Ria de Vigo Wrecks

Wrecks in the Ria de Vigo, the Atlantic estuary on Spain’s Galician coast, best known for the 1702 Battle of Vigo Bay. There a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet destroyed or captured the Spanish treasure fleet escorted by French warships at Rande, sinking galleons said to carry American silver. The sunken Vigo treasure became a long-running salvage legend (cited in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea). Repeated salvage attempts recovered little, and the estuary’s wreck archaeology remains under-documented relative to the legend.