Diver Inspection

Date 8 June 2014 - 15 June 2014

Event ID 1030846

Category Recording

Type Diver Inspection

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1030846

In June 2014 a Cotswold Archaeology dive team undertook a survey of the wreck of the Wrangels Palais off Out Skerries, Shetland. The work was conducted as part of the Heritage Assessment in Relation to Marine Designation: Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Territorial Waters contract. It was undertaken to a brief supplied by Historic Scotland. The Wrangels Palais was built as the Wrangles Palats in the Netherlands in 1662. She was bought by a Swedish company and worked as a merchant vessel until being bought into the Swedish navy in 1669. The vessel saw action during the Scanian War (1675-1679) fought between Sweden and a Danish-Norwegian alliance. On the first day of the battle of Møn, fought between a Danish force and a smaller Swedish squadron, the Wrangles Palats (listed as 38 guns) was overtaken and captured by the 62-gun Enigheden. Following her capture she was commissioned into the Danish navy as a frigate and renamed the Wrangels Palais.

On the 23rd July 1687 the Wrangels Palais was patrolling between Iceland and the Faeroe Islands to guard against Turkish privateers when, in dense fog, she struck Capped Lamba Stack and sank. Of the 240 men on board, c. 87 were drowned. The wreck was found in 1990 by Tim Sharpe diving as part of an expedition organised by Richard Price. On 18th August 1990 the site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act (1973) and between 1993 and 1995 work was undertaken on the site. The Strathclyde University dive team conducted investigations, led by Tim Sharpe, with input from Richard Price and Mensun Bound. The wreck site consists of a cluster of iron and bronze cannons (31 were reported in 1994) and iron concretions sitting on a rocky seabed.

Diving operations took place between 8th and 15th June 2014. The primary objective was to locate surviving elements of the wreck, position-fix them and thus achieve an up-to-date plan of seabed remains for comparison against the previous archaeological plans. The objectives were achieved for most of the features shown on the previous plans. The work also allowed the sidescan data collected by Wessex Archaeology in 2011, and which shows the site clearly, to be correctly positioned.

Cotswold Archaeology, January 2015