Shipwreck may be Capt. Kidd’s

A U.S. underwater archeology team announced Thursday that it had apparently discovered the shattered remnants of a ship once captained by the notorious buccaneer William Kidd off a tiny Dominican Republic island.

The barnacled cannons and anchors found stacked beneath just 10 feet of crystalline coastal waters off Catalina Island are believed to be the wreckage of the Quedagh Merchant, a ship abandoned by the Scottish privateer in 1699, Indiana University researchers say.

Charles Beeker, a scuba-diving archeologist who teaches at the university, said the wreckage had been aggressively sought by treasure hunters. The ship was scavenged of treasure and burned shortly after Kidd abandoned it.