17th-century merchant shipwreck discovered

A 17th-century merchant ship which a team of experts were surprised to find in the Baltic Sea. The discovery was made in the Gulf of Finland between Finland's Hanko peninsula and the Estonian island of Hiiumaa in the Baltic Sea by Badewanne, a non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting shipwrecks from World War I and World War II. The wreck was found on the seafloor at a depth of 280 feet and the team shared the discovery last week but they found the ship in mid-June. When the experts were first exploring the wreck, they assumed they had found the remains of a vessel from one of the World Wars but they quickly realised it was a different type of ship. Jouni Polkko, a member of the Badewanne team, told Real Press: “Quickly during the dive, it became clear that this was an old wreck and a Fluit-type merchant ship. ‘Fluit’ ships were designed in the Netherlands and used as merchant ships in the 17th century." The Badewanne team explained in a press release that this find was one of the biggest surprises during their long career of diving the wrecks in the eastern extension of the Baltic Sea.