Naufrágio da CETREL

The ship in this wreck has not been identified, and the name comes from the CETREL submarine outfall, about 600 m away. The remains, with iron tanks, chains, an iron winch and no cannon, point to a wooden merchant sailing ship 26 to 30 m long, from the late 19th or early 20th century. One hypothesis is that she is one of the American clippers Union Jacke, Nye or Lafayette, burned in 1863 by the Confederate cruisers Florida and Alabama during the American Civil War, but it has been disputed because of the anchors, and her identity remains open.

Fishermen used to pull up artefacts from the wreck with their fishing lines, and divers explored the ship in the 1980s and 1990s. Samples of the hull timber, taken by divers in 2007, were identified in a laboratory as pine, a Northern Hemisphere wood, and a shard of crockery found at the site points to a date after 1819. She is rumoured to have been a slave ship, but there are no shackles or handcuffs at the site, and the chains are far too thick for that use; only an archaeological study could confirm it.

The hull rests on a bed of rhodoliths, formed by calcareous algae, and abundant marine life circulates around the wreckage.