A few old charts of Scilly

The Simon Bayly chart of 1680. I found this charming chart in the National Maritime Museum archives while researching something else entirely. I could not believe that noone else had seen it before at Scilly- especially the self professed 'expert of research' that lives still here. Not only did this chart lead me to find one of its previously undiscovered wrecks, (the 'Phoenix' which sank in 1680) and lift its treasure- it also put to rest years of speculation as to the whereabouts of two other wrecks. It also told me there was a new one nobody ever knew existed or was ever wrecked here- the 'Shaftesbury'.

The Dutch named Scilly- Sorlings.  There is a story that Scilly had a 330 year war with Holland and that not one shot was fired. However, when the dutch tried to take the islands in 1667, using this chart to aid them, a battle ensued between Star Castle and the dutch fleet as they rounded the garrison shore line. Two of thier ships were damaged in the engagement. They had already taken St Agnes for a base and got as far as Rat Island in their attempt to land on Town beach St Marys- but finding the tide was too low they abandoned their attack and fought their way back towards St Agnes. They regrouped and planned another assault for higher tide the next day but a storm blew up and thwarted them. They were then blown out to sea and never tried to take Scilly again. They were commanded by the famous Admiral De Ruyter at the time. I found one Dutch cannon close by Woodcocks ledge off the garrison shore. Was it part of this incident? I have placed a mark on this chart to show the rough position of another wreck I found there that was built in Elizabethan times c1585. We have no idea when it sank there though and dont know its identity. I actually believe that this is just part of a much bigger wreck the rest of which lays elsewhere. 

Edmund Gostello

  This is a later more accurate chart of the islands done by Edmund Gostello. It shows the islands in a more accurate formation but still the set global position of the islands was wrong. These islands were shown to be too far north on charts of the period and it took a long time before this problem was corrected-but by then many ships had been needlessly lost here as a result of the wrong position given for Scilly. Ships would pass by here going north east and reach a point whereby they thought the islands were supposed to be- they would then turn south east to avoid disaster but run smack into them heading southeast. Once a chart came out that accurately portrayed where Scilly was it saved many lives. however, more disasters continued to occur until an accurate way of finding longitude at sea was found. There was also the rennel current to contend with and this made the ships go faster towards the north than they realised they were going. You could find you speed over the water fairly accurately but if the ship was moving in an overall current it did not know was present-then it would traverse over that part of the planet faster. The Rennel current did this.  This chart also depicts the 4 shipwrecks of the 1707 Naval disaster. This is what diver teams like Roland Morris used in the 1960's to find the positions of those shipwrecks.

This chart was drawn from surveys taken by T. Kitchen Goerge. Published in 1753. What I like about the charts of Scilly is that they also record the names of the rocks. Some rocks change names others swap names but a few stay the same throughout. Old Wreck Rock is one of them. It appears on most charts as the same thing. So whatever shipwreck it is seemingly making reference to certainly must be an early one.