Sea currents have tossed around pirate Blackbeard's flagship for nearly 300 years. But now the game is getting treacherous for the sunken Queen Anne's Revenge, according to research conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.The ocean's coy pursuit started in June 1718, when the heavily armed pirate ship ran aground in Beaufort Inlet about a mile off the coast of central North Carolina. The rest of the story is told centuries later by geologists like Jesse McNinch, a Virginia Institue of Marine Science professor who recently returned from a research expedition studying the sandy bottom around the wreck.In 1996, divers found a mound of cannons and anchors in about 25 feet of water near Morehead City. They suspected it was the Queen Anne's Revenge, a former slave ship that Blackbeard stole from the French. But one fact perplexed archeologists. Written reports from the 18th century indicate that the Queen Anne ran aground. So why was it found in relatively deep water?"They found this wreck at a much deeper location than what they expected," said McNinch, who got involved in the project in 1998 when he worked for the Institute of Marine Sciences, which is affiliated with the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. His associate is John Wells, a geologist with the institute.

After Hurricane Bonnie five years ago, McNinch used sonar and other equipment to measure wave heights and currents and to map the seafloor around the wreck. He found that the hurricane had washed away sand around the wreck, essentially creating a hole for the ship to settle into. He surmised that the Queen Anne was once in much more shallow water, but a cycle of storms have caused it to settle, or sink with the sea bottom, over the years. After each storm, the partially buried wreck was exposed, but then new sand gradually settled on top.

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