The 1715 Spanish Plate FleetOn July 31st, 1715 a hurricane struck the Florida coast,
sinking 10 of the 11 ships that made up the plate fleet of
1715. The plate fleets carried the Quinto, or royal fifth, a 20
percent tax on gold, silver and other valuables traded in new world.
The loss of the 1715 plate fleet was probably the largest loss
of treasure at sea in all of maritime history.
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.
At the library of congress, Kelso found a book called
A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, by Bernard
Romans. Written in 1775, only 60 years after the destruction
of the plate fleet of 1715, Romans had visited Sebastian
Creek and learned the exact location of the wrecked fleet
from the natives who lived there:
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"Opposite this river
[Sebastian Creek], perished, the Admiral
commanding the plate fleet of 1715, the rest of the
fleet fourteen in number, between this and the
bleach yard" |
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[1]), salvage of the wrecks began in earnest, thousand
of coins and artefacts worth countless millions of pounds
were uncovered by Wagner's team.
Salvage operations continue at the site to this very
day[2].
[1] Mel Fisher, the most successful treasure hunter of
all time, not only worked on the salvage of the 1715 plate
fleet, but went on to discover and salvage the richest
treasure ships ever discovered, the
Nuestra Señora de Atocha
(Our Lady of Atocha), and the
Santa Margarita, both of which sank off the Marquesas
Cays, Florida in a hurricane in 1622.
[2] Detectorists wanting to search these beaches be
warned - the rights to search and recover items from these
locations belong to a salvage company. Detect on them
without the proper permission at your peril. Further
Reading Pieces of Eight, Kip Wagner and L.
B. Taylor, Dutton 1966. Buy on Amazon.co.uk
Buy on Amazon.com
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