A film crew for a well-known television channel flew all the way to Virginia from London to document a newly-found shipwreck in the mud of the York River.
A future episode of National Geographic’s “Drain the Oceans” television show will feature the York River and its underwater mysteries using computer-generated imagery, the York County Division of Tourism Development wrote in a blog post Friday.
“This was one tough secret for the Tourism office to keep!” the office wrote on the Visit Yorktown website.
In June, JRS Explorations found a Revolutionary War shipwreck in the York River, including cannons and a piece of charred wood, which indicated the ship could be the troop transport ship, “Shipwright.”
The shipwreck is the 11th Revolutionary War ship located in the river.
Historians say the Shipwright and another transport ship were anchored in the York River in October 1781 when the French fired a “hot shot” at the HMS Charon, Gen. Cornwallis’ largest warship.
The Charon caught on fire and drifted into the two transport ships, also catching the Shipwright on fire and sinking the three ships. An excavation in the 1930s confirmed these details about the ships, which still sit at the bottom of the river.
In June and July, news of the discovery by JRS Explorations hit the pages of several news sources, including the Washington Post, Navy Times, Fox News and more.
That’s where the National Geographic film crews come in.
Following the discovery, the crews used Riverwalk Landing Piers as their home base to gather footage for Drain the Oceans. The show will use scientific data and digital recreations, according to the county tourism office.
Drain the Oceans has covered numerous underwater mysteries, legends and historic artifacts, including U-boats, Malaysia Airlines 370, mysteries of the China seas, D-Day and more, according to the show website.
The tourism office does not yet have an air date for the episode, but it will inform the public as soon as the information becomes available.
