Sunday, October 16, 2016

The San Miguel & The Lost 1715 Treasure Fleet

On July 31, 1715 eleven of the twelve Spanish ships sailing from Havana to Spain with royal treasure were wrecked by a violent hurricane on the east coast of Florida from St. Lucie to Cape Canaveral.

Seven days after departing from Havana, Cuba, the ships were lost in a hurricane near present day Vero Beach, Florida.
Seven Spanish treasure laden ships were scattered over the reefs from south of Fort Pierce to the Sebastian Inlet. Spanish coins of all types (gold and silver) started to be found on the beaches in the 1950s after strong nor'easters or a violent hurricane. This part of Florida's Atlantic east coast quickly became known as the Treasure Coast.
The (El Senor) San Miguel - was a 22 gun NAO Class (Fast Carrack). It very likely contained a significant portion of the treasure. It is believed the ship separated from the fleet the day before the storm struck and the wreck has never been found.

It is believed only a small fraction of the treasure of the lost 1715 Treasure Fleet has been recovered.

1715 Fleet ships believed to have been found are:

1 - Nuestra Senora de la Regla
2 - Santo Cristo de San Roman
3 - Nuestra Senora del Carmen
4 - Nuestra SeƱora de La Popa
5 - Nuestra Senora del Rosario
6 - Urca de Lima
7 - Nuestra Senora de las Nieves
- Ships of the 1715 Fleet never located are the:

8 - Maria Galante
9 - El Senor San Miguel
10 - El Cievro
11 - Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion

12 - Griffon made it safely and went on to France

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Vero Beach 2013 — Bonnie Schubert couldn’t believe her eyes when, about 1,000 feet off Frederick Douglass Beach near Fort Pierce, she came face to face with a solid gold statue of a bird that had lain under the Atlantic Ocean exactly 295 years and 15 days.
“I remember asking myself, ‘Is this real?’” Schubert recalled Wednesday as the 5.5-inch-tall statue she found was revealed to the public at her home in the Vero Shores neighborhood of Vero Beach. “The Bird,” as it’s come to be known, is real all right.

So is it’s $885,000 appraised value.

The statue was aboard one of 11 Spanish ships laden with treasures from the New World that were bound from Havana to the court of King Phillip V before encountering a hurricane July 31, 1715, and sinking off the Treasure Coast.