Along the coral - coated coast of Mexico , nautical archeologist have uncovered a wreck that meet an untimely circumstances over 200 years ago .
Researchers from Mexico’sNational Institute of Anthropology and History ( INAH)recently discovered the wreck in the coastal waters around the Banco Chinchorro in the Yucatan Peninsula after receiving a tip - off from a local fisherman . Although the project has been slightly hampered by the on-going Covid-19 pandemic , the team have negociate to pull off a couple of dives over the past centuries in which they confirmed the presence of the ship . Next up , they hope to expect out another dive to pull plans of the land site and perhaps take samples for further research ashore .
Much of the ship ’s wood has disgrace aside , but the wreckage includes alloy parts of the ship , atomic number 26 ingots , its anchor , and even a 2.5 - meter - prospicient ( 8 - foot ) cannon , all of which has become encrusted into the reef over the century . The INAH squad said the design of the ship suggests it ’s an English sailing boat that dates to around the late-18th or early-19th century , although little else is jazz about its history .
The wreck was find inBanco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve , a diverse patch of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef Systems . Thanks to its rich coral reefs and temperamental currents , the Banco Chinchorro was known to old salt as the " sleep depriver ” because it was notoriously hard to sail through .
By no surprisal , this means the area is also no alien to a shipwreck . According to the INAH , the newly break crash is the seventieth file shipwreck in the Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve .
The shipwreck has since been name the “ Manuel Polanco wreck ” after the fisherman who first suspected the comportment of the wreck in the nineties . Now retired and elderly , Polanco is no longer able to go out to sea , but he managed to recall the location of the internet site to his son who led the INAH archeologists to the find . Remarkably , this far from Polanco ’s first discovery , the local fisherman constitute the remains of various shipwrecks , including two well - make out wrecks in the Banco Chinchorro known as " 40 Cañones " and " The Angel . "
In other discoveries from the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula , marine archeologists from the INAH in 2018 also hear theremains of an 18th - century Dutch warship , a British Mississippi - trend steamboat from the nineteenth century , and a lighthouse .
