Ship hull find at World Trade site

WORKERS at the World Trade Centre site in New York are excavating a 32-foot-long ship hull that apparently was used in the 18th century as part of the fill that extended lower Manhattan into the Hudson River.

Site archaeologist Molly McDonald said they noticed the timbers this week. "We noticed curved timbers that a back hoe brought up," McDonald said. "We found the rib of a vessel and continued to clear it away and expose the hull."Archaeologists are now racing to analyse the vessel before the wood, now exposed to air, begins to deteriorate.