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Transporting history: A&M researchers help La Belle reach its new home

July 18, 2014 | In the Press

From The Eagle.com (http://www.theeagle.com/news/local/transporting-history-a-m-researchers-help-la-belle-reach-its/article_17e90e98-0e37-11e4-a6e6-001a4bcf887a.html)

With the help of two forklifts, Texas A&M researchers at the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation on Thursday lifted a 700-pound piece of Texas and French history onto a trailer bound for Austin.

Truck driver John Clegg, owner of Clegg Industries in Victoria, hauled the La Belle ship pieces nearly 20 years ago when it was recovered from Matagorda Bay. On Thursday, he said he wasn’t nervous at all about helping transport the preserved pieces of the ship’s hull.

“I wanted to do this,” he said, tightening straps over the large oak wood beam.

For 17 years, conservation specialists have worked on preserving the pieces of the La Belle, a French colonial ship that ran aground in Matagorda Bay in 1687. The ship was rediscovered in 1995 and took two years to excavate before it was brought to maritime conservation specialists at Texas A&M.

With nearly two decades of groundbreaking conservation work put into the ship — totaling about $5 million worth of work — the ship is beginning its next voyage as a display centerpiece at the Bullock Texas State History Museum, not far from the capital building.

Reconstruction of the ship will begin Oct. 25, when the Bullock exhibit “La Belle, The Ship That Changed History” opens. Visitors will be able to watch as the vessel comes together over the next few months.

Peter Fix, associate director at the conservation center and lead conservator for the La Belle preservation project, said the history of La Belle is significant to not only Texas, but the country.

French explorer Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was in the process of setting up a French colony near the mouth of the Mississippi when he was brought to Texas. The explorer was searching for possible colony sites that could serve as military strongholds for future invasions of Mexico, challenging King Louis XIV’s Spanish neighbors, according to the Texas Historical Commission.

“We might be speaking French or some other language if this ship’s course had changed,” Fix said, adding, “There might not have been an Alamo. Think about that.”

The ship ran aground in Matagorda Bay — about 100 miles south of Galveston — and sat decaying in the muck for 310 years until it was discovered by maritime archaeologists.

Fix said it’s taken about 150 people to get the ship ready for the trip to the Bullock Museum.

On Thursday, A&M graduate student Karen Martindale was using plaster, carbon fiber rope and a grinding tool to replicate the wooden bands that were used to hold together the original wooden barrels found with the wreckage. She said the toughest part has been learning new techniques to make white plaster look like a wicker or metal ring.

The barrels, and thousands of other pieces, sat in one of two large storage rooms at the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation, waiting for transport to the Bullock Museum.

Fix is temporarily living in Austin while he and two other conservationists reassemble the vessel inside the museum, starting with the 700-pound oak wood keel that was loaded Thursday morning with other large pieces of the boat’s internal structure.

Fix said the La Belle is not only significant for its historical value to the U.S., but also its uniqueness as a vessel.

Before the wooden keel and 800-pound keelson were wrapped in plastic and foam protective sheets, Fix pointed out roman numerals carved into the sides of the wood. The markers indicated where the “rib pieces” of the hull would go, which had a matching marking.

“This was a kit ship,” Fix said, explaining that it was one of a few ships that was prebuilt to be assembled after arriving at its destination in the new world.

For Fix, this will be the second time he’s assembled the ship. La Belle was reconstructed in a large cement vat at the Conservation Lab, where several other historical preservation projects of Texas ships are continuing.

Conservation Lab Director Donny Hamilton said the facilities at Texas A&M are the best in the country, drawing many prestigious conservation projects to the university.

In June, the lab sent a Civil War-era cannon to a Texas City museum, where it will be joined by a reconstruction of the ship’s engine boiler in the coming years. Another exciting piece of history is an American Revolution-era ship discovered under the ruins of the World Trade Towers in New York City that is currently being stored at the lab in large vats of water.

Hamilton said the La Belle project helped spur more innovations at the Conservation Lab, which already boasted the world’s largest archaeological vat for preserving wood.

Fix and his team used another technique, freeze-drying, to remove moisture from the wood. In order to maintain the integrity, the wood was treated with a silicone-like chemical and put into the world’s largest freeze dryer, which was constructed at Texas A&M’s Conservation Laboratory. The process freezes the wood to about -40 degrees, and then uses a vacuum process, which turns the solid water into a vapor that is removed. This keeps the wood from shrinking and crumbling when it is handled.

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