The project for the underwater analysis of the archaeological site, called “Arade 23”, began today and runs until April 1st and will allow for the cleaning of the area to understand what state of conservation this vessel will be in and then use a technology which allows for the photographic record of the area and its georeferencing, explained the coordinator of the National Center for Nautical and Underwater Archeology (CNANS), José António Gonçalves.

“The work that we are going to do will have several dimensions, it is a shipwreck site inside the Arade estuary, near the mouth, it is a place that is little known, because it has never been excavated, and what we are going to do first is a monitoring, cleaning, redefinition of the site and assessment of the state of conservation”, said José António Gonçalves, in statements to the Lusa agency.

The head of CNANS explained that “then there will be a second phase of work, which will carry out a photogrammetry, that is, a photographic survey that meets certain criteria and then allows for a digital three-dimensional model of the site”.

“We are also going to test some recent technologies associated with photogrammetry, which is a technique and a working methodology that has already been extensively studied and applied in these contexts, but there is always an added problem, which is the georeferencing or geographic positioning of the models”, he said.

The analysis of this area of ​​the estuary of the river Arade, which marks the division between Ferragudo, in the municipality of Lagoa, and the city of Portimão, will be carried out in partnership with the Maritime Museum of Norway and has a funding of 995,000 euros from the Culture Program of the EEA (European Economic Area) Grants Financial Mechanism, which is “operated in Portugal by the CNANS of the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage.

José António Gonçalves acknowledged that, at the site, there is “a presumptive 19th century vessel”, according to the “characteristics that are known from the find”, but explained that, as the site “has never been fully excavated, there is always a large margin of uncertainty until this possibility is confirmed.

“But the available data point to a 19th century wooden sailing vessel,” he said.