Note
Date 8 November 2000
Event ID 935386
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/935386
The Blessing is recorded as having been lost in a storm on 10 July 1633 during King Charles I's coronation tour of Scotland; only two courtiers survived. The vessel was possibly built of Baltic timber to a Dutch design, and may have carried treasure to a value of #100,000, a sum possibly equivalent to one-sixth of the entire Scottish exchequer.
Intermittent survey operations between 1991 and 1997 failed to locate the wreck, but in 1998 Mr J Longton suggested a new location on the basis of map dowsing and an anomaly reported by HMS Roebuck. Reconnaissance operations in that year by Mr Howard Murray and Mr Ian Archibald (of the Burntisland Heritage Trust) recorded 'ribs and other structural traces of a substantial unknown vessel' beneath the seabed with only small portions apparent above it. No artifacts were reported as having been discovered and no evidence has been published for the identity of the vessel.
No location for the discovery was initially published, but the Designation Order (dated 29 January 1999, to apply from 22 February 1999) defines the restricted area as a circle of 100m diameter around 56 02.407N 003 14.856W. No detailed description is given, but the location cited equates to an NGR of NT 22280 83722, placing the remains about 0.9nm SW of Burntisland harbour entrance, in a charted depth of 21m and just SW of the recommended channel to Braefoot Bay terminal.
Burntisland Roads (noted by the Hydrographic Office as Burntisland Road) is an extensive but ill-defined area of mooring grounds in a depth of between about 10 and 30m and centred around 56 02.7N 003 14.0W. Hilly ground affords protection to the N but the area is exposed to the SW, S and SE. The bottom is a mixture of sand, mud, coal and shell, and diving conditions are generally poor on account of reduced visibility by virtue of suspended mud and sand.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 8 November 2000.
HO chart 736 (1995 edition); NMRS, MS/829/14 and MS/829/26.
