Current Protections and Challenges

The Vrouw Maria is currently protected by the Antiquities Act of 1963. This act protects all historically significant shipwrecks in Finland that are at least 100 years old, and allows special protections for specific sites including the Vrouw Maria.¹ Under these special protections, public access is restricted to the Vrouw Maria, and the site is under constant surveillance. The Finnish Heritage Agency works with the Finnish Coast Guard to regularly monitor and survey the wreck. Although the wreck was decided to remain in situ, its protections by the Finnish Heritage Agency make it one of the best protected shipwrecks in Finland.

Preservation vs. Excavation

A major discussion that arises with shipwreck management is how to balance efforts to research the wreck with the necessity for its preservation. Human intervention at a site inevitably produces an effect. Research introduces shipwrecks to new circumstances, and understanding the effect that these circumstances will have on the site is a huge challenge faced by underwater archaeologists. Before any action is taken, all possible consequences must be considered. For one, the decision must be made whether a shipwreck would be most valuable if left in the ocean or brought to the surface. Leaving wrecks in situ exposes them to continuous decay, but lifting artifacts and ships from the water can sometimes cause more immediate damage. Since there are a multitude of aspects that must be taken into consideration, this decision is made on a case-by-case basis. 

For the Vrouw Maria, the current decision is that the wreck should remain in situ. Several possible approaches were considered, including raising the ship and storing it in an aquarium, raising it after treating it to survive out of water, and leaving it in situ but excavating out certain parts.² The primary motivation to excavate or recover the ship has been interest in its cargo. It has been hypothesized that the ship’s contents might help shape historical reconstructions of the 18th century Baltic, and as such there has been a drive to excavate artifacts from the wreck. However, some parts of the Vrouw Maria are difficult to reach with current technology, and the claim has been made that it would be easier to study if it was lifted out of the water. Recovery such as this has been done successfully with other ships (see the Mary Rose above), but due to its cost and difficulty, this option has not been pursued. For now, the Vrouw Maria continues to be monitored with the hope that technology to study it in situ will develop in the future.³ The debate over the handling of the Vrouw Maria reveals a deeper argument of how much risk is acceptable to introduce in an effort to study shipwrecks. Shipwrecks like the Vrouw Maria certainly have the capacity to provide invaluable historical information, but attempting to retrieve this information could put the shipwrecks themselves in danger. This results in a conundrum that requires the approach of underwater archeology to be a slow and calculated process. 

Enforcement Challenges

Although Finland and many other countries have laws to protect shipwrecks, enforcement of these laws often comes as a challenge. In the case of the Vrouw Maria, the Finnish Heritage Agency works with the coast guard in an attempt to keep the site secure. As previously mentioned, the Vrouw Maria is one of the more highly monitored shipwrecks in Finland. The coast guard operates a regularly-monitored surveillance camera with 30 checkpoints, which allows for a quick response when identifiable vessels are in the area. However, issues arise when it comes to small vessels. Vessels smaller than 300 tons are not required to have the automatic identification system that allows them to be seen by the vessel tracking system. Furthermore, vessels without this identification system cannot be remotely contacted by the coast guard. Because of this, unidentifiable ships require extra effort on the part of the coast guard to investigate. With a limited number of vessels available for their duties, investigation of small ships in protected heritage areas often does not take priority over the other responsibilities of the coast guard. Even when it doesn’t conflict with the coast guard’s variety of other duties, actual investigation into crimes is made challenging by the underwater environment. In many cases, it is difficult to determine exactly when underwater crimes occur, thus creating another barrier to enforcement of protection laws⁴. These factors create a gap in the protection of shipwreck sites that could pose a threat to their integrity. The watch of the coast guard alone is not enough to secure shipwrecks from looting. 

At other sites in Finland, another key resource for shipwreck protection has been recreational divers. These hobby divers have been known for cooperating with the Finnish Heritage Agency in the management of shipwrecks. Divers record useful video documentation of shipwrecks, and have on many occasions even been the first to notify authorities of potential threats to shipwrecks.⁵ In this way, divers in addition to the coast guard have been a key resource to the Finnish Heritage Agency. On the other hand, the presence of unmonitored divers can sometimes be a risk to shipwreck sites. Although it is relatively uncommon, divers can both purposefully and unknowingly cause damage to shipwrecks, leading to certain shipwrecks like the Vrouw Maria to be barred from public access. 

As physical enforcement of shipwreck protections tend to fall short, the Finnish government has turned to more indirect approaches at underwater crime prevention. For example, some Finnish national organizations have run social media campaigns to combat looting and vandalism by divers⁶. This effort aimed to combat the threat of divers by aiming to change the overall public attitude. Since the majority of divers cooperate with Finnish authorities, methods such as campaigns that attempt to build integrity may prove to be effective.

Enforcement of underwater areas is a complex issue, and because of this requires conscious effort to maintain. Complete protection of shipwrecks currently appears to be nearly impossible. The Finnish Heritage Agency has created a system of shipwreck protection enforcement that is effective, albeit imperfect, by taking initiative to coordinate military and public resources. However, in many other countries where shipwreck protection has taken less of a priority, shipwrecks may still remain vulnerable to harm even in the presence of protective laws. 

Environmental Challenges

The ocean environment poses several challenges to the management of shipwrecks as historical sites. Most ocean environments contain several factors that promote the degradation of shipwrecks. The presence of bacteria, fungi, and wood borers in water, as well as the sulfur and iron contents of ships pose threats to the preservation of most wrecks. As such, these factors play a large role in determining whether to attempt to recover a wreck or preserve it in situ.⁷ However, the process of underwater decay across different environments is not well understood. Some scientists have claimed that research into this topic lacks sufficient funding, causing an obstacle to efforts to preserve shipwrecks in the most effective manner. While ocean environments are a threat to shipwrecks, some shipwrecks actually threaten the ocean as well. Some modern shipwrecks contain harmful substances that could negatively impact the ocean around them. An international project known as the Sunken Wreck Environmental Risk Assessment was created to study this issue, and concluded that Finland alone has 33 hazardous shipwrecks⁸. In these cases, a conflict arises between preservation of historically significant shipwrecks and the environment. 

This conflict between environmental preservation and historical value is present in discussions around the Vrouw Maria as well. The Vrouw Maria lies in the waters of a national park. Because of this, natural protection laws prevent any drastic changes to the site, which may pose an issue to archeological efforts to study the shipwreck.⁹ So, while the Vrouw Maria is well preserved, there are limited opportunities to study it. This reveals another facet to the struggle of historical study of shipwrecks that comes from conflicts with laws around natural protection. 

International Aspect

In many ways, shipwreck management is an international task. Most shipwrecks are internationally implicated. Ships can be made, used, and sunken all in different nations. Because of the global nature of ocean travel and shipping, most historic shipwrecks hold value on the international scale. In recognition of this, some nations have worked together on international projects to preserve shipwrecks. An example of this was the Monitoring, Safeguarding and Visualizing North-European Shipwreck Sites (MoSS) project. The MoSS project was an EU-funded effort to monitor and safeguard shipwrecks in Northern Europe. The goal of the MoSS project was to produce a baseline for the management plans of a shipwreck. The Vrouw Maria was included in this project as one of its case studies, for which it was regularly monitored by researchers for several years.¹⁰ International projects and conventions such as this make it easier for more nations to protect their shipwrecks, and in doing so helps preserve the broader history of international connections that is told by shipwrecks. However, the international aspect of shipwreck protection and management also creates problems. International, and even sometimes national, projects are difficult to establish, and are generally not long term. This poses an issue for international efforts to study long processes including shipwreck deterioration. In this way, the advancement of widespread shipwreck protection is slowed by its dependence on the cooperation of multiple nations. 

The shipwreck of the Vrouw Maria is an example of a ship that has broader international implications. Its history does not pertain only to Finland, but to neighboring countries as well. Due to its cargo and the correspondence surrounding it, historians have determined that the Vrouw Maria could help shape views of the 18th century Baltic as a whole. The Vrouw Maria has had international impact in the modern day as well as a result of the Vrouw Maria Underwater Project 2009-2012. This project resulted in a publication called Lost at Sea, Rediscovered, which examined the Vrouw Maria along with another wreck and was published in both Finnish and English.¹¹ The translation of this publication is evidence of the Vrouw Maria’s story reaching broader audiences than its home country.

The Vrouw Maria Court Case

In the modern day, the Vrouw Maria has been of not only historical importance, but legal importance as well. After its discovery, a debate was sparked over its ownership. The wreck was discovered by an independent group of divers, known as the Pro Vrouw Maria association, who fought for legal claim to the shipwreck on the basis of maritime salvage laws. The Pro Vrouw Maria association took the State of Finland and the Finnish Heritage Agency to court over this claim. In the end, the court decided that the Antiquities Act provides special protection to shipwrecks on the basis of their cultural importance, and therefore exempts them from salvage laws.¹² This court case was the first instance of conflict over the ownership of an underwater historical artifact, and it goes to show the necessity for legislation that establishes ownership of these artifacts. The Antiquities Act in Finland protects shipwrecks and other artifacts by placing them under state protection. Without laws such as this, shipwrecks can be prone to salvage laws that could lead to loss of artifacts and diminished historical value.

One consequence of this court case was the mistrust it created between the diving community and the Finnish Heritage Agency. As previously mentioned, the diving community acts as a resource to the Finnish Heritage Agency. Compliance of divers is essential to the protection and management of underwater artifacts in Finland. This court case added tension to this relationship, and as a result some divers became weary of reporting their findings to the Finnish Heritage Agency.¹³ Although placing management of cultural artifacts in the realm of the government is necessary for their protection, in cases like this it also can create separation from individual communities. 

1. Riikka Alvik, “Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” in Competing Values in Archaeological Heritage, ed Stuart Cambell, Liz White, and Suzie Thomas (Springer, 2019). ↩︎
2. Eero Ehanti, “The Wreck of Vrouw Maria : Current Situation and Future Perspectives” in Wood Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage, (Firenze University Press, 2010). ↩︎
3. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
4. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
5. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
6. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
7. Ehanti, “The Wreck of Vrouw Maria : Current Situation and Future Perspectives” ↩︎
8. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
9. Ehanti, “The Wreck of Vrouw Maria : Current Situation and Future Perspectives” ↩︎
10. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
11. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
12. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎
13. Alvik, Wreck of the Dutch Merchant Ship Vrouw Maria: Example of Protection and Management of Underwater Cultural Heritage in Baltic Waters” ↩︎