Video: PBS Features Bermuda Shipwrecks

March 23, 2018

Some of Bermuda’s shipwrecks have been featured on PBS’s recurring News Hour Programme, in the Art and Culture segment.

The topic is The Bermuda 100 Challenge, which is a joint initiative between the Bermuda Government’s Marine Heritage Section of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Look Bermuda and University of California San Diego’s Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative [CHEI]. It sets out to document digital reconstructions of shipwreck sites and marine conservation areas using modern technologies.

The video’s description says, “Shipwrecks have defined Bermuda from its earliest days, even acting as an essential economic driver. Thousands of artifacts have been left behind, providing clues about life and trade of the time. Now the wrecks are getting a new life in a high-tech lab, where they will be accessible to everyone. Jeffrey Brown reports in the first of a two-part series.”

Bermuda Battles To Save The Cultural Treasure Of Shipwrecks:

PBS News Hour’s Senior Correspondent & Chief Arts Correspondent Jeffery Brown spent two days in San Diego with project PI Professor Falko Kuester at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Virtual Engineering Labs and three days in Bermuda in February with local project PI and Custodian of Historic Wrecks Dr. Philippe Max Rouja.”

Mr. Brown was able to view the shipwrecks and artifacts in super resolution via virtual reality in San Diego and then experience them in person in Bermuda, demonstrating the promise of this new and developing technology.

Dr. Rouja said, “The aim of the Bermuda 100 project is to document 100 or more historic shipwrecks and distinct natural habitats in the waters surrounding Bermuda in order to enhance conservation efforts and open the sites to both real and ‘virtual’ tourism from interested students, researchers and travelers from around the world.

“Local divers, scientists and archaeologists are teaming with students and faculty from University of California San Diego’s [UCSD] Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative [CHEI] to document and disseminate digital reconstructions of shipwreck sites and marine conservation areas using modern technologies to collect, process, analyze, visualize and disseminate 3D data and visualizations from known shipwrecks and still-to-be-located remains.

“PBS News Hour has an average 1.1 million viewers nightly and therefore this filming presents an incredible opportunity for Bermuda to showcase this work to the world.”

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Category: All, Environment, News, Videos

Comments (3)

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  1. facts of the rock says:

    Bermuda really has NO idea in how to market itself on the World Stage.
    Say the name Gibraltar and many know where it is,
    mention Bermuda and you get a where’s that?

  2. Athena says:

    Familiar with the last two since my grandmother’s overlooked Black Bay and always fascinated with them.

    There is so much history surrounding us. So glad that we have someone of Dr. Rouja’s knowledge and experience dedicated to making sure future generations gain an interest also.

  3. Rasta far I says:

    Our waters are some of the clearest in the world Barr none.
    Why….I remember being out one still night …waters calm and we’ll…you could hear a pin drop.
    I am out of coot pond and straight out kitchens shoal or there abouts I remember four things on separate occasions all on quiet still nights, one…we felt a thud on the hull and an added weight to the hull that slowed the hills movement …then over the gunnel of our seventeen Johnny Grey built boat (shin bone ally St. Georges),then a diamond shaped pad from a very large squid reached in the vessel and started fumbling around looking for someone, something to eat…yadda yadda yadda…another still night a whale surfaced four feet next to us and looked right at us….another still night we were paid a visit by Ball lightning…this was a very dangerous but exciting occurance…It actually settled into my outstretched open palm,glided down my arm floated round my body then back on my hand I raised my hand and reduced contact to finger tip and it rose ten feet then started back down…so I showed it away…it started back up then…a blinding magnesium flash and what sounded like a sonic boom up close and personal pushed the whole boat briefly down one foot under the surface of the water it bobed right back up and instinct told me to start bailing with a five gallon bucket then a portable hand pump…wooden boats sink fast when full of water and we were lucky.
    Lastly…and this you will have to decide is true or not but…another still night when whales were passing threw…I saw beneath the surface a beautiful half fish half woman and what appears to be a mermaid…well she looked at me and spoke to me telepathically …she was saying come into the water with me (I guess she was frisky and wanted my company),I was tempted cause she had a very nice rack and her hair was long and swirled nicely in the water…I still look for her at night when….it is still.