Reconstruction of the Tranter’s Creek Vessel and Investigation into Its Sinking

Abstract

The Pamlico River begins about half a mile upstream from Washington, North Carolina where Tranter’s Creek flows into the Tar River. In the mouth of Tranter’s creek, the remains of a vessel lie on the bottom. This vessel is a mystery: the name and the type of vessel are unknown, as is the date and reason for its sinking. This thesis explores these questions with an emphasis on a conjectural hull-form reconstruction and a timeframe for when it sank. This thesis is the first step in building a database of reconstructed North Carolina wrecks and abandoned vessels. Four feasible hypothetical models of the hull form of the Tranter’s Creek Vessel were constructed for this project. Basic analyses including tonnage and primary hull coefficients were performed on the models. The study was not successful at identifying the vessel but did discover that it is likely the vessel was sunk in its location as a river training structure for the navigable channel of the Tar-Pamlico River. This suggests the vessel may have never been complete enough to name, particularly with the current lack of evidence of use in a systemic context. Another aim of this project was to assess the accuracy of goniometric measurements in adverse water conditions (low to zero visibility in this case), particularly in regard to building viable models from those measurements. Being able to develop a plethora of viable models which had to be narrowed down to four indicates strongly that not only is goniometry sufficiently accurate in low-to-zero visibility conditions, but that hull reconstructions from partial, unraised archaeological remains are useful as well. Goniometry would be particularly good for rescue archaeology on low-visibility sites. This study concludes that more reconstructions of this and as many other North Carolina “wrecks” be made to advance the overall study of local vessels, shipping, and communities.