Discovery by sports divers

In 2002, a wreck was discovered in the Gulf of Gdansk in Polish waters by a group of divers from Gdynia. The wreck was reported to the authorities by Leszek Więckowski and Marek Semir Sydia.

National Maritime Museum Gdánsk

A sonar image of the wrecksite.

Archaeological research at the site was conducted in October and November 2003. The wrecksite was measured and and drawings of the wreck were made, and photographic and video documentation was taken. The underwater inventory of the wreck was subsequently done in 2006 and 2015. On the whole, only the bottom of the ship remains. It is the wreck of a so-called 'lighter' or ballast barge. This type of ship was mainly used to transport goods and information to and from larger ships lying in a roadstead (hence the name, goods were 'alighted' from a vessel), and also for coastal trade.

Some timbers were dendrochronologically dated and this showed that the ship was constructed in or after 1854. The wood used for the construction of the vessel came from the basin of middle or upper Vistula River.

National Maritime Museum Gdánsk

A digitally created image of the wreck.

The flat-bottomed, oaken hull of this barge is 25.5 meters long and 6.2 meter wide.

The ship's bottom is formed by massive flush-laid planks 25 cm wide and 9 to 11 cm thick. The bottom was reinforced by 30 flat and wide floor timbers fastened to the planks by means of pine wood treenails, 3 cm in diameter. The floor timbers - all made of oak were placed at relatively regular spaces of 50 cm and they were 30-40 cm long. The cuts on the uppermost preserved knee shows that originally the side was formed by two or three flush-laid strakes, fastened by nails and caulked by wooden laths nailed into seams.

National Maritime Museum Gdánsk

An overview drawing of the wreck.

The National Maritime Museum in Gdansk created a website providing information and virtual images of a number of wrecks in the Gulf of Gdansk, the Gulf of Gdańsk Shipwreck Virtual Open-Air Museum, which also has a page on the F53.9

A virtual tour of the wreck.

• Gulf of Gdańsk Shipwreck Virtual Open-Air Museum.
  Shipwreck: F53.9.