1715 PLATE FLEET

Every year, two fleets travelled between Spain and the Americas; the Esquadron de Terra Firme from Spain to South America, and the Flota de Nova Espana toward Vera Cruz. Sometimes, these two fleets would travel together all the way to the Caribbean. The return voyage was more dangerous. The galleons were fully loaded with precious cargoes of gold, silver, jewellery, tobacco, spices, indigo, cochineal etc? The crews were tired and often plagued by health problems brought on by tropical diseases, malnutrition, and deplorable hygienic conditions on board. These conditions made ships even more vulnerable to attacks by pirates, but the greatest danger came from an uncontrollable element; the weather. The general weather conditions were more favourable during the summer months. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean were calmer, and the prevailing winds gentler. However, the very warm waters of the South Atlantic contributed to unstable weather, and the then unpredictable rapid development of violent and devastating tropical storms called hurricanes.

The Storm

The Squadron of Tierra Firma was under the command of Captain-General Don Antonio de Escheverz y Zubiza, and consisted of six vessels. The Capitana-General was indirect command of the Capitana, the flagship, which was a captured English ship formerly named the Hampton Court, and was laden with a great number of chests of silver coins, gold coins, gold bars, gold dust, and jewellery, as well as tropical products. The flagship of the admiral, the Almiranta, was equally richly laden. The Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion carried gold coins and gold bars, as well as a number of chests of silver coins. The frigate San Miguel, the El Ciervo, and a patache, a smaller merchant vessel, completed the squadron.

The five ships of the New Spain Flota were under the general command of Captain-General Don Juan Esteban de Ubilla. Juan Esteban de Ubilla was himself on the Capitana, which carried some thirteen hundred chests containing 3,000,000 silver coins. There were also gold coins, gold bars, silver bars, and jewellery, as well as emeralds, pearls, and precious K?ang-Hsi Chinese porcelain which had been brought to Mexico by the Manila Galleons. The Almiranta carried nearly a thousand chests of silver coins, each individual chest containing some 3,000 coins. The Refuerzo carried eighty-one chests of silver coins and over fifty chests of worked silver. Another ship, a patache, carried some 44,000 pieces of eight. One frigate helped complete the Flota. The French ship Griffon, commanded by Captain Antoine Dar, had received permission to sail with the fleet. In his 1975 book, "The Funnel of Gold", historian Mendel Peterson estimated the value of the registered cargo of the combined fleet at 7,000,000 pieces of eight, which represented a real value of about $86 million (1975) of our money.

The fleet had suffered many delays, and had been sitting idle for nearly two years. Pressure had been mounting for the fleet to sail. The Spanish crown was in dire need of money; so were merchants who had been unable to make their exotic goods available for sale on the European market. Under this tremendous pressure, Ubilla made the decision to start the long and perilous voyage back to the Old World, even though the hurricane season had long begun. This decision would prove to be fatal, for unknown to the Spaniards a tremendous and exceptionally powerful hurricane was brewing to the southeast of Cuba. The great treasure fleet of 1715 sailed from Havana harbor in the early morning of July 24^th, a beautiful and calm day, with a gentle breeze to help the ships find the Florida Current which ran north and up the Straits of Florida. Slowly and smoothly the ships of Ubilla?s fleet gently followed the East coast of Florida, staying far enough away from the shore to take advantage of the Gulf Stream, and stay clear of the treacherous shoals and reef formations which fringed the Florida coast. For the first five days the voyage was uneventful with the weather remaining good and giving no indication whatsoever of the rapidly approaching killer storm. But on July 29^th, long swells started to appear, coming from the southeast. The atmosphere became heavy with moisture with the sun shining brightly through the haze. A gentle breeze still blew and the sea was smooth, but the swells started to make the ship gently dip and roll. Experienced navigators, pilots, and old hands started to be concerned. They knew that these were the early signs of an impending tropical storm.

The storm was traveling north, almost due east of the convoy, but still many many miles away. The storm had reached alarming intensity with winds at the center of the storm now reaching one hundred miles per hour. By nightfall the hurricane had made a drastic change in course, suddenly veering directly to the west. On the morning of July 30^th, along the east coast of Florida, just south of Cape Canaveral, winds had begun to pick up and by midday had increased to well over 20 knots, and the sea was rapidly building up. By late afternoon winds had increased to over thirty knots, and the waves were reaching twenty feet. Ubilla?s fleet was relentlessly driven closer and closer to shore. The Captain General gave the order that all ships head into the wind in order to stay well clear of the reef and shoals, but the attempt was marginally successful. The velocity of the wind kept increasing, and by midnight, the ships were barely under control. Around 4 a.m. on July 31^st, the hurricane struck the doomed ships with all its might, driving one ship after another on the deadly jagged reefs. The ships broke up like wooden toys. Ubilla?s Capitana disintegrated, crushed on the reef like matchsticks. Almost all aboard were killed, including Captain General Ubilla. The entire fleet was lost, and of the some twenty five hundred persons aboard various ships, over one thousand perished. Contrary to previous accounts by various historians, there is no historical evidence to indicate that the Griffon survived the terrible storm, and we can assume that it was lost, as were the two other ships of the 1715 fleet, around the shoals of Cape Canaveral.

When daylight came on that dreadful morning of July 31^st, 1715, the full extent of the disaster could then be seen. The beaches of la Florida were littered with wreckage and bodies, and the survivors of this human tragedy were trying to comprehend what had happened to them. They were attempting to find their actual location. As the ships had wrecked at different locations, and were separated by sometimes several miles, it was impossible for the survivors to fully assess the extent of the disaster. They were stranded in this inhospitable land without food, water, or much needed medical supplies. Many were dying each day, adding to the already devastating number of casualties. Admiral Don Francisco Salmon undertook to immediately survey the extent of the damage. After observing that all ships had been wrecked, he decided, on August 6^th, to send Nicolas de India, Ubilla?s pilot, and 18 men, in a launch toward the island of Cuba, to give the alert, and to send a personal message to the governor, the Marques de Casatorres. It took ten days for the small boat to reach Havana. The alert had been given.

SALVAGE

A beachcomber named Kip Wagner, a resident of Sebastian Creek on the Florida coast, walking the shore after a major storm discovered a coral encrusted lump of coins, all dated 1714. After showing his find to another man, Kip Kelso, a search of library of congress was undertaken to see if more could be learned of the location of the wrecked fleet from contemporary documents.

Armed with this new information, Kip Wagner took to the sea on an inflatable tire inner tube and immediately found the 1715 fleet, their cannon laid bare by the same storm that had washed up the clump of coins he had found on the beach.

After recruiting a team of divers (including a young Mel Fisher), salvage of the wrecks began in earnest, thousand of coins and artefacts worth countless millions of pounds were uncovered by Wagner's team.