An array of objects, from guns, cannons, shoes and plates, are hidden beneath the broad leaves of giant kelp beds or concealed in caverns and crevices among massive boulders, Lloyd said.
"It's like walking through a field of tall grass and undergrowth looking for a baseball that you've lost," Lloyd said.
Big finds include the two anchors, sections of hull and heavy bronze rudder hinges weighing about 100 lbs. The objects lie scattered across an area nearly 300 yards from the main wreck site. The team managed to map a section measuring 200 by 150 feet.
The search cost about $2,000, Lloyd said.
About 2,500 ships have wrecked off the Alaska coast since Russian explorers first arrived in 1741, according to Mike Burwell, a cultural anthropologist for the federal Minerals Management Service. A partial database on the service's Web site lists Japanese submarines and fishing trawlers, Liberian freighters and New England whaling ships, among others.
The oldest known American shipwreck in Alaska is the Eclipse, a Yankee fur trading vessel. It sank in the Shumagin Islands on August 11, 1807, south of the Alaska Peninsula, and has never been found, Burwell said.
The Torrent is now being considered for listing in the National Registry of Historic Places. Bittner said state or federal archaeologists may study the wreck if they can secure enough funding.
