UU Student to lead US civil war wreck dive
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Anne Corscadden Knox, a former student UU Coleraine, kitted up for a dive.
A FORMER University of Ulster woman is set to lead a diving expedition aimed at unravelling the mystery surrounding the sinking of a civil war vessel in the Florida Keys.
The Menemon Sanford, a paddle steamer, was carrying Union soldiers from the 156th New York Volunteers bound for New Orleans when it hit a coral reef near Key Largo on December 10, 1862.
All of the crew and soldiers were evacuated to US naval vessels but the soldiers' gear and supplies were lost.
Anne Corscadden Knox, (32), a graduate of UU Coleraine, is leading a group of students from the USA who are investigating the ship's watery grave.
There were suspicions the ship's pilot Captain A.W. Richardson was a southern sympathiser and the sinking was an act of sabotage. Richardson was placed under arrest for criminal negligence.
Originally from west Belfast, Anne graduated from Coleraine in 2002, with a MSc in Maritime Archaeology and Coastal Zone Management.
Speaking to the Constitution from a dive in Ohio she said: "We hope that our investigations can shed some light on the sinking. Sometimes you can put it all together and come up with some good theory, but it's like anything in archaeology, you'll never be 100 per-cent certain."
The diving expedition is just one of several projects Anne has undertaken as a research associate and programme co-ordinator with the PAST Foundation - a non-profit organisation created to promote partnerships between anthropologists and educators through a series of innovative projects. Anne qualified as a commercial diver in Fort William, Scotland, and she has also taken part in an underwater expedition to investigate what is believed to be the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, flagship of the notorious pirate, Blackbeard.
She said: "Whether it is that ship or not, it was a remarkable 18th century shipwreck with quite substantial archaeological debris."
The PAST Foundation held nine field schools this summer, including caving in Kentucky, to collect spider webs for research into their tensile strength.
Next week, Anne will co-lead an archaeology team taking part in a multi disciplinary expedition on a deep sea wreck investigation in the Gulf of Mexico.
In October she will begin research into shipwrecks of the Californian Gold Rush.
Anne, who is married to a fellow former student at the University of Ulster, Dr Graeme Knox, said: "I loved my time at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. I was in Australia looking at courses and I had the opportunity to study there but the course in Coleraine was better.
“When I lived there I loved the people and the department. The researchers and students in Coleraine are doing cutting edge research. I live in the States and people here reference papers from the University of Coleraine. It makes me proud to be an alumni."
She added: "I would love to come back to Northern Ireland to maybe continue my studies and do a PHd in Coleraine, but for the foreseeable future I will remain in the States."
