18th-Century Shipwrecks Found Off Poland’s Hel Peninsula

The finds were made in May by the Baltictech team during a dive to explore a suspected German U-boat dating from the World War II era.

Divers exploring the bottom of the Baltic found wreckage from contemporary ships and steamers. But they quickly came across two incredibly well-preserved wooden ships just 2 kilometers from each other at depths of between 60 and 70 meters.

Ceramics Confirm Unusual Finds
The vessels held bottles and ceramic, which has been raised for closer examination. Pottery recovered from the initial wreck was tracked to Westerwald in the Rhineland region of modern Germany, and dated between 1725 and 1740, proving the vessel to be from the 18th century. The second wreck is thought to have been from the latter part of the same century.

The findings are important, however there may be a finite amount of additional insight to be gained from exploring it. RELATED: Ukip Leadership Candidate Calls For Channel Car Boot That Would Hijack Nothing Both wrecks lie along a busy waterway linking the ports of GdaÅ„sk and Gdynia, so long dives were out of the question.

A Plane Wheel Adds to the Mystery of the Dive
Even more mysteriously, the divers also found a well-preserved airplane wheel sitting on the seabed — a confounding object with no apparent connection to the known history of the area. “We will most likely never get to the bottom of this mystery,” Baltictech wrote on social media.

Baltictech has made significant discoveries in the past, uncovering in 2023 around 100 unopened bottles of champagne that were secured to the wreck near Sweden. The champagne, from between 1850 and 1867 and meant for the Russian Tsar’s court, was still drinkable.