Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge - East Carolina Dive and Historical Recovery Team, Beaufort Inlet and Oregon Inlet Survey, 1982 Field Reports

In 1982 the East Carolina Dive Club conducted underwater surveys on five known shipwrecks, one unrecorded shipwreck and a training exercise on the artificial reef made from two Liberty ships. The unrecorded wreck was first explored with multiple snorkel dives in 1979 after being identified by the man that discovered it in 1939. SCUBA surveys of the wreck revealed Colonial period cannons and anchors. The wreck was not originally recorded by the State of North Carolina as it was believed to be a Civil War period vessel due to the numerous cannons reported by the Dive Club. Later in the Fall of 1996 a private treasure recovery company working with information provided by East Carolina University graduate studies relocated and finally got the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to record the location as Shipwreck Site 0003BUI. In the 1990s the shipwreck was given protection by the State and the archaeology site file number 31CR314. Recovered artifacts soon reconfirmed it was an early eighteenth century vessel. Subsequent field seasons confirmed the ship was the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard the pirate’s flagship which was lost at Beaufort Inlet in 1718.