Ship Mary Rose

The anodes that have been used include stainless steels, mild steel, lead and platinised titanium, while typical electrolytes for ferrous materials have been 0.5 M sodium hydroxide, 0.2 M sodium carbonate, 0.5 M sodium sesquicar-bonate and tap water. For bronze cannons recovered from the Mary Rose, both sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate electrolytes were employed while pewter artefacts (plates) from the same ship were treated in similar electrolytes or in a 0.5% solution of EDTA as a sodium salt in alkaline solution. 

It has recently become evident that bacteria cause most of the microbial degradation of timber in sunken ships. Mouzouras et al. 118) describe various forms of bacterial attack that were observed in timber from the Mary Rose. The attack includes tunneling as well as erosion forms. Soft rot was also observed. Kim 105) reported that timber from a wrecked Chinese ship that had been submerged for over 700 years was degraded by soft rot and bacteria. Studies of timber from the Swedish battleship Kronan, which sank in the Baltic Sea in 1676, show that most of the microbial degradation of both oak and pine timber can be attributed to erosion bacteria. Soft rot and attack by tunneling bacteria occurred to a much lesser extent. 

A use of concentrated, aqueous solutions of polyethylene glycols is in naval archeology. Examples in the last few years have been the raising and preservation of ships from Chesapeake Bay, the Mary Rose in England (65), and the Wasa in Stockholm Harbor (66, 67). 

The polyethylene glycol treatment to preserve the Wasa has been followed in England in preservation of the British warship Mary Rose, the intended flagship of the navy of Henry VIII, which also sank on its first voyage from harbor. Poly glycol wood preservation has been applied to a number of ship relics of the U.S. 

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