Ghosts of the Hurricane: The Lost Galleons of the 1715 Fleet

1715 fleet

 Some stories refuse to stay buried.

It was supposed to be a routine voyage. One final run across the Atlantic. Eleven ships loaded with gold, silver, emeralds, and porcelain treasures. A fleet that had waited for years, rotting in the muggy harbors of Havana, until Spain finally called them home.

But they never made it.

Instead, they sailed straight into a storm and straight into legend.

This is the story of the 1715 Treasure Fleet. A disaster, a cover-up, and a trail of wrecks so rich that even now, over 300 years later, it's still bleeding treasure into the surf.

The Setup: A Fleet Bound for Fortune

In the early 1700s, Spain’s empire stretched from the Andes to the Antilles. Gold and silver from Peru, emeralds from Colombia, Chinese porcelain from Manila, and spices from the East Indies all poured into New Spain, what we now call Mexico, and waited for the king’s orders.

But war was raging in Europe. The seas were crawling with pirates, privateers, and British warships. The War of the Spanish Succession, from 1701 to 1714, had left Spain’s treasure ships bottled up in Havana, unable to risk the crossing.

By 1715, the war was finally over. Spain was broke. The king needed cash. Fast.

On July 24, 1715, a fleet of eleven Spanish galleons and one French frigate left Havana, bound for Cadiz. It was one of the richest treasure fleets ever assembled. They hugged the Florida coast, sticking close to land for safety. It was a known route. Shallow, but navigable. Their mistake wasn’t in the map. It was in the sky.

The Storm: July 31, 1715

Seven days out, just before dawn, the hurricane struck.

Not a drizzle. Not a summer squall. A full-blown monster of a storm, the kind that rose without warning from the

Atlantic and ripped the ocean to pieces.

By sunrise, all eleven Spanish ships had been wrecked and scattered across the reefs and beaches of what we now call

Florida’s Treasure Coast. Hundreds of sailors were dead. Treasure spilled across the ocean floor from Sebastian Inlet to

Fort Pierce.

Only the French ship, the Griffon, survived and sailed on to safety. The rest were lost.

The Aftermath: Secrecy and Salvage

Spain couldn't afford the loss, politically or financially. Within weeks, they dispatched salvage crews from Cuba to begin recovering what they could.

A royal salvage camp was built near modern-day Sebastian. It included barracks, a guard tower, and a lookout station overlooking the ocean. Divers worked by holding their breath and descending with weighted lines, hauling treasure back to the surface by hand.

That site is now the McLarty Treasure Museum, a quiet little building standing on one of the most historic spots in American shipwreck history.

The Spanish recovered a portion of the treasure. Thousands of silver coins. Chests of gold. Emerald jewelry. Ceramics and religious relics. But they were never able to find it all.

Another storm in 1718 scattered much of what had already been located, and after two years of struggle, Spain gave up. They packed up what they had salvaged and left Florida behind, thinking the rest was lost to the sea.

They were wrong.

Centuries of Silence, Then a Spark

For over two hundred years, the wrecks slept.

From time to time, a storm would uncover a silver coin on the beach. Locals would find strange artifacts poking out of the sand. But the story of the 1715 Fleet faded into legend, tucked away in old maps and forgotten church records.

That all changed in the 1950s and 60s.

A man named Kip Wagner, a self-taught treasure hunter and amateur historian, began combing Florida’s beaches with a metal detector and a notebook full of colonial records. He founded a group called the Real Eight and used aerial photographs, old Spanish documents, and a ridiculous amount of patience.

In 1961, they struck treasure at what’s now called Corrigan’s Wreck. Over the next few years, Wagner and his crew pulled millions of dollars in silver coins, artifacts, and gold from the sand and sea.

Their finds caught the attention of the world. And among the people watching closely was a former chicken farmer and dive shop owner named Mel Fisher.

Mel Fisher and the Modern Gold Rush

Fisher would go on to become the most famous treasure hunter in American history. He later discovered the legendary Spanish shipwreck Nuestra Señora de Atocha off the Florida Keys in 1985, recovering more than $400 million in treasure.

But before that, he was part of the 1715 Fleet saga.

Fisher worked with Wagner, dived on the wrecks along the Treasure Coast, and helped map out key shipwreck locations like Corrigan’s Wreck, Douglass Beach, and Rio Mar. He helped redefine the science of underwater recovery and pioneered salvage techniques still used today.

His family still hunts the fleet wrecks, and others have joined the hunt.

Brent Brisben of Queens Jewels LLC currently holds the exclusive salvage rights to several of the wreck sites. His team made headlines in 2015 when they discovered $4.5 million worth of gold coins and artifacts just offshore. The find occurred on the 300th anniversary of the fleet’s sinking.

Treasure from the 1715 Fleet is still being found. Right now. As you read this.

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Treasure Still Waiting

The wreck sites of the 1715 Fleet are protected under Florida law and state-regulated salvage leases. Divers must have permission to work the sites, and exact coordinates are guarded closely.

But the ocean has its own ideas.

Sometimes the treasure drifts. Strong surf pulls it toward the shore. Major hurricanes push it into the shallows. And every so often, a coin or chain or ring makes it onto the beach itself, sitting just below the surface of the sand, waiting for someone with a sharp eye and a steady coil.

Detectorists working on the legal dry sand areas of Corrigan’s, Douglass Beach, and Seagrape Trail have uncovered coins, ship spikes, and encrusted relics. Not every hunt is a payday, but every signal could be history.

You don’t need a dive boat or a million-dollar operation to find it. Just knowledge, timing, and a little bit of luck.

Final Word

The story of the 1715 Fleet isn’t over. It’s still unfolding, one coin at a time.

Eleven ships. One hurricane. Millions in treasure lost to the sea. And even now, three centuries later, the wreckage of that disaster is still talking to us, still washing ashore with every storm.

The Treasure Coast earned its name honestly. And if you know where to look, if you know the history, if you learn how to read the tide, it just might whisper back to you.

Not everything that sinks stays lost forever.