Beef Barrel (Rapid 1811)

Reconstruction of a 'Mess Beef' barrel discovered intact and carefully raised from the sea-bed. The waterlogged wooden pieces were treated with water soluble waxes and reassembled. 

The barrel lid bears a partly legible inscription:

E. & A.W. W...TERS

MESS BEEF

BOSTON MASS (Massachusetts) 

RP 4243

Focussing on the clue provided by the barrel of beef, WA Museum maritime archaeologist Graeme Henderson travelled to America and searched newspapers in Boston, Massachusetts. On the second day of the search the following entry from the 3 August edition of the Columbian Sentinel newspaper was discovered:

Ship Rapid, Captain Dorr, of and from Boston, has been lost on the coast of New Holland;

Captain and crew saved...It has been ascertained that the Rapid had on board when she sailed, two hundred and eighty thousand dollars in specie. 

During three seasons of excavation between 1979 and 1982, archaeologists from the Department of Maritime Archaeology surveyed the ship's timbers and removed artefacts from within the hull, including 20,000 remaining Spanish eight-real coins. 

The whereabouts of the rest of the coins remains a mystery...