Article 15

(July 7, 2002 - Cherbourg, France) American archaeologists working with remote operated vehicle (ROV) operators from the Naval Surface Warfare Center and Naval Historical Center aboard the British research vessel Genesis have begun a survey to photographically document the wreck site of the CSS Alabama. Although weather and equipment problems plagued the first phase of the investigation, the unmanned underwater vehicle was able to document exposed wreckage forward of the ship's engineering space. One of the features documented by the ROV is the galley stove which divers were unable to recover during two previous weeks of work on the site in July. The galley stove and other artifacts from the crew's quarters were slated for recovery to provide insight into what life was like for the primarily British crew that served aboard Captain Raphael Semmes' ship.

Captain Raphael Semmes' most famous ship lies approximately 7 miles off Cherbourg Harbor on the Normandy coast. After a highly successful cruise of almost two years, the CSS Alabama was sunk in an engagement with the USS Kearsarge on 19 June 1864. The international investigation of the CSS Alabama is being sponsored by the Mobile Alabama based CSS Alabama Association and the project has been funded by a Congressional appropriation sponsored by Alabama Senators Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby. Their appropriation was channeled through the United States Navy Legacy Program. Underwater Archaeological investigation of the CSS Alabama began in 1988, four years after a French Navy mine hunting vessel discovered the wreck.

The American archaeological team made up of Gordon P. Watts, Jr., the Principal Investigator and underwater archaeologist Mark Padover hope the ROV will be able to collect sufficient photographs to construct a scaled photomosaic of the wreck site. That mosaic will provide the first image of the entire wreck and provide an indication of how much of the ship survives. Data from the survey will also be used to construct a computer based model of the site. Watts and Padover are associated with the Institute for International Maritime Research a Washington, North Carolina based not for profit organization formed to conduct and sponsor maritime research and underwater archaeology and are working on the CSS Alabama for the Mobile Alabama based CSS Alabama Association headed by President Robert Edington.