Bizarre Puzzle Behind The Sunken Ship

After the British warship HMS Tyger ran aground on a coral reef near Garden Key, Florida, on 13 January 1742, even dumping its cannons overboard couldn’t set it free. Decades later, those same cannons helped archaeologists definitively identify the wreck.

The ship, which was on patrol as part of the War of Jenkins’ Ear between Britain and Spain, is 130 feet in length and represented 704 tons of patrol power, with 50 cannons scattered across three decks.

The 300-plus men on board sailed near Cuba and Jamaica as a show of force to the Spanish. That force lost its momentum when it hit the coral reefs of the Florida Keys, leading the crew to toss anchors and cannons overboard to no avail and forcing them to abandon the ship toward Garden Key, where they built shelter as the island’s first fortifications.

In 2024, the history of the HMS Tyger and Garden Key came back to life thanks to a positive identification of the ship. "Archaeological finds are exciting, but connecting those finds to the historical record helps us tell the stories of the people that came before us and the events they experienced," James Crutchfield, Dry Tortugas National Park manager, said in a statement. "This particular story is one of perseverance and survival."

The ship was initially discovered in 1993, but archaeologists from the park, the Submerged Resources Center, and the Southeast Archaeological Center used newly uncovered evidence — found when the site was surveyed in 2021 — to gain more details and make a positive identification of the ship.

The team found five cannons roughly 500 yards from the main wreck, and buried in the margins of old logbooks was a reference that described how the crew "lightened her forward" after initially running aground, briefly refloating the vessel before finding further trouble.

Archaeologists determined the cannons to be British six- and nine-pound cannons linked to the HMS Tyger. The findings were published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.

As governed by international treaty, the HMS Tyger and related artifacts are sovereign property of the British government, and the site is protected under cultural resource laws.

"This discovery highlights the importance of preservation in place as future generations of archaeologists, armed with more advanced technologies and research tools, are able to reexamine sites and make new discoveries," Josh Marano, the maritime archaeologist who led the team making the discovery, said in a statement.

Believed to have first been built in 1647, the HMS Tyger was reconfigured multiple times before the 1741 iteration carried six 6-pounder guns on the quarter deck, 22 9-pounders on the upper deck, and 22 18-pounders on the gun deck, according to the National Park Service.

Those heavy guns were unloaded when the ship ran aground in 1742 in an effort to dislodge the ship. The crew moved everything else to the back of the ship. Historical records say poor weather helped worsen the situation, and the crew was ordered to abandon ship.

Archaeologists believe the HMS Tyger was the first of three British warships to sink off the Florida Keys. The HMS Fowey and HMS Looe wreck sites were previously located, but the HMS Tyger location had remained a mystery.

The 300 members of the crew were able to navigate the shallow waters to the nearby Garden Key, spending 66 days marooned there. The National Park Service stated the men crafted the first fortifications on the island, more than 100 years before Fort Jefferson took shape.

The crew was eager to leave the heat, mosquitoes, and lack of water, attempting to escape the deserted island by trying to salvage pieces of the wrecked ship and build new vessels. The crew even attempted an attack on a Spanish vessel, according to historical records. That attempt failed, and the crew decided to burn the HMS Tyger remains so the Spanish didn’t capture the guns.