Shipwreck may hold secrets of explorer's final vovage

The wreckage of a ship discovered off the coast of Kenya may have been from legendary explorer Vasco da Gama’s final voyage across the Indian Ocean, archaeologists say in a new study.

- VISHWAM SANKARAN

Researchers say the ship, discovered in 2013 in waters off a Kenyan coastal town, is a Portuguese vessel and may have been Da Gama’s Sao Jorge, which sank in 1524 – the year the famed explorer died in India, likely from malaria.

“The recent discovery of a Portuguese shipwreck in Malindi, Kenya, could be a galleon from Vasco da Gama’s last voyage,” scientists wrote in the latest study, published in the Journal of Maritime Archaeolo . If confirmed to be the wreck of the Sao Jorge, the sunken vessel would be one of the earliest European shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean, the researchers say.