The ship that wrecked on Molasses Reef is an example of one of the first truly sea-going ships: The product of thousands of years of evolution in nautical design to meet the challenge of the vast and forbidding Atlantic Ocean.

What special features did these ships have? Why did they succeed where so many others failed? What made them so reliable? These ships appear on the Juan de la Cosa map of 1500, the earliest map of the New World. They give us some idea of how the ships that conquered the Ocean Sea looked, but the hull remains, ballast, and hardware recovered from the Molasses Reef enables us to ghost in some of the missing pieces.

Ships | Exploration | Discovery | Research | Our Mission
Headquarters | Exhibits | Turks and Caicos Museum | About Us | Our Network | Contributors | Underwater Links | Our Publications
Shipwreck Excavations | Columbus's Lost Ships | Archival Documents | Conservation | Ancient Techniques | Replicas
Experimental Archaeology