
00:44:26.760 --> 00:44:28.170
It was really a team effort.

829
00:44:28.170 --> 00:44:30.633
NOAA and NOAA divers were involved.

830
00:44:31.500 --> 00:44:34.170
The Office of Sanctuaries came to our aid

831
00:44:34.170 --> 00:44:36.843
with a lot of management support and funding.

832
00:44:38.223 --> 00:44:39.480
Congressional support was critical.

833
00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:44.160
They made appropriations that made the whole thing possible.

834
00:44:44.160 --> 00:44:46.590
And we also by this time had a museum partner,

835
00:44:46.590 --> 00:44:49.763
the Mariners' Museum in Newport News

836
00:44:49.763 --> 00:44:51.753
that would receive all these objects.

837
00:44:53.820 --> 00:44:56.550
And my key team, I'm not gonna be able to mention everybody,

838
00:44:56.550 --> 00:44:59.550
but my key team that I couldn't have done without

839
00:44:59.550 --> 00:45:02.206
are on the left Jeff Johnston,

840
00:45:02.206 --> 00:45:04.776
who was my historian and model maker

841
00:45:04.776 --> 00:45:07.683
and knowledge of Monitor supreme.

842
00:45:09.353 --> 00:45:11.730
Tane Casserly with NOAA in the center

843
00:45:11.730 --> 00:45:14.700
who's still with the program

844
00:45:14.700 --> 00:45:17.613
and headed up our NOAA dive team.

845
00:45:18.923 --> 00:45:22.470
And so we moved into 1998,

846
00:45:22.470 --> 00:45:24.333
where we recovered the propeller.

847
00:45:26.580 --> 00:45:30.963
In 2001, we recovered the engine about 35 tons.

848
00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:35.883
And then amazingly on August 5th, 2002,

849
00:45:37.470 --> 00:45:38.790
the Monitor's turret came up intact

850
00:45:38.790 --> 00:45:40.830
with the guns still inside,

851
00:45:40.830 --> 00:45:43.710
two crewman who had been trapped inside,

852
00:45:43.710 --> 00:45:46.890
and a number of other important artifacts.

853
00:45:46.890 --> 00:45:50.210
And this was the beginning of...

854
00:45:51.101 --> 00:45:53.910
This was the end of the field work essentially.

855
00:45:53.910 --> 00:45:56.403
And now, it was up to the Mariners' Museum.

856
00:45:57.744 --> 00:46:00.090
The museum really came to the front.

857
00:46:00.090 --> 00:46:03.813
They built a separate wing, the USS Monitor Center.

858
00:46:04.710 --> 00:46:08.940
And this was a huge facility that incorporated

859
00:46:08.940 --> 00:46:12.657
a conservation lab in addition to the main galleries

860
00:46:12.657 --> 00:46:16.053
and the side galleries to interpret the wreck.

861
00:46:17.116 --> 00:46:17.949
The museum was designed...

862
00:46:17.949 --> 00:46:20.850
The center was designed to eventually display

863
00:46:20.850 --> 00:46:22.563
everything we'd recovered,

864
00:46:24.090 --> 00:46:28.350
but the heart of it has been the conservation laboratory.

865
00:46:28.350 --> 00:46:31.980
This is the world's largest metals conservation project.

866
00:46:31.980 --> 00:46:36.183
It involves more than 200 tons of Monitor iron.

867
00:46:39.090 --> 00:46:41.370
The first was doing a lot of documentation

868
00:46:41.370 --> 00:46:44.340
and an additional excavation,

869
00:46:44.340 --> 00:46:49.340
and then it's gone into the conservation phase.

870
00:46:50.070 --> 00:46:52.620
And that's sort of where we are right now.

871
00:46:52.620 --> 00:46:55.620
I'd like to just finish with Grenville Weeks' comment.

872
00:46:55.620 --> 00:46:59.403
He was the surgeon for the Monitor, and he wrote,

873
00:47:00.442 --> 00:47:02.400
"Their names are for history,

874
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:05.250
and so long as we remain a people,

875
00:47:05.250 --> 00:47:09.450
so long will the work of the Monitor be remembered,

876
00:47:09.450 --> 00:47:13.443
and her story told to our children's children.

877
00:47:14.370 --> 00:47:18.330
The 'little cheesebox on a raft' has made herself a name,

878
00:47:18.330 --> 00:47:22.347
which will not soon be forgotten by the American people."

879
00:47:24.091 --> 00:47:25.860
And we now know it's not just America,

880
00:47:25.860 --> 00:47:29.520
but the whole world remembers the Monitor,

881
00:47:29.520 --> 00:47:32.820
and hopefully with the work with NOAA and our partners

882
00:47:32.820 --> 00:47:36.030
and especially the Mariners' Museum and Park,

883
00:47:36.030 --> 00:47:38.463
that story will always be available.

884
00:47:40.530 --> 00:47:42.210
Thank you very much.

885
00:47:42.210 --> 00:47:46.290
I know this is a compressed story,

886
00:47:46.290 --> 00:47:49.710
but you can find more work,

887
00:47:49.710 --> 00:47:52.500
more results in my book and other books.

888
00:47:52.500 --> 00:47:56.070
And certainly, the story is being told beautifully

889
00:47:56.070 --> 00:47:58.560
at the Mariners' Museum and Park.

890
00:47:58.560 --> 00:47:59.763
Thank you very much.

891
00:48:00.962 --> 00:48:02.100
[Shannon] Yeah, thank you, John.

892
00:48:02.100 --> 00:48:04.353
I'm gonna take the screen back from you.

893
00:48:06.180 --> 00:48:10.980
So at this time, we do invite some questions and answers.

894
00:48:10.980 --> 00:48:12.780
Hopefully, John can give the answers.

895
00:48:12.780 --> 00:48:14.520
So if you've not entered any questions

896
00:48:14.520 --> 00:48:17.160
into the question box yet, this is the time to do it.

897
00:48:17.160 --> 00:48:20.670
Also, if you've not downloaded John's bio in the chat box,

898
00:48:20.670 --> 00:48:22.740
you might want to do that as well.

899
00:48:22.740 --> 00:48:23.573
In the bio,

900
00:48:23.573 --> 00:48:25.080
you're gonna find more information about John

901
00:48:25.080 --> 00:48:27.750
and some links that might be of interest to you.

902
00:48:27.750 --> 00:48:29.370
Okay, well, we're gonna start out.

903
00:48:29.370 --> 00:48:31.170
Mark, do you have a question that you would like

904
00:48:31.170 --> 00:48:33.033
to start with for John?

905
00:48:33.990 --> 00:48:35.510
[Mark] Yes, I actually thought of this question

906
00:48:35.510 --> 00:48:38.100
at the very, very beginning of your presentation,

907
00:48:38.100 --> 00:48:40.185
and I'm not even sure if you have an answer,

908
00:48:40.185 --> 00:48:41.018
but I was really curious,

909
00:48:41.018 --> 00:48:44.440
you were talking about why the Navy didn't try

910
00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:47.640
to salvage the wreck at the time of its sinking in 1862,

911
00:48:47.640 --> 00:48:49.380
and you mentioned that it was too deep.

912
00:48:49.380 --> 00:48:52.680
And today, we have a lot of really great tools

913
00:48:52.680 --> 00:48:53.820
and technology at our disposal

914
00:48:53.820 --> 00:48:55.983
to determine the depth of the ocean.

915
00:48:56.964 --> 00:48:57.797
How would they measure that back in the late 1800s?

916
00:48:57.797 --> 00:48:58.630
[John] Well, they had actually had fairly good

917
00:49:05.130 --> 00:49:07.590
nautical charts by then.

918
00:49:07.590 --> 00:49:09.483
Matthew Fontaine Maury,

919
00:49:10.350 --> 00:49:13.590
who well-known to the Mariners' Museum,

920
00:49:13.590 --> 00:49:15.270
was one of the people who was involved

921
00:49:15.270 --> 00:49:19.380
in offshore survey and recording depths.

922
00:49:19.380 --> 00:49:21.630
And back in those days,

923
00:49:21.630 --> 00:49:25.680
the bottom contours depth and makeup

924
00:49:25.680 --> 00:49:28.380
were all important for coastal navigation.

925
00:49:28.380 --> 00:49:31.680
And so they had a fairly good idea

926
00:49:31.680 --> 00:49:33.750
of what the depth would've been.

927
00:49:33.750 --> 00:49:37.173
But I think even if it had been in shallower water,

928
00:49:38.220 --> 00:49:40.230
it's just so tough to work at Hatteras.

929
00:49:40.230 --> 00:49:41.884
I doubt that an effort

930
00:49:41.884 --> 00:49:44.943
would've been made to do salvage work.

931
00:49:46.830 --> 00:49:49.410
[Shannon] Okay, a second question that came in, John,

932
00:49:49.410 --> 00:49:50.970
are there any parts of the Monitor

933
00:49:50.970 --> 00:49:53.283
that you wish you could have brought up?

934
00:49:54.180 --> 00:49:58.745
[John] Oh, so many, so many. (chuckles)

935
00:49:58.745 --> 00:50:00.030
One of the unique things about the Monitor

936
00:50:00.030 --> 00:50:03.510
that I didn't mention is that unlike most warships

937
00:50:03.510 --> 00:50:07.011
where the crew tended to live forward

938
00:50:07.011 --> 00:50:10.860
in the focusal area, forward of the mast was used,

939
00:50:10.860 --> 00:50:13.230
and the officers lived in the stern.

940
00:50:13.230 --> 00:50:15.210
The Monitor had all its machinery,

941
00:50:15.210 --> 00:50:17.250
took up the stern parts.

942
00:50:17.250 --> 00:50:19.410
And so officers and crew

943
00:50:19.410 --> 00:50:22.050
and most of the storage and supplies

944
00:50:22.050 --> 00:50:24.180
were all forward to the midships bulkhead

945
00:50:24.180 --> 00:50:25.770
forward to the turret.

946
00:50:25.770 --> 00:50:27.930
And we did not spend much time up there.

947
00:50:27.930 --> 00:50:30.510
We concentrated on the machinery.

948
00:50:30.510 --> 00:50:35.103
And so except for the work that we did in 1979,

949
00:50:35.103 --> 00:50:37.110
where we worked in the officer's quarters,

950
00:50:37.110 --> 00:50:40.860
almost nothing has been recovered from that area.

951
00:50:40.860 --> 00:50:43.560
And you can imagine the stories to be told,

952
00:50:43.560 --> 00:50:44.973
the things we'll find.

953
00:50:45.870 --> 00:50:48.600
Even the few things we did find,

954
00:50:48.600 --> 00:50:51.933
we found a medicine bottle that somebody had carved

955
00:50:51.933 --> 00:50:56.543
with a knife on the corner, something like cider.

956
00:50:58.740 --> 00:51:00.630
So they'd been reusing the bottle

957
00:51:00.630 --> 00:51:03.990
for something that was prohibited on board,

958
00:51:03.990 --> 00:51:06.156
but so many stories.

959
00:51:06.156 --> 00:51:10.709
Yeah, so I really hope someday work will...

960
00:51:10.709 --> 00:51:12.792
It's easier to work at those depths now,

961
00:51:12.792 --> 00:51:14.990
and I'm hoping somebody will go back

962
00:51:14.990 --> 00:51:16.710
and tell us some of those great stories

963
00:51:16.710 --> 00:51:18.063
that are yet to be told.

964
00:51:19.410 --> 00:51:20.896
[Shannon] All right, Mark,

965
00:51:20.896 --> 00:51:23.010
is there another question you would like to have asked?

966
00:51:23.010 --> 00:51:25.950
[Mark] Yes, I'm actually getting a rather cryptic question

967
00:51:25.950 --> 00:51:26.850
in the chat here.

968
00:51:26.850 --> 00:51:29.242
I'm wondering if you can tell me more

969
00:51:29.242 --> 00:51:30.342
about Sam the grouper.

970
00:51:32.247 --> 00:51:33.210
[John] Ah, Sam.

971
00:51:33.210 --> 00:51:36.483
Well, when we were out there in 1979,

972
00:51:37.620 --> 00:51:39.044
as I mentioned,

973
00:51:39.044 --> 00:51:41.700
we were able to leave the submarine and make dives.

974
00:51:41.700 --> 00:51:43.800
We'd go out one at a time

975
00:51:43.800 --> 00:51:46.620
and do whatever our assignment was,

976
00:51:46.620 --> 00:51:50.235
make measurements, photographs and all.

977
00:51:50.235 --> 00:51:54.900
And right away, this giant Nassau grouper adopted us.

978
00:51:54.900 --> 00:51:56.823
He obviously lived at the site.

979
00:51:57.660 --> 00:51:59.480
As NOAA has pointed out

980
00:51:59.480 --> 00:52:02.373
in some of their videos and other work,

981
00:52:03.240 --> 00:52:07.320
these shipwrecks that lie out on the coastal plain,

982
00:52:07.320 --> 00:52:10.350
it's mostly no features out there.

983
00:52:10.350 --> 00:52:14.820
And so shipwrecks are oasis for marine life.

984
00:52:14.820 --> 00:52:18.840
And so this group apparently had adopted the Monitor,

985
00:52:18.840 --> 00:52:23.130
and he was incredibly curious and unafraid,

986
00:52:23.130 --> 00:52:26.940
and he would come around and follow us around

987
00:52:26.940 --> 00:52:30.180
like a puppy dog and actually became a nuisance

988
00:52:30.180 --> 00:52:32.190
because we'd be filming,

989
00:52:32.190 --> 00:52:34.560
and he'd swim right in front of the camera

990
00:52:34.560 --> 00:52:38.820
and spoil the scene when we were filming inside

991
00:52:38.820 --> 00:52:40.083
and around the wreck.

992
00:52:40.950 --> 00:52:44.880
Well, my buddy, we always had a dive buddy in the submarine

993
00:52:44.880 --> 00:52:48.650
and when I was out diving, my buddy was...

994
00:52:50.520 --> 00:52:51.930
His nickname was Mikey,

995
00:52:51.930 --> 00:52:55.110
and I'm blanking on his last name, I'm sorry.

996
00:52:55.110 --> 00:52:58.800
But Mikey was an incredible free diver.

997
00:52:58.800 --> 00:53:02.400
So without any scuba gear at all,

998
00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:05.073
Mike swam out of the submarine,

999
00:53:06.748 --> 00:53:08.615
unzipped the top of his wetsuit

1000
00:53:08.615 --> 00:53:11.670
and pulled out of a hotdog wiener.

1001
00:53:11.670 --> 00:53:14.670
And Sam nearly ate his arm.

1002
00:53:14.670 --> 00:53:16.620
By the way, Sam was five feet long.

1003
00:53:16.620 --> 00:53:18.960
We actually were able to measure him

1004
00:53:18.960 --> 00:53:21.543
against the side of the submarine.

1005
00:53:22.380 --> 00:53:25.650
This is hundreds of pounds of fish.

1006
00:53:25.650 --> 00:53:29.790
He nearly ate Mike's handoff with this hot dog.

1007
00:53:29.790 --> 00:53:33.360
Well, this made Sam an even closer friend,

1008
00:53:33.360 --> 00:53:36.840
and he even stuck his face up into the submarine

1009
00:53:36.840 --> 00:53:40.710
where the divers come in and out looking for hot dogs.

1010
00:53:40.710 --> 00:53:45.240
So Sam was with us, and I made the very last dive,

1011
00:53:45.240 --> 00:53:46.740
which was just a cleanup dive,

1012
00:53:46.740 --> 00:53:51.240
and it was to go collect our grid, our excavation grid,

1013
00:53:51.240 --> 00:53:54.540
and some other tools that we'd left behind.

1014
00:53:54.540 --> 00:53:58.710
And so I was collecting all that,

1015
00:53:58.710 --> 00:54:02.790
and all of a sudden, I feel this bump from the back,

1016
00:54:02.790 --> 00:54:07.167
and I look around and Sam has swam up right beside me,

1017
00:54:07.167 --> 00:54:10.380
and I was able to actually put my arm around him

1018
00:54:10.380 --> 00:54:12.330
and pat him on the side.

1019
00:54:12.330 --> 00:54:14.587
And it was like he was saying,

1020
00:54:14.587 --> 00:54:15.720
"Are you guys leaving?

1021
00:54:15.720 --> 00:54:18.390
I'm really gonna miss you guys."

1022
00:54:18.390 --> 00:54:20.880
So our experience with Sam

1023
00:54:20.880 --> 00:54:24.243
just really brightened up the whole expedition.

1024
00:54:25.650 --> 00:54:28.260
[Shannon] All right, well, that's a really great story.

1025
00:54:28.260 --> 00:54:31.312
I think we have time for one more question, John.

1026
00:54:31.312 --> 00:54:33.330
how many dives did you make to the Monitor,

1027
00:54:33.330 --> 00:54:36.123
and what is your favorite artifact recovered?

1028
00:54:37.320 --> 00:54:38.757
[John] Oh, boy.

1029
00:54:38.757 --> 00:54:42.042
You know, Gordon and I both talked about that,

1030
00:54:42.042 --> 00:54:42.930
and we've lost count,

1031
00:54:42.930 --> 00:54:46.773
but I think it was about a dozen dives for each of us,

1032
00:54:48.333 --> 00:54:50.830
which it may have been more for Gordon.

1033
00:54:50.830 --> 00:54:52.263
He was out quite a bit.

1034
00:54:53.309 --> 00:54:54.142
That doesn't sound like a lot,

1035
00:54:54.142 --> 00:54:56.583
but with all the bad weather we had out there,

1036
00:54:57.510 --> 00:55:01.950
and also we rotated our dives with the Harbor Branch divers,

1037
00:55:01.950 --> 00:55:06.030
who did also a lion share of the work too.

1038
00:55:06.030 --> 00:55:08.253
So I think about a dozen dives each.

1039
00:55:09.467 --> 00:55:10.517
My favorite artifact,

1040
00:55:13.740 --> 00:55:15.731
that's a good question.

1041
00:55:15.731 --> 00:55:18.281
I think maybe it might be the jar of pickle relish.

1042
00:55:19.455 --> 00:55:21.000
We found this jar and it had stuff inside

1043
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:23.384
that looked just like pickle relish.

1044
00:55:23.384 --> 00:55:26.040
And so they sent it off to a lab,

1045
00:55:26.040 --> 00:55:30.840
and all of a sudden, they got this frantic phone call

1046
00:55:30.840 --> 00:55:34.680
from the laboratory down at the North Carolina office.

1047
00:55:34.680 --> 00:55:36.210
And they were saying, "Oh, my God!

1048
00:55:36.210 --> 00:55:38.305
What have you done with that?

1049
00:55:38.305 --> 00:55:39.930
Whatever you've done, don't let anyone touch it.

1050
00:55:39.930 --> 00:55:42.307
Don't let anyone eat it.

1051
00:55:42.307 --> 00:55:45.420
It's got the highest lead content we've ever seen."

1052
00:55:45.420 --> 00:55:49.440
Well, somehow the laboratory people had not gotten

1053
00:55:49.440 --> 00:55:52.582
the message that this has been in...

1054
00:55:52.582 --> 00:55:57.372
This jar that had lead content in it for over a century,

1055
00:55:57.372 --> 00:55:59.564
and undoubtedly, the lead had leached out,

1056
00:55:59.564 --> 00:56:02.460
so they were afraid this was a consumer product.

1057
00:56:02.460 --> 00:56:06.060
So I think that's still one of my favorites.

1058
00:56:06.060 --> 00:56:06.893
[Shannon] All right.

1059
00:56:06.893 --> 00:56:07.860
Well, thank you, John.

1060
00:56:07.860 --> 00:56:09.720
I appreciate that.

1061
00:56:09.720 --> 00:56:12.570
So if we did not get to your question

1062
00:56:12.570 --> 00:56:13.980
or if you have additional ones,

1063
00:56:13.980 --> 00:56:15.990
you can always send them to John.

1064
00:56:15.990 --> 00:56:18.540
His email address is there on the screen.

1065
00:56:18.540 --> 00:56:20.670
Also, we're going to be downloading

1066
00:56:20.670 --> 00:56:22.290
all the questions and comments,

1067
00:56:22.290 --> 00:56:24.660
so John can read those as well.

1068
00:56:24.660 --> 00:56:28.983
You can also learn more about the Monitor at our website.

1069
00:56:30.420 --> 00:56:31.253
Okay.

1070
00:56:33.246 --> 00:56:34.350
A video recording of the presentation

1071
00:56:34.350 --> 00:56:37.960
will be available on the Sanctuary's webinar archives page

1072
00:56:37.960 --> 00:56:40.560
found at the URL listed there at the top.

1073
00:56:40.560 --> 00:56:41.430
And in addition,

1074
00:56:41.430 --> 00:56:43.354
the webinar will be archived

1075
00:56:43.354 --> 00:56:45.030
on Monitor National Marine Sanctuary's website.

1076
00:56:45.030 --> 00:56:48.270
You can always click on the multimedia tool section

1077
00:56:48.270 --> 00:56:50.160
in the toolbar to access the webinar box.

1078
00:56:50.160 --> 00:56:52.440
It usually takes us about 10 days

1079
00:56:52.440 --> 00:56:54.840
to get the webinar up on the website,

1080
00:56:54.840 --> 00:56:57.390
but you'll find future webinars in that same section.

1081
00:56:57.390 --> 00:56:58.223
And don't worry,

1082
00:56:58.223 --> 00:56:59.820
we're gonna send you all of this information

1083
00:56:59.820 --> 00:57:02.463
in a follow-up email when the recording is ready.

1084
00:57:03.810 --> 00:57:06.060
[Mark] In celebration of the 50th anniversary

1085
00:57:06.060 --> 00:57:08.250
of the discovery of the USS Monitor,

1086
00:57:08.250 --> 00:57:11.190
we have just released a brand new 360 degree

1087
00:57:11.190 --> 00:57:13.530
virtual reality dive that was produced

1088
00:57:13.530 --> 00:57:17.193
during the expedition to Monitor in May of 2022.

1089
00:57:18.328 --> 00:57:20.830
Visit the Monitor's homepage, monitor.noaa.gov

1090
00:57:21.750 --> 00:57:23.520
to find a link to this video.

1091
00:57:23.520 --> 00:57:25.920
If you have a set of virtual reality goggles,

1092
00:57:25.920 --> 00:57:29.613
you can even download this video to view at your leisure.

1093
00:57:30.600 --> 00:57:32.250
In addition to this celebration,

1094
00:57:32.250 --> 00:57:35.940
we have also released nine 3D models of Monitor artifacts.

1095
00:57:35.940 --> 00:57:38.387
Again, just click on our homepage,

1096
00:57:38.387 --> 00:57:39.990
and there is a link to view these artifacts.

1097
00:57:39.990 --> 00:57:43.410
You can also download the STL files from these artifacts

1098
00:57:43.410 --> 00:57:46.353
and 3D print them at your home or at your local library.

1099
00:57:48.066 --> 00:57:48.899
And last but not least,

1100
00:57:48.899 --> 00:57:51.390
we invite you to follow us on social media

1101
00:57:51.390 --> 00:57:53.550
to stay in touch with all of the great celebrations

1102
00:57:53.550 --> 00:57:55.800
happening over the course of these three years

1103
00:57:55.800 --> 00:57:58.113
to celebrate Monitor's anniversaries.

1104
00:58:00.600 --> 00:58:01.560
[Shannon] All right.

1105
00:58:01.560 --> 00:58:03.300
And lastly, as you exit the webinar,

1106
00:58:03.300 --> 00:58:06.270
there is a short survey for formal and informal educators.

1107
00:58:06.270 --> 00:58:09.453
If you're an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it

1108
00:58:09.453 --> 00:58:11.760
if you just take a minute or two to complete the survey.

1109
00:58:11.760 --> 00:58:14.490
Your answers will help NOAA develop future webinars

1110
00:58:14.490 --> 00:58:17.070
and also products to meet your needs.

1111
00:58:17.070 --> 00:58:18.780
Your participation is voluntary,

1112
00:58:18.780 --> 00:58:21.813
and your answers as always will be completely anonymous.

1113
00:58:23.280 --> 00:58:24.720
So once again, John,

1114
00:58:24.720 --> 00:58:26.910
we just wanna thank you for a fabulous presentation.

1115
00:58:26.910 --> 00:58:27.990
This has been awesome.

1116
00:58:27.990 --> 00:58:31.710
I'm so glad we got to record you for Prosperity for History.

1117
00:58:31.710 --> 00:58:33.030
This is just wonderful.

1118
00:58:33.030 --> 00:58:36.360
Thank you, everyone, for taking the time today to join us.

1119
00:58:36.360 --> 00:58:37.440
Have a wonderful day,

1120
00:58:37.440 --> 00:58:39.720
and this concludes the presentation.

1121
00:58:39.720 --> 00:58:40.553
[John] Thank you, Shannon.
<v ->Bye.</v>

1122
00:58:40.553 --> 00:58:42.543
You're welcome, bye, everyone.