A wreck from the Swedish ship barrier of 1715 was recovered before construction works for a pipeline.

Trident Archäologie was commissioned in spring 2023 to excavate and recover the Mönchgut Fpl. 46 shipwreck to prevent it from being impaired or even destroyed by the planned construction of a pipeline.

The shipwreck is part of the Swedish ship barrier of 1715, which was intended to impede access to the Bay of Greifswald and so protect the town of Stralsund from an approaching Danish fleet. To this end, the Swedes sank around 20 ships in a long line across the former fairway at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, which is only a few meters deep here. Due to the large number of archaeological finds in this area, it was unfortunately not possible to circumvent the site, so the only possible protective measure was to recover the wreck.

In the summer of 2023, we conducted a campaign over several weeks to excavate and document the ship. Many ballast stones first had to be removed from the wreck, loaded into big bags, lifted on deck and brought ashore - extremely strenuous work, especially underwater. All excavation phases and findings were photogrammetrically recorded and all timbers were inventoried before the preserved hull was dismantled into its individual parts underwater and all timbers were recovered.

All parts of the ship are currently being stored in two temporary water basins and will be more closely studied, measured and documented over the next few months.