National Park Service archaeologists at Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys have identified wreckage found 31 years ago as an 18th-century British warship, the agency announced Thursday.
The remains of the HMS Tyger were discovered in 1993, but the identity of the boat couldn’t be confirmed then.
Old log books said the Tyger’s crew lessened the boat’s load before running aground in 1742. The 2021 discovery of five cannons around 500 yards from the wreck helped archaeologists confirm the wreck was the Tyger.
The ship ended its journey on the reef in what would become the national park while on patrol in the War of Jenkins’ Ear between Britain and Spain from 1739 to 1748. The war’s primary theater was the Caribbean.
The 300 surviving crew members, marooned on Garden Key, built the island’s first fortifications and endured 66 days of heat, thirst and mosquitoes before escaping on makeshift vessels and sailing 700 miles through Spanish-controlled waters to Jamaica.
“Archeological 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. This particular story is one of perseverance and survival,” Dry Tortugas Park Manager James Crutchfield said in the NPS release.
Under the terms of an international treaty, the Tyger and related artifacts are property of the British government, the NPS said.
Another sunken British ship, the HMS Fowey, lies within Florida’s Biscayne National Park and is managed between the U.S. government and Britain’s Royal Navy.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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