Nuestra Señora de las Angustias

On Friday, July 13, 1733, the Nueva España Fleet, under the command of General Rodrigo de Torres, left the port of Havana bound for Spain. The fleet consisted of 4 escort galleons, 16 merchant ships and 2 small ships that transported supplies to the Presidio St. Augustine.

José Ignacio de Velasco Toca, one of the survivors of the shipwreck, began to write a sixty-page poem about the disaster of the fleet. Published in Madrid in 1734, it was rather unusual because Velasco provided a record of the storm and of what happened to the fleet in an epic style.

Ballast stones cover more than 6,000 square feet of the lower part of the canal.

Read the full story in “10 notable shipwrecks”