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Shipwrecks & Sunken Treasure

A modern-day treasure ship mystery...

Argentine golden shipwreck found
By Candace Piette
BBC News, Buenos Aires

A vessel which sank carrying $18m (£11m) in gold and silver ingots has been found in the Magellan Straits off the coast of Argentina.

The cargo belonged to Argentine mining companies Cerro Vanguardia and Minera Triton and was on its way from mines in southern Argentina to Europe.

The boat sank in heavy seas in mysterious circumstances in January.

Although the vessel has been found, it is unclear if the nine and a half tons of cargo remain on board.

The Chilean fishing boat, the Polar Mist, set sail from Santa Cruz in southern Argentina for the port of Punta Arenas in Chile.

The bullion was heading first to Santiago in Chile, and then on to Switzerland for sale.

But a day after setting sail, the crew abandoned ship in a heavy storm.

The ship was found 24 hours later by a Chilean tug which tried - and failed - to bring it into port.

It went down in deep waters 40km (25 miles) off the coast.

Now in an operation to find the gold, a specialist boat carrying sonar equipment sailing under the orders of the Argentine mining companies and the international insurer Lloyds has found the wreck.

But the million-dollar question is, will they find gold on board?

Many questions have been asked about why a fishing boat was used to transport bullion and about the circumstances under which the boat was abandoned.

Because of high winds, a new attempt to investigate the wreck further is expected only when the heavy weather subsides.

Argentina has become an important gold producer.

In the last decade, former President Nestor Kirschner and the present one, his wife, Cristina Fernandez have done much to attract foreign investment in this area.

Five mines are now active, and two more are opening this year, most of them in their home province of Santa Cruz.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8110483.stm

..or is it a Strange Crime?
 
Archaeologists discover five Roman shipwrecks untouched since they sank nearly 2,000 years ago
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:41 PM on 23rd July 2009

A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a 'graveyard' of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene.
The trading vessels, dating from between the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 metres underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said today.

Part of an archipelago situated halfway between Rome and Naples on Italy's west coast, Ventotene historically served as a place of shelter during rough weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
'The ships appear to have been heading for safe anchorage, but they never made it,' said Timmy Gambin, head of archaeology for the Aurora Trust (www.auroratrust.com).

'So in a relatively small area we have five wrecks...a graveyard of ships.'
The vessels were transporting wine from Italy, prized fish sauce from Spain and north Africa, and a mysterious cargo of metal ingots from Italy, possibly to be used in the construction of statues or weaponry.
Gambin said the wrecks revealed a pattern of trade in the empire: at first Rome exported its produce to its expanding provinces, but gradually it began to import from them more and more of the things it once produced.

In Roman times Ventotene, known as Pandataria, was used to exile disgraced Roman noblewomen.
The Emperor Augustus sent his daughter Julia there because of her adultery. During the 20th century, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini used the remote island as a prison for political opponents.
Images of the wrecks show their crustacean-clad cargoes spilling onto the seafloor, after marine worms ate away the wooden hull of the vessels.
Due to their depth, the ships have lain untouched for hundreds of years but Gambin said the increasing popularity of deep water diving posed a threat to the Mediterranean's archaeological treasures.

'There is a race against time,' he said.
'In the next 10 years, there will be an explosion in mixed-gas diving and these sites will be accessible to ordinary treasure hunters.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... s-ago.html
 
German treasure hunters strike gold with English shipwreck
The wreck of a 19th century English ship loaded with gold and silver worth millions of pounds has been found by German adventurers in seas off Indonesia.
By David Wroe in Berlin
Published: 6:00AM BST 30 Jul 2009

More than 1.5 tonnes of silver coins, gold jewellery, crystal, Chinese porcelain, cannon, muskets and 400 bottles of wine were recovered by the treasure hunters from the Forbes, a ship that ran aground between Borneo and Sumatra in 1806.

The team believes the value of the find to be at least 7 million euros (£6m).

Martin Wenzel, one of the hunters, told The Daily Telegraph that the discovery had come like "a shot of adrenalin in the blood".

"I found the first things during a survey and everything just looked encrusted but when I saw there was treasure like this I just couldn't believe my eyes," he said.

The Forbes was a prolific trading and buccaneering ship that had King George III's approval to attack and plunder foreign vessels.

It had raided at least one Chinese ship, as there was Ming dynasty porcelain on board, Mr Wenzel said.

The Forbes had carried opium and iron from Calcutta to the far east and was, according to the Asiatic Annual Register, on its way home with a "considerable amount" of loot and cargo.

But shortly after it raided a Dutch brig, both ships were driven onto a rock reef at five knots, the register writes.

The crew survived and piled into three lifeboats. Then, after "undergoing the greatest distresses from want of water and provisions under a scorching sun without an awning or anything to cover them" they were picked up by another English ship.

The Forbes' captain, a Scotsman named Frazer Sinclair, went on to skipper other English ships and was decorated by George III for his bold raids on foreign vessels.

National Archives records suggest Captain Sinclair died in 1816 and describe him as "Mariner of Calcutta".

Half the value of the treasure must be given to the Indonesian government under the salvage licence agreement but the German team plan to sell its share at auction, and use the money to finance future operations, Mr Wenzel said.

The adventurers are already eyeing another wreck that they believe may hold two tonnes of gold.

"This is an exciting hobby but an expensive one," Mr Wenzel said. "This is the biggest thing we've found." The Forbes salvage operation cost about 400,000 euros.

The wreck of the Forbes lay off Belitung Island, between Malaysian Borneo and Indonesian Sumatra, near the Strait of Malacca. The strait remains an important shipping route and has historically been a lucrative passage for pirates.

Mr Wenzel and his partner Klaus Keppler have spent up to 3 million euros searching Indonesian waters for wrecks. They have also found a 10th century wreck with ancient Chinese coins.

He said they scoured archives and libraries for documentary clues and also spoke to local fisherman to help pinpoint wrecks worth exploring.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... wreck.html
 
This one is a bit of a mystery... Story in full:

Durham Cathedral divers discover gold and silver treasure trove in riverbed
• Amateur divers discover hoard of gold and silver
• Cathedral baffled by items owned by former leader
Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 October 2009 19.52 BST

After almost 30 years, the riverbed below Durham Cathedral has given up a bewildering secret: a hoard of ecclesiastical gold and silver, including medals, goblets, and crucifixes once owned by the Queen, the pope and other state and church leaders.

A total of 32 objects given as gifts to the late Michael Ramsey – a former archbishop of Canterbury who was bishop of Durham for four years in the 1950s and spent some of his retirement in the city – have been recovered from deep in the bed of the river Wear by two amateur divers, brothers Gary and Trevor Bankhead.

Their finds include gold, silver and bronze medals struck to commemorate the second Vatican council, which must have been presented when Ramsey – archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974 – met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966.

The Bankhead brothers, who made some 200 dives over two years under licence from the cathedral, also discovered a solid gold Japanese medal probably presented when Ramsey met Nikkyo Niwano, president of the Japanese Buddhist movement, in 1973.

The first finds were made in April 2007. Gary, watch manager on Green Watch at Durham fire brigade, said he was sitting with his wife Angela in a coffee shop on the corner of the Framwellgate bridge, when she suggested he should dive some day in the river 10 minutes from his home.

He brought along Trevor, a former soldier, and on their first dive they found an ornate silver trowel buried in the shingle. To their amazement, its inscription said it was presented to the archbishop on 9 December 1961 by the Bengal Coal Company, when he laid the foundation stone of a church in India.

On their next dive they found another piece clearly linked to Ramsey and approached the initially suspicious cathedral authorities, who eventually granted them a licence to search for more.

The brothers – who wore out three drysuits, cut to shreds by rubbish and sharp stones in the river – also found a silver medal commemorating the Queen's coronation in 1952, which Ramsey attended as archbishop of York, and others presented by the patriarchs of the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches.

The cathedral authorities, which own both banks of the picturesque stretch of the river where it flows beneath its walls, are baffled by the strange collection of gleaming gold and corroded silver. The last find was on Sunday this week and the cathedral authorities are certain all Ramsey objects – which are in a cathedral safe – have now been recovered from the river.

One theory at the cathedral is that there may have been a burglary at the retirement home Ramsey moved to in 1974 when he left Lambeth Palace. Ramsey and wife Joan lived in a tall, handsome Georgian house on the edge of the Durham cathedral precinct, just 150 yards uphill from Prebends bridge where most of the finds were made.

However others believe that Ramsey – a brilliant but eccentric and unworldly man – quietly dropped them into the river himself, at a loss to know what else to do with them. As his friend the Very Rev Victor Stock, dean of Guildford, who stayed with him every year in Durham, said: "That is so Michael Ramsey."

Stock says Ramsey was embarrassed when he sold some pieces he was given after retirement, and gave every penny to Christian Aid. Some items reappeared on the market, upsetting the donors.

"When he and Joan were packing up that house, both quite elderly and not very well, he would have wondered what on earth to do with the rest of the stuff: he didn't want it, they had no children, he couldn't sell it, he wouldn't have wanted to cause further embarrassment by giving it away," said Stock.

"He used to go for a walk by the river every day, whatever the weather. I think it's entirely plausible to imagine him making up a little packet, and quietly dropping it into the water. He would have thought that would be the end of it, nobody would ever see them again."

Gary Bankhead also believes the archbishop himself put the pieces in the river, but as a votive offering to the city he loved. "They weren't just chucked by a burglar – they had clearly gone into the water at different times and in different places."

Recovering the objects was quite a task. Metal detectors proved useless because there was so much junk in the river, so the brothers located many pieces by throwing handfuls of shiny steel washers off Prebends bridge, and watching where they fell.

Usually the brothers were working in minimal visibility, sometimes in water so cold their air lines iced up, shifting tonnes of shingle by hand to get down to the bedrock where pieces – including hundreds of unrelated medieval and later objects – were lodged in crevices, all the while worried about being run down by passing tourist boats. Their only reward so far has been a £100 contribution from the cathedral towards their air tanks, and finding enough modern coins to pay their parking charges.

Precise legal ownership of the pieces, and their value, has still to be established. By coincidence the cathedral is already planning to unveil a stained-glass window commemorating Ramsey next year, and is collecting oral histories for an exhibition on his life. The story of the treasure in the river, and some of the objects, may now become part of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/ ... n-treasure
 
Salvagers want to raise Victory

An American salvage company hopes it will be allowed to raise the wreck of the original HMS Victory, which lies off Alderney in the English Channel.

Greg Stemm, Odyssey Marine Exploration chief executive officer, said there is currently a consultation with the UK government and other stakeholders.

He said: "Hopefully we'll come up with a way forward that includes the excavation of that site."

Two cannon were raised by the company which confirmed the ship's identity.

More than 1,000 sailors drowned when the British warship, the predecessor to Admiral Lord Nelson's Victory, sank in a storm in 1744.

The wreck, which could contain more than $1bn (£605m) of gold, was discovered at the bottom of the English Channel by Odyssey in May.

Mr Stemm said: "We've got a proposal that would have the entire site excavated, the entire collection conserved, educational materials developed and Odyssey would take the entire risk of putting that project together and funding that project."

But further salvage work is likely to only take place if the site can be shown to be under risk because the UK government has endorsed an annex of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Heritage which bans salvage, unless a site is under threat.

Mr Stemm said his company has surveyed a "large chunk" of the English Channel and are disappointed to have found shipwrecks in a "much, much worse condition than we ever anticipated".

He said his company normally operates at depths of 1,000 to 1,500 metres and often worked in depths of just 100 to 150 metres in the channel, but "nevertheless we were still surprised by the really bad shape that most of the shipwrecks are in" which he said is "a result of trawling".

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it will be discussing the issue with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

A spokesperson added: "We will be encouraging all those with an interest in UK naval heritage and underwater archaeology to contribute.

"There are a number of options open to us, ranging from preservation in situ to a full archaeological excavation, though it is fair to say that the latter would be very costly."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe ... 299835.stm
 
Bronze Age shipwreck artefacts found near Salcombe

Experts have said 300 Bronze Age artefacts found in a shipwreck off the Devon coast could prove European trade thrived as far back as 3,000 years.

The artefacts, including copper and tin ingots, gold bracelets and a bronze sword, were found near Salcombe by amateur archaeologists last year.

Oxford University experts are now studying the objects.

Once the origins of the 295 artefacts have been established, they will be given to the British Museum.

The discovery was made by the South West Maritime Archaeological Group (SWMAG) last year, but its discovery was not announced until earlier this month at the International Shipwreck Conference in Plymouth.

Ben Roberts, curator of European Bronze Age at the British Museum, described the artefacts as "phenomenal".

"This is the first evidence of a proper tin trade with Europe," he said.

"To find tin ingots as part of cross Channel traffic is really important, because obviously the Bronze Age was dominated by bronze.

"What we have is potentially part of a very large cargo, so it's phenomenal."

The team, which has 12 members, has been diving in the area for about 15 years and uncovered a number of other artefacts.

The vessel dates from between 1200 and 900BC and it is thought the copper and tin ingots destined for Britain were collected from several different sources in Europe.

Tin ingots from this period have never been found in Britain before and experts say it shows a high level of sophistication in maritime trade in Europe.

"This is a very important find which shows cross-Channel trade, when there has been no other proof before," SWMAG's Mick Palmer said.

The first hint of the ancient haul was the discovery of some small pieces of copper.

Engineer Jim Tyson, who took part in the dives, said: "These items are amazing.

"You're holding something in your hands that hasn't been seen for 3,000 years.

"The last person to do so must have died in the shipwreck.

"It shows definite communications and trade, these people were trading as we would these days."

The British Museum will have the artefacts independently valued then SWMAG will be given a sum of money.

This will be used exclusively for research and to fund further diving.

The team, whose motto is "History from the Sea", dives every four or five weeks from March until early November.

"There's definitely more to be found down there," Mr Tyson said.

"Between 1977 and 1983 eight objects were found. In 2004 there were 22 objects found.

"In 2008 that went up to 54, then last year we found 295.

"There's more to find - but we just never know what we'll be touching next."

English Heritage and the Receiver of Wreck have been notified.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8515627.stm
 
Although this article is really a Forgotten History about the founder of the British Museum, Sir Hans Sloane, it does also contain an interesting account of Caribbean treasure hunting in the 17th century, using a 'new-fangled diving bell'. Enjoy:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10896746
 
Spanish Navy finds 100 shipwrecks in hunt for treasure
Spanish Navy vessels looking for sunken treasure off the country's coast have found about 100 possible shipwrecks.
Published: 6:30AM BST 07 Oct 2010

Two minesweepers and other vessels, on a mission to protect the country's historical heritage from private salvagers, located the sites in Atlantic waters off the southwestern city of Cadiz as part of a campaign that began Sept. 8 and is due to last two months, the Culture Ministry said.

Spain wants to avoid a repeat of a saga that began in 2007 when Tampa, a Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, found a sunken Spanish galleon and salvaged from it an estimated $500 million in silver coins and other artifacts.

That ship, the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, was sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 while sailing back from South America with more than 200 people on board. A US court ruled last year the loot belongs to Spain but the company has appealed and is still holding the treasure in the US.

So far, 15 of the new sites have been analysed and the only thing of value that has turned up is an 18th-century anchor, the newspaper El Pais reported.

It quoted Navy Admiral Daniel Gonzalez-Aller, the director of the search effort, as saying most of the sites examined so far will be ruled out as worthless and include remains of seaside human settlements and possibly even junk like washing machines. :shock:

Carme Chacon and Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, Spain's defence and culture ministers, boarded one of the minesweepers taking part in the search and insisted they are very serious about protecting vestiges of Spain's past.

"Where some see loot, we see our history. Where some look for gold, we find our heritage. Where others would seek to pillage, our calling is to conserve," Ms Chacon said in a speech aboard the ship.

The Culture Ministry estimates there are more than 3,000 sites in Spanish coastal waters with shipwrecks, remains of aircraft, submarines or human settlements, but most of them are remains of ships. Of that total, it says as many as 800 could be in waters off Cadiz.

Future stages of the search campaign will target other areas of Spain's coast, with the ultimate goal of developing a map of where on the seabed shipwrecks lie.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... asure.html
 
Warning - this article is geographically challenged! :twisted:

Found after 300 years, the scourge of the British navy
Wreck found off Portsmouth is identified as feared French corsair
By Cahal Milmo
Friday, 12 November 2010

With 25 guns and a plunder-thirsty crew, La Marquise de Tourny was the scourge of the British merchant fleet some 260 years ago. For up to a decade, the French frigate terrorised English ships by seizing their cargoes and crew under a form of state-sanctioned piracy designed to cripple British trade.

Then, in the mid-18th century, the 460-ton vessel from Bordeaux, which seized three valuable cargo ships in a single year and distinguished itself by apparently never being captured by the English, disappeared without a trace. Nearly 300 years later, the fate of La Marquise and its crew can finally be revealed.

Wreckage from the frigate, including the remarkably well-preserved ship's bell carrying its name and launch date of 1744, has been found in the English Channel some 100 miles south of Plymouth by an American exploration company, suggesting that the feared privateer or "corsair" sank with the loss of all hands in a storm in notoriously treacherous waters off the Channel Islands.

The vessel is the first of its type to be found off British waters and one of only three known around the world, offering a unique insight into a frenetic phase of Anglo-French warfare when both countries set about beefing up their meagre navies in the mid-1700s by providing the captains of armed merchant vessels with "Letters of Marque" to take to the seas and capture enemy ships in revenge for attacks on other cargo convoys.

The result was an escalating war of commercial attrition during which these privately-owned English and French floating raiders fought each other to a stalemate by seizing more than 3,000 vessels each in a nine year period between 1739 and 1748 as both sides sought to choke off valuable trade with their colonies in America and the West Indies. The proceeds from the sale of a single cargo could be enough to make a corsair's crew rich for life.

Dr Sean Kingsley, a British marine archaeologist who has studied the remains of La Marquise de Tourny, told The Independent: "It is a rare symbol of the mid-18th century need to fuse business with warfare at a time when naval fleets were small. Many sea captains dreamed of finding enemy ships stuffed with treasure and becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams."

The wreck was first discovered by researchers working for Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration in 2008, but it has taken two years of painstaking archaeological detective work to conclusively establish the identity of La Marquise, not least because the site in the western end of the English Channel has been badly damaged by trawlers. Evidence such as the ship's hefty 52kg bell could now be offered on loan to French and British museums.

Odyssey, which last year announced it had also discovered nearby the remains of HMS Victory, the immediate predecessor to Admiral Nelson's flagship of the same name, has drawn criticism from some archaeologists for its excavation of wrecks and the selling of artefacts such as coins to recover its costs and fund future projects.

Odyssey argues that the site of La Marquise, where the wooden structure has been dispersed by fishing vessels and natural currents, shows that there is a race against time to examine such wrecks and retrieve whatever artefacts remain before they are destroyed.

Greg Stemm, the company's chief executive, said: "Unfortunately, this type of damage has been common to virtually every site we have discovered in the English Channel. It won't be long before this site will be completely erased from history, which makes it all the more important for the private sector to step in and help with projects."

The discovery of La Marquise nonetheless casts new light on privateering. Named after the wife of the Marquis de Tourny, the royal governor of Bordeaux credited with overseeing the French port's transformation into a colonial trade hub, the frigate-style ship would have combined marauding with delivering cargo between the Americas and French Channel ports.

Archaeologists believe that the vessel, which between 1746 and 1747 alone had captured four ships and possibly took many others, was distributing a perishable cargo such as coffee or sugar when it sank. It was held up as a fine example of a corsair built for speed whose design needed to be replicated in later vessels.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/th ... 31814.html

The headline says the wreck was found off Portsmouth. The text says "in the English Channel some 100 miles south of Plymouth" AND "off the Channel Islands".

100 miles south of Plymouth is just off the coast of Brittany! And the Channel Islands are southeast of Plymouth. Neither of these places is anywhere near Portsmouth! (From other stuff I've read, I think "off the Channel Islands" is correct.)
 
Marine Archaeologists Find Whaling Ship from 1823 Wreck

Marine Archaeologists Find Whaling Ship from 1823 Wreck Northwest of Honolulu

HONOLULU (AP).- A fierce sperm whale sank the first whaling ship under George Pollard's command and inspired the classic American novel "Moby-Dick". A mere two years later, a second whaler captained by Pollard struck a coral reef during a night storm and sank in shallow water.

Marine archaeologists scouring remote atolls 600 miles northwest of Honolulu have found the wreck site of Pollard's second vessel — the Two Brothers — which went down in 1823.

Most of the wooden Nantucket whaling ship disintegrated in Hawaii's warm waters in the nearly two centuries since. But researchers found several harpoons, a hook used to strip whales of their blubber, and try pots or large cauldrons whalers used to turn whale blubber into oil. Corals have grown around and on top of many of the objects, swallowing them into the reef.

"To find the physical remains of something that seems to have been lost to time is pretty amazing," said Nathaniel Philbrick, an author and historian who spent more than three years researching the Essex — and its fatal encounter with the whale — the Two Brothers and their captain. "It just makes you realize these stories are more than stories. They're about real lives."

Officials from the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument — one of the world's largest marine reserves — were due to announce their findings at a news conference Friday, exactly 188 years after the Two Brothers sank.

Kelly Gleason, the maritime archaeologist who led the discovery, first saw the ship's anchor in 2008 while surveying French Frigate Shoals.

The anchor could have belonged to any one of three 19th century whaling ships that sank at this atoll. But additional artefacts found by Gleason's team over the next two years — like the cast iron cooking pots scattered around the wreck site — were unmistakably from the 1820s, while the other two vessels sank in 1859 and 1867.

The sinking of the Two Brothers was relatively uneventful compared to the Essex's epic run-in with the whale. After the Essex capsized, Pollard and fellow crew members drifted at sea without food and water for three months before they were rescued. To survive, Pollard and others resorted to cannibalism, including eating one of the captain's cousins.

Still, Thomas Nickerson, a crew member who served under Pollard both on the Essex and the Two Brothers, later described his boss as being in a daze as they had to abandon ship for the second time.

"Capt. pollard (sic) reluctantly got into the boat just as they were about Shove off from the Ship," he wrote.

Fortunately, the Two Brothers was sailing with a fellow whaling ship, the Martha, which had taken shelter near a rock. When the sun rose, the 20 or so crew members of the Two Brothers rowed over to the Martha which picked them up. They all survived.

Pollard gave up whaling, though he was just in his mid-30s, and returned to Nantucket, Mass., where he became a night watchman — a position of considerably lower status in the whaling town than captain.

While the sperm whale attack inspired Melville to write "Moby-Dick," the author isn't believed to have used Pollard as the basis for the book's notorious Capt. Ahab.

Melville actually didn't meet Pollard until about a year after his novel was published, some three decades after Two Brothers sank. Philbrick said the meeting left a strong impression on the author, whose creation hadn't been an immediate critical or commercial success.

"He was a man who had the worst cards possible dealt to him but was continuing on with nobility and great dignity," Philbrick said. "He is the anti-Ahab. Ahab is enlisting the devil and whatever to fulfil his crackpot schemes. Pollard was someone who had seen the worst but was quietly going about his life with the utmost humility."

The Two Brothers wrecked in water only 10 to 15 feet deep, and would have likely been stripped clean had it wrecked closer to a populated area. But the isolation of French Frigate Shoals means the site has been untouched.

"We had the opportunity to find something that's probably as close to being a time capsule as we could get," Gleason said.

The Two Brothers was like other New England whaling ships of the time, in that its crew sailed thousands of miles from home hunting whales to harvest their blubber. They boiled the fat of the massive marine mammals into oil used to light lamps in cities from New York to London and to power early industry.

The appetite for whale blubber oil, however, meant the ships quickly exhausted successive whale grounds. The Essex was far off the coast of South America when the sperm whale rammed into it. The Two Brothers was passing through poorly mapped waters northwest of the main Hawaiian islands on the way to recently discovered whale grounds closer to Japan when it hit the reef.

"It was kind of like this ship trap of atolls," Gleason said. "It went from about 40 feet to all of the sudden they were in about 10 feet of water."

For Hawaii, the discovery is a reminder of the great upheaval the whaling industry brought to a kingdom still adjusting to life after the first European travellers arrived.

The hundreds of whaling ships that called on Hawaii's ports starting in 1819 boosted the kingdom's economy, but this mostly benefited a few men who became suppliers to the vessels, said Jonathan Osorio, a professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. The arrival of thousands of outsiders — some of whom claimed Hawaiian law had no jurisdiction over them because they were American or European — challenged the young monarchy.

Gleason said the artefacts are due to go on display at the marine monument's Discovery Center in Hilo and she hopes the exhibit will travel to Nantucket. The archaeologists also have more surveying to do: there's still no accounting for another five whaling ships that sank in the atolls that now make up the Papahanaumokuakea monument.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

artdaily.org
Click to expand...

Also: 'Moby Dick' captain's ship found
 
Deep sea treasure: 17th century gold chain worth $250,000 plucked from ocean bed near Atocha wreck
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:10 AM on 28th March 2011

A deep sea diver has struck gold after unearthing a 17th century chain worth $250,000 from the ocean floor.
Bill Burt, a diver for Mel Fisher's Treasures, spotted the 40-inch gold chain while looking for the wrecked Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank off the Florida Keys in a 1622 hurricane.

Shipwreck experts have tentatively valued the piece at around $250,000.
The chain has 55 links, an enamelled gold cross and a two-sided engraved religious medallion featuring the Virgin Mary and a chalice.
On the edges of the cross there is engraved wording thought to be in Latin.

Andy Matroci, captain of Mel Fisher's Treasures salvage vessel, JB Magruder, said the crew had been diving at the North end of the Atocha trail.

On their last trip to the wreck they uncovered 22 silver coins and a cannon ball just east of the site.
They had been hoping to find more coins in the area, Mr Matroci said, but instead found the chain.
'In the nine years I have been running this boat this is the most unique artefact we have brought up,' Mr Matroci said.
The piece is believed to be from the Atocha's infamous treasure trove.
The company has uncovered half a billion dollars in historic artefacts, gold, silver and emeralds since they began diving the wreck in 1969.

In 1985 - after 15 years of searching - the Fisher crew discovered Atocha's 'mother lode', worth more than $450million.
They unearthed thousands of artefacts, silver coins, gold coins - many in near mint condition, exquisite jewellery sets with precious stones, gold chains, disks, a variety of armaments and even seeds, which later sprouted.

They then faced a legal wrangle with the U.S. Government [which] claimed title to the wreck. Florida state officials seized many of the items the Fisher crew had retrieved.
But after eight years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fisher's favour.

The contents of the ships sterncastle - a wooden, fort-shaped area at the back of ship, have never been recovered.
This is where the wealthy passengers, including nobility and clergy, would have stayed.
Fisher's estimates the treasure in the sterncastle section is worth in the region of half a billion dollars.
The latest find was likely owned by a member of the clergy indicating the company's search for the missing treasure trove could be getting nearer.

------------------------------------------------------------

THE ATOCHA - A HISTORY

The Nuestra Señora de Atocha - or Our Lady of Atocha - was built for the Crown in Havana in 1620.
She was 550 tons with an overall length of 112 feet, had a beam of 34 feet and a draft of 14 feet.
Heavily armed, she was designed to protect other ships within a fleet from attack.

On her doomed voyage of 1622, the Atocha was loaded with an extraordinary cargo.
She carried 24 tons of silver bullion in 1038 ingots, 180,00 pesos of silver coins, 582 copper ingots, 125 gold bars and discs, 350 chests of indigo, 525 bales of tobacco, 20 bronze cannon and 1,200 pounds of worked silverware.
Smuggled items to avoid taxation and unregistered and personal jewellery would also have been onboard.

On September 6 the Atocha was cast onto the coral reefs near the Dry Tortugas - around 35 miles West of Key West - by a severe hurricane.
With her hull badly damaged she quickly sunk with 265 people on board.
Only five - three sailors and two slaves - survived by clinging on to the stump of her mast.
Rescuers tried to get onto the ship but found her hatches tightly battened.

At 55 foot the water depth was too great for them to work on opening her.
They marked the site and moved on to rescue people and treasure from other ships also lost in the storm.

A month later a second hurricane blew through, further destroying the wreck.
For the next 60 years Spanish salvages searched n vain for the galleon, but they never found a trace.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... wreck.html
 
Wreck to give up £148m in silver from wartime grave
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter
Monday, 26 September 2011

The largest consignment of precious metal found in the sea – 200 tonnes of silver worth £148m – has been discovered in the wreck of a British cargo ship sunk by a German U-boat during the Second World War .
Odyssey Marine, an American underwater archaeology and salvage firm, will announce the discovery today with its plans to recover the bullion as part of a British government contract, under which it will retain 80 per cent of the cargo's value.

The Gairsoppa, an ageing steamer belonging to the British India Steam Navigation Company, was ordered into the Merchant Navy fleet at the outbreak of war. It was sunk by a single torpedo in February 1941, after hitting heavy weather in the Atlantic and trying to reach safety in the Irish Republic.

Some of the 85-strong crew are thought to have made it to lifeboats as they came under machine-gun fire from the submarine. But after drifting for 13 days and for more than 300 miles only one sailor – Second Officer Richard Ayres – reached the Cornish coast alive.

The well-preserved wreck of the 412ft steel-hulled ship was found by Odyssey this summer, nearly 4,700 metres below the inhospitable waters of the North Atlantic. The vessel had settled on the seabed in a fully upright position, with the cargo holds open and the bullion accessible via the hatches, using remote-controlled robotic submarines.

The Gairsoppa was carrying seven million ounces – about 200 tonnes – of silver to help to fund the war effort, sailing from Calcutta to Liverpool, via Freetown in Sierra Leone – an important staging point for the convoys.

Under a contract with the Department of Transport, which inherited responsibility for the ship, Odyssey will be permitted to retain 80 per cent of the value of the silver in return for taking on the commercial risk and expense of locating the Gairsoppa. If it brings all the bullion to the surface when the planned recovery begins next summer, it will make the company about £118m.

Andrew Craig, the senior project manager, said: "We've accomplished the first phase – the location and identification of the target shipwreck – and now we're hard at work planning for the recovery phase."

The bullion was a mixture of privately owned silver insured by the British Government and state-owned coins and ingots. Researchers working for Odyssey have used the Gairsoppa's cargo manifest and documents from Lloyd's War Losses Register, which detail an insurance payout, to establish the amount of silver on board.

Odyssey is currently locked in a court battle with Spain over the ownership of 500,000 silver coins recovered close to the remains of a vessel claimed by Madrid and has previously attracted criticism from archaeologists who argue that historical ship wrecks should be left untouched.
The company insists its work is done to stringent archaeological standards and helps to preserve knowledge that would otherwise be lost.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 60915.html

Probably the sub that sank this ship didn't realise what cargo she was carrying. Perhaps the Germans were afraid she might be a Q-ship...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ships
 
Sir Francis Drake's final fleet 'discovered off the coast of Panama'
Treasure hunters claim they have discovered two ships from Sir Francis Drake’s fleet off the coast of Panama and believe his coffin could lie on the seabed nearby.
By Barney Henderson, and Jon Swaine in New York
10:00PM BST 24 Oct 2011

His burial at sea in full armour and in a lead casket was designed to ensure that no one – but especially the Spanish – would find his body.
Now, more than 400 years after Sir Francis Drake's death in the Caribbean, the great seafarer's watery grave may be close to being discovered.

A team of treasure hunters led by an American former basketball team owner claims to have discovered two ships from Drake's fleet lying on the seabed off the coast of Panama. The 195-ton Elizabeth and 50-ton Delight were scuttled shortly after the naval hero's death from dysentery, aged about 55, in 1596. It is thought that Drake's final resting place may be nearby.

Pat Croce, a former president of the Philadelphia 76ers and self-professed "pirate aficionado", embarked on a search for the ships after researching a book on the latter part of Drake's career, as a privateer plundering Spanish ships in the New World.
Mr Croce, 56, described the discovery as "pretty wild", saying that after several days of searching in murky waters, the team suddenly got lucky.

“It’s been truly miraculous,” Mr Croce told The Daily Telegraph. “You set yourself impossible goals in life but to find these two ships has been amazing.
“We are 98 per cent sure of their veracity. The charred wood, the lead on board, the English pottery from that period. And we’re confident no crew in its right mind would have deliberately sailed there.

Mr Croce said that based on multiple records from the time, including the journal of Thomas Maynard, a member of Drake’s entourage who sailed on the Defiance, the coffin was believed to be one league – or just over three miles – away from the wrecks.

Mr Croce described Drake as his “favourite pirate of all time”. “Here’s a fellow in the 16th century who sailed around the world and single-handedly wreaked havoc in the New World when navigation was still primitive,” he said.
“Even Queen Elizabeth described him as her pirate. The British members of our crew have been very excited.”

Drake fell ill a few weeks after failing to conquer the port of Las Palmas.
He died while anchored off the coast of Portobelo and his two badly damaged ships were scuttled to avoid them, or their contents, falling into Spanish hands. Mr Croce's team, which includes experts and explorers from Britain, France, Australia, Panama and Colombia, used what diving experts have described as the most sophisticated equipment in the world to scan the ocean floor.

After locating the two ships, they now hope to find Drake's body, which has long been the target of treasure hunters and historians.
"It's truly a needle in a haystack, but so were the ships. We found them within a week. We just haven't found him, yet," said Mr Croce, the founder of the St Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum. The Elizabeth and Delight were emptied and torched after Drake died, so no treasure has been recovered, Mr Croce said.
The ships will remain in the water because they are the property of Panama, he added.

Marine archaeologists were amazed at the find. "We've really, I feel, hit a home run here with what we found with Pat," said James Sinclair, a marine archaeologist.
"Finding the Elizabeth and Delight near where Sir Francis Drake is buried is as exciting to me as helping discover the [Spanish treasure ship] Atocha and diving the RMS Titanic." He added: "Finding ship structures from that time period in this temperature water with the type of organisms that exist is a treasure in itself.
"We have an area that future students of underwater archaeology will be able to use for years to come."

Drake, one of the key figures of the Elizabethan court, is revered for his defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. One of Britain's greatest adventurers, he became only the second seafarer in
history to circumnavigate the world between 1577 and 1580.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... anama.html

http://www.musicsmiles.com/drake's_drum.htm
 
Back in the late 1960's there was an expedition to find Drakes coffin, using an early remote controled submersible, at the site where he was reputedly buried at sea.

The bottom of the bay was scoured clean by the tide, it was reportedly like a desert. On the last day of the search, they found & filmed a rectangular box/casket in a hollow before the submersable moved away, unable to grip on to the object.

I remember the film being shown on national telivision at the time.
 
Are you referring to Sydney Wignall's 1975 expedition?

For what it's worth, this thread on another forum:

http://www.thunting.com/smf/shipwrecks_ ... 988.0.html

... mentions the following:

- Wignall did discover a lead object in 1975, but it was not a coffin.
- Drake's expedition records indicate an amount of lead sufficient to cover a 2 X 6 foot box was decremented from inventory.
 
US diving crew finds wreck of British submarine used in second world war
HMS Olympus struck a mine off the coast of Malta as it tried to evade German and Italian warships on 8 May 1942
Richard Luscombe in Miami guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 January 2012 19.02 GMT

Explorers have discovered the wreck of a British submarine that sank off the coast of Malta in one of the worst naval disasters of the second world war.
Nearly 90 men lost their lives when HMS Olympus struck a mine and sank as it tried to evade German and Italian warships blockading Grand Harbour in the early hours of 8 May 1942.

A team of divers from a Florida-based exploration trust found the wreck while surveying the ocean floor off Malta last year. They announced their findings to the British government and the Royal Navy this week.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is expected to now formally designate the site.

"We are extremely excited by this discovery, it's a very important piece of Malta's history during the war," said Timmy Gambin, archaeological director of the Aurora Trust, a foundation set up to promote knowledge of maritime cultural history.
"The Royal Navy ran a large number of operations using submarines in and out of the island for many purposes, not least as a magic carpet ferrying fuel, ammunition and food, and Olympus played an extremely important role."

The trust, which has headquarters in Key Largo and a logistical base in Malta, visited the wreck, seven miles off the coast, twice last summer. During the second dive in September it sent down a remotely operated vehicle equipped with video cameras to capture images that confirmed the 80-metre-long vessel's identity.

"We had suspicions it was the Olympus. Armed with our research on the features of the submarine, where the guns were, the placing and types of the rudder and propeller, we were able to identify her," Gambin said.
"Except for the damage from the mine she was in pristine condition, sitting upright as if she'd been placed on the seabed."
He stressed that Aurora had treated the site with "every sensitivity possible" given that so many lives were lost.

Many of the crew aboard HMS Olympus – an Odin-class submarine built in Clydebank in 1927 – when it sank were survivors from the recent sinkings of three other Royal Navy submarines in the area by German bombers.
The British naval base at Malta was a crucial staging post for convoys moving through the Mediterranean to support Allied operations in north Africa, but it suffered heavy losses.
"What happened with the Olympus is a sad and tragic story," Gambin said. "Many survived the blast and sinking but not the swim back to shore."

There were only 11 survivors, while 89 men, disorientated by the darkness and distance from shore, perished, according to George Malcolmson, archivist of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport, Hampshire.
"One of the survivors told me how he looked back from the water to the incongruous sight of all these shoes and boots lined up in neat rows on the deck as the sub was sinking," he said.

Aurora has passed video footage from the dives to the British embassy in Washington and sent photographs to the submarine museum.
"It's a double-edged sword," Malcolmson said. "On one hand I'm pleased that for some people it's nice to know where there [sic] loved ones died but the publicity dredges up the possibility of intrusion and interference from people who are less concerned with the sanctity of a British war grave."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ja ... rine-wreck
 
HMS Victory to be raised from the sea
Diana Pilkington Sunday 22 January 2012

The remains of the first HMS Victory are to be raised from the sea bed nearly 300 years after it sank, it was reported today.
The vessel, predecessor of Nelson's famous flagship, went down in a storm off the Channel Islands in 1744, taking more than 1,000 soldiers to their deaths.

Along with a bronze cannon collection, some believe the ship was carrying a large quantity of gold coins from Lisbon to Britain, which would now be worth a reported £500 million.
According to the Sunday Times, the wreck is to be handed over to the Maritime Heritage Foundation, which is expected to employ Odyssey Marine Exploration to carry out the recovery.
The American company found the ship four years ago.

A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "Efforts to protect key parts of British Naval history such as the wreck of HMS Victory 1744 are very welcome and we hope to make an announcement shortly."

The guns and other artefacts will be displayed in British museums, while Odyssey is likely to receive the bulk of any treasure under the laws of salvage, the newspaper reported.

The Maritime Heritage Foundation was set up by Lord Lingfield, the Tory peer formerly known as Sir Robert Balchin.
He is a relative of Admiral Sir John Balchin who was on board the Victory when it sank, although he stressed he would not profit personally from the ship's cargo.

Lord Lingfield told the Sunday Times: "The foundation seeks to prevent damage to this historically important site and maximise its archaeological, scientific and educational value.
"We hope it will give a unique insight into the world of the mid-18th century Royal Navy."

The ship's location remained a mystery despite numerous searches, until Odyssey discovered the wreck in May 2008.
The Florida-based firm found the site 330ft under the English Channel, nearly 65 miles from where the ship was historically believed to have been wrecked, near the Channel Islands.

The Dutch financial publication Amsterdamsche Courant reported on November 18 1744, a month after the ship sank: "People will have it that on board of The Victory was a sum of 400,000 pounds sterling that it had brought from Lisbon for our merchants."
It was also thought that large quantities of silver and gold coins would have been on board The Victory from enemy prize ships captured by Balchin, worth 120,000 pounds sterling at the time.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 93026.html
 
Treasure hunter claims $3bn WWII-era find off US coast

A Maine treasure hunter says he has discovered a WWII-era shipwreck filled with platinum, now worth $3bn (£1.9bn).
Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research says a wreck sitting 50 miles (80km) off the US Atlantic coast is the SS Port Nicholson, sunk in 1942.
The Port Nicholson, a British merchant ship, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in an attack that killed six people.

Some have expressed doubts the wreck holds platinum, and maritime law would complicate ownership claims.
Anthony Shusta, an attorney representing the British government, says it is unclear if the ship ever carried platinum.
"We're still researching what was on the vessel," Mr Shusta told the Associated Press news agency. "Our initial research indicated it was mostly machinery and military stores."
The United Kingdom will wait until salvage operations begin before deciding whether to file a claim on the cargo, he added.

Mr Brooks says a US Treasury Department ledger shows platinum bars were on board, as part of a payment from the Soviet Union to the US for war supplies.
He also has underwater video footage he says shows a platinum bar surrounded by 30 boxes that he believes holds platinum ingots.
He has not yet brought up any platinum but says he and his crew hope to begin raising the treasure later this month.
"I'm going to get it, one way or another, even if I have to lift the ship out of the water," he said.

The treasure hunter said he held off the announcement of his find for four years while he negotiated salvage rights. Ownership rights are still unsettled.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16847737
 
Archaeologists accuse MoD of allowing US company to 'plunder' shipwreck
Experts take legal advice in effort to block lucrative deal on underwater excavation of HMS Victory
Dalya Alberge
The Observer, Sunday 6 May 2012

The Ministry of Defence is facing a legal battle and parliamentary questions after letting a US company excavate a British 18th-century warship laden with a potentially lucrative cargo.
Lord Renfrew is among leading archaeologists condemning a deal struck over HMS Victory, considered the world's mightiest ship when she sank in the Channel in 1744.

In return for excavating the vessel's historic remains, which may include gold and silver worth many millions of pounds, Odyssey Marine Exploration is entitled to receive "a percentage of the recovered artefacts' fair value" or "artefacts in lieu of cash".

Lord Renfrew, a Cambridge academic, said: "That is against the Unesco convention, in particular against the annexe, which states that underwater cultural heritage may not be sold off or exploited for commercial gain. Odyssey is a commercial salvager. It's not clear that payment could be obtained other than by the sale of the artefacts which are raised – which, of course, is how Odyssey has operated in the past. To raise artefacts simply for sale would be regarded by most responsible archaeologists as plundering."

Two bronze guns have already been recovered from the wreck and sold to the National Museum of the Royal Navy, funded out of the MoD's grant.

The archaeologists accuse the MoD of dereliction of duty in passing responsibility for the wreck to the Maritime Heritage Foundation (MHF), a charitable trust "which appears to have no financial, archaeological or management resources" while embarking on a project "that will cost millions".
Archaeologists are determined to halt the excavation and are taking advice from maritime lawyers. The issue was raised by the All-party Parliamentary Archaeology Group.

An Odyssey spokeswoman said that the MHF will work with an advisory group including representatives from the MoD and English Heritage, "to ensure that best archaeological practices are adopted in line with the annexe".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/0 ... excavation
 
British cannon from Battle of Cape Passaro found off Sicily

Marine archaeologists working on a wreck off the coast of Sicily have discovered five large cannon from a British ship, believed to have sunk in a major battle with Spanish galleons.

The team searching waters near the city of Syracuse said the "exceptional" find dates back to the Battle of Cape Passaro in the early 1700s.
Pictures taken by divers show the cannon were barely covered by sand.
The discovery has helped pinpoint the exact location of the famous battle.

The cannon have now been brought to the surface - after 300 years in the deep sea - and cleaned.
According to the archaeologists, they are in such fine condition that - in some places - the barrels still gleam in the light.
The team said they were able to identify the guns using part of an inscription on the handle of a piece of cutlery also discovered nearby.
The letters LONDO were found under what appeared to be a picture of an English rose, clearly indicating the word London - they said.

This and other evidence has convinced the researchers that the cannon came from a British vessel sunk at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718.
The battle involved more than 60 ships and ended in defeat for the Spanish.
At the time, the British were attempting to drive them out of Sicily.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21208809

I think that's the first I've heard about that particular battle.
 
You can just hear that Jamaican accent in the quotes, man.

Teen finds buried treasure in Kingston

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A Jamaican teenager said he uncovered buried treasure dating back to the 1860s while working to clear a vacant lot in Kingston.

Michael Taylor, 19, was using a sledge hammer to demolish a concrete column in the lot Wednesday discover what appeared to be a vault, he told The Gleaner, Kingston, Jamaica.

Taylor called over fellow workers who helped him open the vault. Inside it, they found a vial containing silver coins, a medallion and a parchment paper.

"We tried to take up the paper but it just crumble. We saw seven coins and the pendant and we say this is really something major," Taylor said.

The coins date back to as early as 1860 and as late as 1902, the newspaper said. The medallion features a man holding a Bible and the words "Ignace de Loyola/AD Majorem dei Gloriam."

"It is amazing to know that we find something like this, 'cause none of us never born yet when whoever bury this treasure. Is like part of history. Is like it telling us something of what happened in the past," Taylor said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2013/02/28/ ... z2MEMV67tB
Click to expand...
 
Falmouth based deep ocean explorers set for expansion
9:00am Friday 15th March 2013 in Falmouth/Penryn

Odyssey Marine Exploration, a pioneer in the fields of deep-ocean shipwreck and offshore mineral exploration, is funding further exploration and recovery activity.
The company has sold 15 per cent of Oceanica Resources, S de R L, a newly-organised subsidiary engaged in seafloor mineral exploration, for $15 million to Mako Resources, LLC, an independent investment group.

Odyssey who use Falmouth as a base port for their ship Odyssey Explorer, is planning to continue the silver bullion recoveries from the Gairsoppa and Mantola, which are scheduled to resume in May of this year. The company recently executed a charter agreement to again secure the specialist offshore vessel Seabed Worker as the proven operating platform for these recoveries.

Silver bullion weighing 17,000 ounces was landed at the docks from the Seabed Worker last summer along with other artefacts removed from the Gairsoppa. Torpedoed in 1941, Gairsoppa lies three miles down on the seabed of the Atlantic some 300 miles south west of Ireland.

During last year’s salvage operations at the Gairsoppa wreck-site, a total of 1,218 silver ingots were recovered. They are expected to yield approximately $44 million at current silver prices.

Mantola was located approximately 100 miles from the Gairsoppa in a depth of 2,500 metres. Outward bound from London to Calcutta with general cargo and shipment of silver she was torpedoed by a U-boat on February 8 1917. Based on 1917 silver values Odyssey has calculated that this would equate to 600,000 ounces of silver.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/fp ... expansion/
 
Isles of Scilly shipwreck site could be lost ship of Sir Walter Raleigh
Saturday, April 13, 2013 Western Morning News
By Toby Meyjes

A shipwreck uncovered off the Isles of Scilly last summer could have belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh and been lost when a storm scattered his vessels as they headed for the West Indies.
The wreck, which has been named the Lizzy by the divers who discovered it, is thought to have possibly sunk in 1617 and been one of two ships lost out of a fleet of 30 shortly after they left Plymouth.

The exciting possibility is one of two theories of the wreck's identity put forward by local shipwreck diver Todd Stevens who, along with Robin Burrows and their team, have slowly uncovered the remains since last summer.

If correct, the ship could have been the Flying Joan, one of the fleet on one of the last voyages led by Sir Walter Raleigh before he was executed at the Palace of Westminster in 1618.

Mr Stevens, 50, who also discovered the famous wreck of the HMS Colossus off the Isles of Scilly, labelled the idea of the discovery "amazing".
He is now awaiting a visit from English Heritage to hopefully help further identify the wreck site.
He said: "Since we first found the Lizzy, I have always said that the evidence we have on the seabed leads me to believe it to be the wreck of an armed pinnace.
"This would be a small, single-masted ship without a bowsprit and consequently a gun in the bow instead.
"The ship Sir Walter Raleigh lost here in a storm in 1617 was indeed an armed pinnace. The wreck fits in age and style."

The process of discovering the Lizzy, named for its guns dating to the late Tudor period, began in 2008 when Mr Stevens and his team conducted a magnetometer survey around the islands to detect anomalies, which they would later attempt to identify over the following years.

In the meantime, Mr Burrows had developed a side-scan sonar which in 2012 identified two 5ft-6ft objects laying in the middle of the St Mary's Roads. The items, which were in 14-metre-deep water, were later discovered to be guns and, along with other characteristics of the wreck, have pointed towards it possibly being the Flying Joan or, less likely, a privateer vessel lost in the Civil War.

"It's amazing that people don't know what's underneath them," added Mr Stevens. "It would have to be quite an old ship to have been involved in the Civil War, the guns would have had to have been about 60 years old, but at the time they would have been desperate for ships."
The wreck is a relatively small ship made of oak, about 40ft-50ft long and 15ft wide.

Mr Stevens explained there was much debris scattered on the seabed around it, but unfortunately very little can be linked definitively to the wreck. To the left of the site the team discovered a swivel gun and a red clay pipe dating to 1630 or earlier. Numerous English, French and Spanish pottery fragments were found, all dating to the Tudor period.

Also discovered was a bronze pulley sheave, similar to that on the famous Mary Rose wreck and a bigger version on later wreck sites, and a complete bung hole from the late-15th century.

The wreck is the seventh to be found in and around St Mary's in recent years and although some evidence points towards it being the wreck of the Flying Joan, Mr Stevens is keen to stress it is only a possibility. As he said, it is a "mystery waiting to be solved".

Read more: http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Isles-S ... z2QN2UlJ5k
 
Shipwrecked gutta percha blocks wash up in South West

About 40 large blocks of a rubber-like substance, believed to be from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean, have washed up on European coasts.
The pieces of gutta percha have been found on beaches in Cornwall, Devon, northern France and the Netherlands in the last year.

The Porthcurno Telegraph Museum in Cornwall said the blocks bore the name of a 19th Century plantation.
The material was used to insulate telegraph cables on the seabed.
Marc Cragg from the museum said: "Gutta percha is from Indonesia and is very similar to rubber.
"It has been a central part of telegraph systems for the last 100 years or so."

His colleague Rachel Webster said: "Many of the cables which were insulated with it remain in situ on the seabed."


Mr Cragg said: "It looks like there was a shipwreck 80 miles (130km) or so off the coast of Brittany in the Western Approaches."

He added that the gutta percha, which would have been stored as cargo, could have been released during a salvage operation.
"If you look at the distribution, it would make sense," Mr Cragg said.

The museum said the blocks, which were about 12in (30cm) by 14in (35cm) had the letters "TJIPETIR", which was believed to be the name of a rubber plantation in the Dutch East Indies in the 19th Century.
In recent months staff have been working to find out how many blocks have washed-up.

It added that gutta percha was used to make golf balls, teddy bear noses and decorative items such as picture frames and jewellery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22478533
 
Deep sea treasure hunters return to Falmouth after silver bullion mission5:00pm Thursday 16th May 2013 in News .

Wreck hunters are back in town ready to salvage silver bullion from the depths of the Atlantic. Odyssey Marine’s research vessel Odyssey Explorer docked here yesterday after operating near the Isles of Scilly as the company continues searching and examining wrecks.

Odyssey has confirmed that next week the specialist salvage ship Seabed Worker will resume the salvage of silver bullion from the steamship Gairsoppa. Torpedoed in 1941, the ship lies three miles down on the seabed of the Atlantic some 300 miles south west of Ireland.

Odyssey Marine’s CEO Gregg Stemm said in 2012: “Our team has proven their ability to efficiently execute complex operations at a depth of 4,700 metres (15,600 feet) to complete both the deepest cargo salvage and largest recovery of precious metals ever accomplished. We’ve proven that we can make precise cuts, gain access to interior areas of a steel shipwreck, and recover cargo from a shipwreck deeper than the Titanic.”

To date, 1,218 Gairsoppa silver bars have been recovered and sold. An additional £300,000 was realised from the sale of gold that was extracted from the silver smelting process. The total proceeds from the deep-ocean project are more than £27 million.

Silver bullion weighing 17,000 ounces was landed at Falmouth Docks last year by Seabed Worker along with other artefacts removed from the steamship Gairsoppa.

Odyssey said: “The Seabed Worker is expected to depart port and resume silver recovery operations at the Gairsoppa site. Research indicates an additional 1,599 insured silver ingots remain on the site, which could equate to about 1.8 million ounces of silver, along with the potential for additional uninsured silver.

“Upon completion of the recovery operations, we will begin recovery operations on the SS Mantola which was carrying 600,000 ounces of silver. We recently obtained research indicating the likely location of the room where bullion would have been stored on that ship.”

The SS Mantola, a 450-foot British cargo vessel, set sail from London in February 1917, carrying passengers and cargo – including a shipment of silver – to Calcutta, India. On February 8, 1917, she was struck by a torpedo from the German U-boat commanded by Kapitanleutnant Raimund Weisbach. The 165 crew members and 18 passengers abandoned the ship.
All but seven crew members, who drowned when a lifeboat overturned, were rescued by the HMS Laburnum.

Weisbach was the watch officer on U20, under Kapitanleutenant Schwieger’s command, who fired the torpedo that sank the liner Lusitania in 1915.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/10 ... RE/?ref=mr
 
The Mary Rose: A Tudor ship's secrets revealed
By Eleanor Williams, BBC News

More than 30 years after it was raised from the seabed - and almost 500 years since it sank - the secrets of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, are being revealed to the public - along with the faces of its crew.
Just yards from where it was first constructed from 600 oak trees near Portsmouth's naval docks in 1510, the wreck of the Tudor warship now stands on view in its new £35m home.

Where once stood a proud, cutting-edge ship built for war, now lies a reconstructed array of wooden decks and pillars, withered by their hundreds of years at the bottom of the Solent.
Standing nearby are some of the men who shared a grave with the ship for hundreds of years, their faces now reconstructed and displayed for the first time.

Viewed through windows on three separate floors, the preserved wreck stands opposite some of its 19,000 artefacts recovered from the depths.

Within the exhibition the recreated decks, dimly lit interiors and groaning sounds of the sea outside all combine to give the sense of being on board the 16th Century vessel.
The crew's quarters are all visible, while rows of cannons line the main deck, pointing out of the open gunports ready to be fired at enemy ships.

It is a Tudor time capsule - dubbed "Britain's Pompeii" by historian David Starkey - and its custodians cannot wait to show it off.

"What we're aiming to achieve here is a mirror image of the ship and to show artefacts where they belonged," explains Nick Butterley, exhibition co-ordinator.
"So many things in this gallery you can immediately look at and understand what they are. That's one of the real beauties of the collection, how realistic and normal it feels."

Every artefact on show here is an original piece found with the wreck. Some of the cannons were still sticking out of the gunports when it was discovered in 1971.

The Mary Rose was raised from the seabed of the Solent in 1982, and has been on display before, but it is only now that insights into life on board are being shown to the public.

Forensic scientists, more used to working with murder victims, have recreated the faces of seven of the about 500 men who died when the ship sank in 1545.
The new Mary Rose Museum has been dedicated to them, and it is through them the story of the ship is now being told.

Curators had no list of crew names, just numbers. Only the names of the vice admiral, Sir George Carew, and the master, Roger Grenville, are known.

Maritime archaeologist Alex Hildred was part of the team who excavated and raised the wreck and has since studied the human remains to discover more about the men and boys - whose ages range from 12 to 40 - found on board.
"You've got a really good glimpse of Tudor males at a moment in time," she says. "It's a healthy, living population, you are not looking at a churchyard.
"They were pretty well fed once they were on the ship - we know that from the diet. But there had been severe famines in the 1520s, so some of their bones have got evidence of vitamin deficiency, such as rickets or sometimes scurvy from the fact that they suffered as children.
"They've also got a lot of healed fractures - which is what you'd expect on a warship - a number of broken noses, one arrow wound and some arthritis. These guys were used to lifting heavy things."

The human remains found are displayed in galleries at the bow and stern of the ship, along with thousands of artefacts.
"This is where we personalise the collection, trying to show that these objects belonged to real people who lived and sadly died on the ship," explains maritime archaeologist Christopher Dobbs, giving the BBC a guided tour.

Forensic artist Oscar Nilsson explains to Robert Hall how he created a model of one of the sailors who drowned on the Mary Rose
"One thing that's so powerful about the Mary Rose collection is that we found a number of chests in the ship and they tell us about an individual person, because they contain the objects that belonged to a person."

He says the master carpenter's chest, for example, contained three plates, a tankard, a sundial, a book and even a backgammon set - indicating "quite a wealthy person".
"We also, just outside the carpenter's cabin, found the skeleton of a dog," he adds.
"It's these tiny insights that we've got into Tudor life, as well as the obvious things like guns and rigging, that really make our display so exceptional."

When the Mary Rose was built, it was part of a new generation of modern carvel-built ships - planks laid side to side - which featured gunports with lids, allowing heavier guns to be carried.
The warship fought its first battle in 1512 against France after King Henry VIII joined Pope Julius II's Holy League against the French the previous year. It fought many more over the next 34 years.

But Mary Rose's life as a serving Navy ship came to an abrupt end on 19 July 1545, when it sank during the Battle of the Solent while, once again, leading the attack on the French invasion fleet.

Francis I was attempting an invasion of England with 30,000 soldiers and more than 220 ships - much larger than the more well-known Spanish Armada 43 years later.
The English had about 60 ships and 12,000 soldiers, but managed to fight off the French who eventually retreated the day after the Mary Rose sank.

Only 35 men survived disaster, according to contemporary records. Many would have been trapped under the anti-boarding netting and drowned.
Legend has it that Henry VIII watched in horror from Southsea castle along with the wife of Vice Admiral Sir George Carew.
As the ship sank, the cries and screams from the drowning men and boys could be heard back on land. The loss of the ship is said to have affected the king deeply.

Accounts on what happened that day differ, but one survivor claimed the ship had just fired its guns on one side and was turning to fire from the other when the wind caught its sails and plunged the open gunports below the water, which sank it.
French historians claim its forces were responsible for sinking the Mary Rose in battle.

For the next 300 years the Mary Rose - like a snapshot of Tudor military life - lay undisturbed on the seabed.
Even though many items from the wreck were raised by early pioneering divers John and Charles Deane in 1836, the site was then lost again for another 100 years.

It was finally located again in 1971 and, since then, divers have made 27,000 dives to the wreck site outside the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour.
One chest got archaeologists particularly excited when they discovered it had a secret compartment. Mr Dobbs says they thought it may contain something valuable the wealthy owner was trying to hide.
"It was like a time capsule within a time capsule, within a time capsule," explains Mr Dobbs. "But it only had a pin in it."
"Maybe this once was used to hold together some important papers that have not survived. We will never know."

But there are many more secrets the team is still hoping to reveal and the new museum is being heralded as a new beginning for the Mary Rose story.
Many of the items found have still not been identified, but as artefacts go on display the curators hope they are identified by experts in various fields who share their knowledge.
"We had the bishop of Portsmouth here last week and he saw this book cover and pointed out it was probably the ship's bible cover," Mr Dobbs adds.
"We are learning more as we go along."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22639505

Much, much more on page.

I watched the raising of the Mary Rose live on TV. A few years later I was in Portsmouth after a yacht delivery, and saw the early stages of the restoration project. I'd love to see this new exhibition.
 
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