Clinker Wreck
June 15, 2018Any observations about the wrecks or park facilities: info@wreckpark.eu or +358 44 920 1647 (sms)
The Clinker Wreck is scattered over a large area and no intact structures have been found so far. Single timbers lie even 100 meters out from the main site, depicted on the left. Here the depth varies between 14 to 16 meters, but more fragments can be found up to 18 meters depth, as well as on the shallower side of the reef. Visibility on the site is usually good or at least fair, as the bottom is sandier than that on the Barrel Wreck just 20 meters away. Outside the picture lies an intact boom or gaff, but there’s no telling, whether that belongs to either of the wrecks.
The namesake of the wreck is its apparent hull building style of being “clinker built”. Its given away by several clearly stepped frames still remaining. Historically, the wooden ship’s hulls are primarily categorized as clinker or carvel built, albeit hybrids exist too. The difference in construction is depicted above.
In addtion to about a dozen frames or frame fragments, a keel and keelson have been identified from the site. The keelson is easy to distinquish from the lower right on the mosaic picture (left). The close vicinity of the Barrel Wreck will require carefull analysis of the planks on this site, in order to distinguish them from each other, as to which originate from the Barrel Wreck and which belong to the Clinker Wreck.
A lot more work is required to even map out the entire wrecksite, not to mention inspecting the remains themselves. Clinker built vessels are always of great interest in the Baltic, as they may originate from the middle ages. However, it should also be pointed out, that such strucures are still in use, like in this “storbåt”, photographed mooring on the other side of the bay this summer.
