The Spanish galleon, Santo Cristo de Burgos, sailed from the Philippines in 1693 across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico laden with goods for trade, but sank en route off the coast of Oregon. The story of the wreck has been told for centuries, most notably in the 1980s as the inspiration for One-Eyed Willy’s pirate ship in Steven Spielberg’s The Goonies. The film follows a group of teenagers who embark on a quest to find a lost pirate’s treasure they believe is hidden along the Oregon coast. But while the Santo Cristo de Burgos may have found widespread popularity thanks to the silver screen, its exact location on the seabed remained a mystery until this summer, when a group of volunteers discovered more than 20 pieces of wood in a cave. the west coast of oregon. It turned out to be debris from the ship – and prompted the team to try to find the remaining debris. University of Delaware professor Art Trembanis and members of his lab joined forces with SEARCH2O, the marine archeology arm of SEARCH Inc, a company specializing in historic shipwrecks, “pre-contact submerged archaeology, paleosite reconstruction and deep-sea archaeology”. . According to the university, with the support of the National Geographic Society and the Maritime Archaeological Society, they conducted underwater mapping of possible locations of the ship. Mr Trebanis, a professor from the university’s School of Marine Science and Policy, said: “I grew up here in the North West, and this is an area I would come to in the summers. They filmed The Goonies there. “Our team, the UD (University of Delaware) team, was involved in this project to map the sea floor and try to find where the material from the wreck came from.” Underwater vehicles and echoes While there has been evidence of a shipwreck on land for centuries, there have been only limited efforts to search the open sea by local fishermen and archaeological teams. “The search area for this wreck is dynamic and challenging for many reasons, from weather conditions to close proximity to shore,” said team member Grant Otto. “Gathering high-quality data in this environment was quite difficult and we were lucky to have a great captain who knew the conditions and could put the boat in tight spots so we could do our job as well as we could.” Professor Trebanis and members of his lab were able to use cutting-edge technologies such as multi-beam sonar, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) systems to systematically map, explore and survey the offshore area. “It takes a team of Goonies…” For now, the team is keeping their findings under wraps, but Professor Trebanis confirmed that they were able to verify that some targets previously thought to be just rock outcrops. He paid tribute to the cooperation of groups that also included the Columbia River Maritime Museum, Oregon State Parks and the State Historic Preservation Office – as well as first responders ashore. “We were working on a fishing boat and had a really great crew who were extremely receptive,” he said. “We had a lot of local partners, archaeologists and maritime museum people who allowed us a place to store our equipment and set it all up. “It really takes a team of Goonies to pull off a search effort like this.”
