A History of Underwater Excavation

When the Merry Rose Trust was formed in early 1979, its aims were always to raise the ship if at all possible. But even up until 1982 we weren't absolutely sure it was possible and so Margaret Rule had plans that if for some reason we failed to bring it up or couldn't raise the money we would then rebury the ship in the seabed. So stage one was to bring out something called an underwater lifting frame. This enabled the suction effect of all the mud underneath the ship to be broken. One of the really memorable dives I had after this process had been done was literally just two or three inches off the hull but my task was to prove with my hand on the