Heavy rains wash away century-old wooden boat buried on Nova Scotia beach

It’s not uncommon to find pieces of old ships washed up all over the East Coast.

But on a Nova Scotia beach an hour outside Halifax, three wooden sailboats — each more than a century old and more than 20 feet tall — lie completely buried in the sand.

Until now, they have been largely hidden.

The boats are based in Somerville, Nova Scotia, a small community on the Avon River. Because it connects to the Minas Basin and the Bay of Fundy, extreme tides can raise the river by 13 metres in six hours, flooding beaches.

Flooding earlier this summer washed away so much sand that the side of a historic ship was exposed at low tide.

“Most people think it’s the pier, but they don’t know there are three boats buried in the sand,” laughed local resident Wilfred Ogilvie, 88.

Ogilvie remembers playing as a child among the boats on a former pier before they were completely covered.

Get daily national news

Get the day’s top news, politics, economics and current affairs headlines delivered to your inbox once a day.

“They even built a big dormitory here because between the (gypsum) quarry and the docks and everything here, there were close to 100 men working here.” Ogilvie recalled.

He said historical images indicate the partially excavated ship is the Hamburger, a three-masted wooden ship with square sails built in nearby Hantsport and launched in 1886.

At that time, people used wooden pegs instead of nails. The hull of the Hamburg ship now has dozens of such wooden pegs.

“They didn’t use a lot of steel, like bolts and stuff like that. And of course, everything was wood back then,” Ogilvie explained.

For decades, ships carried local plaster and timber overseas, but with the invention of the steam engine, the “Golden Age of Sail” came to an end.

Eventually, the Hamburg became one of three ships abandoned at the dock, which burned down in 1936.

“They just sat there for years, probably sinking every day,” Ogilvie said. “Then gravel started to build up around them and fill up their little holes, and (they) got buried really deep, like we see here today.”

The wooden remains of two other ships were barely visible, revealing the beach.

The reappearance of the Hamburg hull has reignited interest in the region’s shipbuilding heritage.

Although local photographer Irving Leopold spent a great deal of time documenting the area’s history by interviewing residents, he had no idea there were ships in Somerville until he got the call to visit the Hamburger.

“I’ve made about 600 videos here about history… They’re all new stuff. I“He said with a smile.

For him, the opportunity to take photos and record Ogilvie’s story was great fun.

“This is like a museum. You can go back 100 years here,” he said.

Now that Somerville’s secrets have been revealed, Leopold hopes people will come to see the ship in person and learn more about the history it reveals.

“It’s just amazing to have done this,” he said.

Ogilvie added: “For a lot of people, it’s a big sight to see what happened (here) over a hundred years ago.”

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.