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February 08, 2008

OCEAN REVEALS SHIPWRECK BURRIED IN DUNES

OCEAN UNCOVERS SHIPWRECK TREASURE IN DUNES

COOS BAY — Several times a month, Glasgow resident Jack Hammar and his wife hop in their pickup truck and drive out to Coos Bay’s north spit, home to clams, beachcombing and the stern of a wrecked freighter: the New Carissa.

Imagine Hammar’s surprise, then, when just after the new year, his wife pointed at a familiar spot along the beachgrass-fortified dune that the brutal winter’s surf has been pounding for a month — a spot a full two miles south of 1999’s New Carissa wreck.

“Does that look like a shipwreck?” she asked.

Only the wooden prow was sticking out of the sand wall at that point, so the Hammars thought little of it and kept driving along the beach. As the days wore on, the eroding dune revealed more and more of its treasure. Now, there’s the full bow of a wreck that could be 150 years old sitting exposed on the beach, waves beating at it, slamming driftwood into its heavy hull, as they do its neighbor two miles to the north.

Move over, New Carissa. There’s a new shipwreck in town. “You have to see it in person,” Hammar said. “It’s so incredibly massive.

The thing is made with 12”x12” beams all jammed one next to the other, standing upright, sheathed on the outside by 4”x12” timbers, everything held together by iron rebar and scraps. It looks like it would withstand cannon fire.”

The discovery has quickly become a tourist attraction on the remote beach, despite its inaccessibility to vehicles without four-wheel drive.

On Wednesday, inquisitive locals were driving through the sand by the dozens. Those whose vehicles weren’t hearty enough hoofed it, up to three miles each way.

Reuben Lyon rode his mountain bike down the beach at high tide, braving sneaker waves that leapt right up to the foredune that once hid the mystery ship.

“I was shocked when I saw it,” said Lyon, who’s convinced he has a picture of himself as a child standing in front of the same shipwreck in 1948. “The last time it was visible was in the 60s.”

Whether the boat Lyon stood before is the same one or not remains to be determined. Archeologists and historians visited the structure last weekend to see if they could solve the puzzle. They hope to pinpoint the ship’s name and also where and when it met its salty demise.

“It’s a fabulous find,” said Anne Donnelly, executive director of the Coos Historical and Maritime Museum. “It’s a wonderful remainder of the kinds of ships that were built here.”

The leading theory is that it’s a steam schooner, built in the 1800s by a company called Kruse and Banks, in an era when Coos Bay was the largest lumber port in the world. One way to ship their cargo to hungry customers was to build ships. More than 350 vessels were built between 1850 and 1950, Donnelly said, in 91 different shipyards.

All of which makes for tricky detective work. The way the ship was built, the way the planks are constrained and the lead-topped caulk sealing them together suggests it was born in the 1800s, Donnelly said. But there are hex-head bolts and other fastenings that suggest a more recent vintage; perhaps a retrofit. “Somebody’s supposed to be checking out when hex heads came into use,” Donnelly said.

An important question is what’s still buried. By the looks of what’s on the beach now, the bow is broken apart from any other portion of the ship.

But the sides of steam schooners were constructed in such away that the sides of them dropped precipitously at the middle of the ship, at about the point where the North Spit vessel disappears into the sand.

“If it is a steam schooner, there may be a great deal of it further aft, buried in the sand dune still,” Donnelly said.

Historians and archaeologists will try to match the ship with the dozens of pictures on hand of ships that were around 100 or more years ago, cross-checking those findings with the records of some 25 ships that went down between 1868 and 1944 in a four-mile stretch near the Coos Bay bar.

“If we can work backwards from the wreck and identify which wreck it is, we can know what the circumstances of its stranding were,” Donnelly said. “The problem is, it could have ‘pulled a Carissa’ and wrecked in one place, then been carried to a different location by the tide.”

Now what? Unlike the state’s herculean effort to rip the New Carissa from its resting place — slated to start next month — there’s no funding to remove the North Spit’s newest discovery, or anybody lobbying for that to happen. Very little work could take place until September, when the nesting season of the threatened Western snowy plover ends, as the ship is buffered by critical habitat for the fragile bird to the east.

But by then, given the pounding the ship is taking now, there might not be much left to preserve.

“We don’t know until we know what’s there,” Donnelly said. “If we’ve got a complete 250-foot-long ship, that’s one thing. Clearly, nobody can hope to remove what could be a 250-foot-long ship. The cost would be insane.”

Ultimately, the State Historical Preservation Society will decide what to do, Donnelly said.

Posted by victoria at 12:45 PM

February 07, 2008

The journey of Hitler’s Lost Fleet to Turkey at shipwreck conference

ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

The final resting place of three German submarines found at the bottom of the Black Sea has been brought to the agenda of the Turkish media.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that a team led by Selçuk Kolay, a Turkish submarine archaeologist, has located the three U-boats, a type of Germany military submarine, off the Black Sea coast of Turkey and will present his findings at a conference on shipwrecks to be held Saturday in Plymouth, England.

Many mass circulation newspapers in Turkey announced the following day that �Hitler's lost fleet has been discovered.� However, the submarines had been discovered previously, Kolay told the Turkish Daily News: �I only identified the submarines and researched their history.�

The vessels, including one once regarded as Germany's most successful U-boat, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines. They were transported across Nazi-occupied Europe by road and through rivers from Kiel, Germany's Baltic port to Constanta, the Romanian Black Sea port.

In two years, the fleet sank dozens of ships and lost three to enemy attacks. But in August 1944, Romania switched sides and declared war on Germany, leaving the three remaining vessels stranded.

With no base and unable to sail home � the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to them because of Turkish neutrality during the war � their captains were ordered to scuttle the boats before rowing ashore and trying to make their way back to Germany with the crew. However, all three crews were caught and jailed by the Turks.

Kolay identified the boats through research in German archives, interviews with surviving sailors and sonar studies of the seabed. �The only story I will tell at this shipwreck conference will be the conversations I had with the commander of U20 [one of the three submarines], Rudolf Arendt, about the submarines as well as the background history of how the ships arrived in the Black Sea and how they were scuttled,� Kolay said, adding that he was surprised by the reports in the media.

The Turkish Naval Forces discovered the first U-boat. �Submarine Rescue Commander Mehmet Kanyon called and asked if I could identify it and so I did. The story of the U-boats is a very interesting detail of the war,� said Kolay.

He has already completed successful dives to the U20, almost four kilometers offshore and about 25 meters under water. He believes he has discovered another, U23, at twice that depth, 5.5 kilometers from the town of Ağva, but bad weather forced him to suspend diving until spring.

He thinks he is also close to pinpointing the third boat, U19, thought to lie more than 300 meters underwater and 5.5 kilometers from the Turkish city of Zonguldak.

Kolay emphasized he has discovered and identified more than 60 shipwrecks to date and never attempted to salvage any of them as he has no intention to salvage these U-boats either. �I am not interested in the pieces or material of the wrecks. I am only interested in their history,� he said.

Posted by victoria at 12:43 PM

January 03, 2008

Treasures down with ships continue to dazzle

Believe it or not, archeologists have located the sites of 2,000 ships that sank in China's territorial waters during the heyday of its marine trade.

China was a major maritime power between the 10th and 16th centuries, and the great exploits of Zheng He give an idea of Ming Dynasty's (1368-1644) might on the sea.

The 2,000 wreckages won't be the last to be found, because State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) Director Shan Jixiang says many more are waiting to be located.

Archeologists and other experts are now trying to find the sunken treasures in the Grand Canal, and their number can be "big", Shan says.

Work on the 1,700-km-long canal linking Beijing with Hangzhou began in the 5th century BC. So deft were the engineers of the times, and so farsighted was their vision that the canal is in use even today.

The discovery of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) ship Nanhai-I, which was finally hauled from South China Sea on Saturday, prompted the government to draft a plan to protect its relics lying under water, Shan says. In fact, the work on the plan has already begun.

The discoveries have created the need for regulations and actions, too. "Now that everyone has realized the value of the cultural relics lying under water, it has become all the more urgent to keep thieves and smugglers away from them."

If the country wants to better protect these priceless objects, it has to join the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, says Zhang Wei, director of National Museum of China's underwater archaeological center.

China has just two instruments to protect its underwater heritage: the Cultural Heritage Protection Law, promulgated in 1981 and amended in 2003, and the Regulation on the Protection of Underwater Heritage, announced by the State Council in 1989.

Most of the relics looted from the seas and rivers often make their way abroad, and smugglers have been particularly rampant over the last two years, Shan says.

Art collectors and dealers across the world have become especially interested in China's underwater heritage since 2005, when about 15,000 relics, mainly 300-year-old blue-and-white porcelain, were found on a 13.5-m sunken ship off the coast of Fujian Province.

Posted by phil at 09:35 AM

January 02, 2008

Ancient civilization under Kyrgyz lake

An international team of archeologists have found an ancient civilization in the bottom of Lake Issyk Kul high in Kyrgyz Mountains.

The advanced civilization dates back to 25 centuries ago and includes major settlements currently sank under water.
The civilization has been described as an equivalent to the Hellenic civilizations of the northern coast of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) and the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, according to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.

Last year also, archeologists found formidable walls in the north coast of the lake, some stretching for 500 meters at the depth of 5 to 10 meters.

The recent findings are a turning point in the many years of archeological explorations in the lake.

The expansion of the underwater-city and the treasure trove it contains indicates that it has been a metropolis in its time.
MGH/DT

Posted by victoria at 09:12 AM

December 21, 2007

Shipwreck provides historic data

The shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period. >

A shipwreck off the south coast may provide valuable information about the nautical and economic history of the region, according to the Department of Antiquities.

The shipwreck at Mazotos is the first underwater research project to be exclusively run by Cypriot institutions.

The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities.

According to a statement from the Department of Antiquities, the shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period.
Part of the cargo of the ship lies on the sea bottom and consists of amphorae, most probably from Chios.

No other ceramic types were identified for the time being or any other parts of the ship (such as anchors) but the spatial distribution of the amphorae may indicate that the hull of the ship is buried under the sand.

Study of shipwreck reveals treasure trove of details

By Alexia Saoulli THE DEPARTMENT of Antiquities yesterday announced the completion of the first underwater research project of the Mazotos shipwreck. Its study is expected to be of great significance for the nautical and economic history of the Eastern Mediterranean as it is one of the very few shipwrecks of the Classical period found in such a good state of preservation, the department said. “The results will throw light on important research questions such as the commercial relations between the North Aegean and the South Eastern Mediterranean and the role of Cyprus in these transport routes during the last phases of the Cypriot city-kingdoms as well as on types and sizes of ships amongst others,” it said. The project was undertaken by the Research Unit of Archaeology of the University of Cyprus in agreement with the Department of Antiquities and with funding and logistical support from the Thetis Foundation. It is the first time a project of this kind has been exclusively undertaking by Cypriot institutions. The research programme was carried out from November 17 to 24 and focused on the documentation of the shipwreck using photographic and drawing methods so as to make an initial assessment and plan the next period of research accordingly. The shipwreck seems to have been a commercial vessel of the Late Classical period (mid-300BC). Part of the cargo of the ship lies on the seabed and consists of amphorae, most probably from the Greek island of Chios. No other ceramic types were identified for the time being or any other parts of the ship but the spatial distribution of the amphorae may indicate that the hull of the ship is buried under the sand, the department said. The research was carried out by Dr Stella Demesticha, Visiting Lecturer of Underwater Archaeology at the University of Cyprus. The participants were specialists from Greece, divers of the Federation of Professional Divers and other Cypriot professional divers.

Posted by victoria at 09:21 AM

December 13, 2007

Captain Kidd Shipwreck Discovered

Communications, at 812-855-0084 or traljame@indiana.edu.

IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker examines possible wreckage from Capt. Kidd's Quedagh Merchant

Print-Quality Photo

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Resting in less than 10 feet of Caribbean seawater, the wreckage of Quedagh Merchant, the ship abandoned by the scandalous 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd as he raced to New York in an ill-fated attempt to clear his name, has escaped discovery -- until now.

An underwater archaeology team from Indiana University announced today (Dec. 13) the discovery of the remnants. IU marine protection authority Charles Beeker said his team has been licensed to study the wreckage and to convert the site into an underwater preserve, where it will be accessible to the public.

Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs in IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, said it is remarkable that the wreck has remained undiscovered all these years given its location, just 70 feet off the coast of Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic, and because it has been sought actively by treasure hunters.

"I've been on literally thousands of shipwrecks in my career," Beeker said. "This is one of the first sites I've been on where I haven't seen any looting. We've got a shipwreck in crystal clear, pristine water that's amazingly untouched. We want to keep it that way, so we made the announcement now to ensure the site's protection from looters."

The find is valuable because of the potential to reveal important information about piracy in the Caribbean and about the legendary Capt. Kidd, said John Foster, California's state underwater archaeologist, who is participating in the research.

IU anthropology doctoral student Fritz Hanselmann documents one of the "great guns" as described by Captain Kidd

Print-Quality Photo

"I look forward to a meticulous study of the ship, its age, its armament, its construction, its use, its contents and the reconstructed wrecking process that resulted in the site we see today," Foster said. "Because there is extensive, written documentation, this is an opportunity we rarely have to test historic information against the archaeological record."

Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer -- someone who captured pirates. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years.

Historians write that Kidd captured the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with valuable satins and silks, gold, silver and other East Indian merchandise, but left the ship in the Caribbean as he sailed to New York on a less conspicuous sloop to clear his name of the criminal charges.

Anthropologist Geoffrey Conrad, director of IU Bloomington's Mathers Museum of World Cultures, said the men Kidd entrusted with his ship reportedly looted it, and then set it ablaze and adrift down the Rio Dulce. Conrad said the location of the wreckage and the formation and size of the canons, which had been used as ballast, are consistent with historical records of the ship. They also found pieces of several anchors under the cannons.

"All the evidence that we find underwater is consistent with what we know from historical documentation, which is extensive," Conrad said. "Through rigorous archeological investigations, we will conclusively prove that this is the Capt. Kidd shipwreck."

Photo by: Howard Pyle for Book of Pirates

Print-Quality Photo

The IU team examined the shipwreck at the request of the Dominican Republic's Oficina Nacional De Patrimonio Cultural Subacuático.

"The site was initially discovered by a local prominent resident of Casa De Campo, who recognized the significance of the numerous cannons and requested the site be properly investigated," said ONPCS Technical Director Francis Soto. "So, I contacted IU."

Beeker and Conrad have worked closely with ONPCS for 11 years since they began conducting underwater and land-based archaeological research related to the era when the Old World and New World first met.

"It continues our work down there from the age of discovery to the golden age of piracy, the transformation of both the native and introduced cultures of the Caribbean," Conrad said.

Much of their work is focused in the area of La Isabela Bay, the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement established by Christopher Columbus. The Taino were the first indigenous people to interact with Europeans. Beeker said much of the history of this period is based on speculation, something he and Conrad are trying to change.

The IU research in the Dominican Republic typically involves professors and graduate students from various IU Bloomington schools and departments, including the School of HPER, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and the departments of anthropology, biology, geology and mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Anthropology doctorate student Fritz Hanselmann, who teaches underwater archaeology techniques in HPER, said there have only been a few pirate ships ever discovered in the Americas, and that IU's multi-disciplinary research will make a significant contribution to the field.

HPER Dean Robert M. Goodman accompanied the most recent expedition to learn more about this successful interdisciplinary and international research collaboration. He also went to explore potential public health linkages between the School of HPER and the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo, founded in 1538. It is the largest university in the country and the oldest in the Americas.

"Indiana University is working to increase its international presence," Goodman said. "Earlier this month, the IU Board of Trustees was presented a strategic plan that calls for increased student and faculty participation in study abroad and international service learning programs, as well as the development of strategic international partnerships that support overseas study, global research and the recruitment of international students.

"The archeological work being done by IU in the Dominican Republic affords us tremendous entrée for wider areas of collaboration," he said. "Because of the network that Mr. Beeker and Dr. Conrad have established, the Universidad Autonóma de Santo Domingo is eager to establish a formal agreement with IU. We met with the secretary of state for environment and national resources, the dean of faculties of health sciences at the university, representatives from USAID, and the president of the hotel association, all of whom are eager to foster relationships between IU and agencies of the Dominican Republic. This was an incredibly productive trip for IU."

Beeker and his students have conducted underwater research projects on submerged ships, cargo and other cultural and biological resources throughout the United States and the Caribbean for more than 20 years. Many of his research projects have resulted in the establishment of state or federal underwater parks and preserves, and have led to a number of site nominations to the National Register of Historic Places.

Beeker also serves on the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He can be reached at 812-855-5748 or cbeeker@indiana.edu. To learn more about the Underwater Science program visit http://www.indiana.edu/~scuba.

Conrad can be reached at 812-855-5340 and conrad@indiana.edu.

Francis Soto, with ONPCS, can be reached at 809-685-9072 and francis_soto@hotmail.com. To learn more about Beeker and Conrad's search for Columbus' sunken ships, read http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/3790.html.

Posted by victoria at 12:51 PM

December 04, 2007

J. Richard Steffy; Made Shipwreck Analysis Scientific

NY Times.com
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

J. Richard Steffy, who made his living as an electrical contractor until he was 48, then cast security aside to pursue his passion, studying shipwrecks, and become a leading a expert in the field, died Thursday in Bryan, Tex. He was 83.

The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, Jennifer Steffy, his daughter-in-law, said.

Using the hull timber drawings and photographs, J. Richard Steffy was able to make this 1:10 scale site diorama of the Serçe Liman1 shipwreck as found on the sea floor.

Mr. Steffy helped make shipwreck analysis a scientific discipline. Beginning at his dining-room table manipulating pieces of wood, he thought of new ways to reconstruct ancient boats and ships in three dimensions. He then added what he learned from historical archives to interpret partly preserved shipwrecks.

His enthusiasm, talent and scholarship would eventually make him a full professor at Texas A&M University, despite never having graduated from college. In 1985, he would win a “genius grant” from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. His book, “Wooden Ship Building and the Interpretation of Shipwrecks,” (1994) became a standard in the field.

He pioneered the arcane art of examining wood fragments and myriad lumpish remains of amphora containers, and of reconstructing entire ships and cargoes — sometimes conceptually and sometimes in reality. He reveled in the mission.

“I like to think that shipbuilding was the most important early everyday technology,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “The Greeks and Romans built big and beautiful temples, but I think there’s really nothing like a ship, their ships.”

Mr. Steffy set sail on his personal voyage in 1963, when he wrote a letter to George Bass, an underwater archaeologist, about an article Dr. Bass had written in National Geographic about a shipwreck in Turkey. Mr. Steffy asked if he could build a model to help in the research, specifying that he meant a serious scientific representation, not a model for a mantelpiece.

Soon, Mr. Steffy was delivering an annual lecture to graduate students on ancient seafaring at the University of Pennsylvania, where Dr. Bass taught. He got a grant to go to Cyprus to rebuild a ship from thousands of soggy wooden fragments; it took from 1972 to 1974. Around then, he bid farewell to the family business he had run for 22 years. He had little savings and two teenage sons.

“You’re crazy,” Dr. Bass remembered telling him. “You’ll starve.”

The two men joined with Michael L. Katzev, a noted underwater archaeologist, to form what became the Institute of Nautical Archaeology. Dr. Bass gambled, too, giving up a tenured professorship at Penn for the new endeavor. The institute began in Mr. Steffy’s home in Denver, Pa.

His talent shone early when a woman called to say that a Viking vessel had washed up on a New Jersey beach. The scientists drove over to take a look. Mr. Steffy said that it came from Maine and estimated the date it was built. Newspaper clips proved him exactly right.

The institute moved to Texas A&M in the early 1970s, eventually extending its work to four continents. In addition to working at the institute, Mr. Steffy and Dr. Bass became the university’s first professors of nautical archaeology. There are now seven.

John Richard Steffy was born on May 1, 1924, in Lancaster, Pa. He attended a local community college and Milwaukee School of Engineering, without graduating.

His wife, the former Esther Lucille Koch, died in 1991.

Mr. Steffy is survived by his sons, David, of Great Falls, Va., and Loren, of The Woodlands, Tex.; his sister, Muriel Steffy Lipp, of Alexandria, Va., and his brother, Milton G., of Denver, Pa., and seven grandchildren.

Among the ships Mr. Steffy reconstructed were the Kyrenia, named after the Cypriot port near where it sank; an 11th-century merchant ship wrecked near Turkey; a first-century Roman boat found buried in Italy; and a British vessel scuttled in the York River in Virginia in 1781.

After an ancient wreck dated to about 1025 was found in the Aegean in 1973 with the largest collection of Islamic glass ever found, Mr. Steffy analyzed the waterlogged timbers. He found planks had been nailed to the frame, unlike the earlier method of inserting the frame afterward, Saudi Aramco World said in 1984.

In 1992, nautical remains were found in the Sea of Galilee. The boat was in the style used in the Mediterranean from the second millennium B.C. to the end of the Roman period in A.D. 324.

Dr. Steffy was the obvious choice to interpret what the news media had quickly named “the Jesus boat.” Shelley Wachsmann, an Israeli government archaeologist, explained: “He reads wood like you read a newspaper. He almost gets into the mind of the builder.”

The team watched breathlessly as Mr. Steffy took his first look at the boat, and solemnly declared, “Yup, it’s an old boat.”

Posted by victoria at 11:52 AM

December 03, 2007

Spanish shipwreck deep in legal tangle

ODYSSEY

A.Carrasco Ragel / EPA

ANOTHER DISPUTE: A vessel belonging to Odyssey Marine Exploration leaves Algeciras, Spain. Odyssey says it has found a $500-million shipwreck, but Spain has challenged the firm for the rights.

The galleon San Jose sank off Colombia in 1708 carrying treasure said to be worth $2 billion today. But disputes over who gets the loot have prevented its recovery.

By Chris Kraul and Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 2, 2007

CARTAGENA, Colombia — For nearly 300 years, the wreck of the Spanish galleon San Jose has tantalized archaeologists and salvagers alike. When it sank in 800-foot-deep waters off this fortified Spanish colonial city, it was carrying gold, silver and precious jewels that a group of treasure hunters believes are now worth $2 billion.
But a quarter of a century after the U.S. group, which originally included a Hollywood actor, a professional golfer and a convicted Watergate felon, staked its claim, exploration and retrieval of the wreck seem as distant as the sinking sun at dusk over this historic walled city.

The stalemate over the claim by Seattle-based Sea Search Armada is partly the result of sweeping changes in international marine law and judicial interpretations during the last two decades that have made business more difficult for shipwreck salvagers. Colombia is loath to give a private foreign group access to a valuable historical site, though exploration permits it issued nearly 30 years ago seemed to do just that.
Legal experts say the new rules are a reaction to the access that salvagers got to the Titanic and 17th century Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha in the 1970s and 1980s, which earned them tens of millions of dollars. The rules include a 2001 international UNESCO pact signed by 16 countries, not including the United States or Colombia, that converted shipwrecks into a new class of protected historical landmarks, giving archaeological and historical preservation precedence over profit-driven salvage.
The evolving standards apply to the hundreds of ships carrying potentially billions in booty that sank in the Caribbean and Atlantic during the centuries of colonial plunder, when Spanish galleons, British frigates and Portuguese slavers plied the waters between Europe and the New World.
"The San Jose case is probably the best example of how the world has changed around salvagers," said Ole Varmer, an attorney with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington. "And it looks like the Colombian government changed its mind."
The richest of all colonial-era wrecks may well be the San Jose. It was stocked to the hatches with bullion and coins from Peru as it sailed in a convoy toward the fortified city of Cartagena in May 1708. Before it reached port, a fleet of British navy ships intercepted the Spanish ships, and an explosion sank the San Jose, sending its treasures and 600 crew members to the ocean floor.
The ship was known to have had a rich cargo because the convoy was the first in 10 years sent by the Spanish crown to bring home colonial booty, said University of Minnesota historian Carla Rahn Phillips. Ship traffic had been halted during the War of the Spanish Succession.
A costly search
It was not until the last couple of decades that technological advances gave explorers adequate tools to search for treasure at such a depth. Robotic instruments now can distinguish precious metals from iron and reach once-impossibly deep sites.
But such technology is expensive, and Colombian officials such as Armando Lopez, special legal counsel to President Alvaro Uribe, say that the government can't afford to explore the shipwreck on its own.
"There are too many other priorities, such as housing, health and welfare of Colombians," Lopez said in an interview.
Formed in 1982, the Sea Search Armada partnership originally included actor Michael Landon, pro golfer Cary Middlecoff and onetime Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman, all now dead.
All along, Sea Search Armada has proposed financing the venture, possibly in cooperation with scientific and academic institutions, if Colombia will only allow it to proceed. Investor attorney Danilo Devis of Barranquilla said the original investor group, which later sold its interest to SSA, got a permit in 1979 from the government to explore the shipwreck site and split whatever it found 50-50 with the Colombian state.
But years-long legal wrangling has ensued.
A Colombian Supreme Court case decided in July, in which both sides claimed victory, seems only to have hardened the standoff. The judges found that anything on board that is "national patrimony" belongs to the Colombian government, and everything else is to be split 50-50 between the investors and the government.
Investor attorney Devis said the government's claims to patrimony, meaning objects of such cultural and historical significance that they belong to a nation in perpetuity, are inappropriate because the cargo came from colonial Peru. In a telephone interview, Jack Harbeston, managing director of the partnership, said he and his associates hoped to strike a deal with Colombia on what constitutes national patrimony that would let exploration begin.
If an agreement is not reached, the investors will sue Colombia in a U.S. court for "de facto expropriation," he said.
Another twist to the case is that Sea Search Armada has presented no physical evidence that it had found the San Jose wreck, only instrument readings. Rather than give one set of coordinates for the ship's location, it filed half a dozen possible sites about 10 miles offshore, thus increasing the area of its claim.
Still uncertain is whether Spain will make its own claim to the ship and its contents under the cultural heritage accord sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The pact provides that flag vessels and their contents remain the property of the state.
Colombian official Lopez theorized that Spain may be waiting to weigh in until the legal issues are resolved.
Another legal test
On the other side of the Atlantic, a shipwreck site claimed by a Florida-based investor group also is testing the new international legal framework. The so-called Black Swan wreck is thought to contain such riches that a court case is shaping up even before the ship, its location or its nationality have been disclosed.
Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Fla., announced in March that it had found a wreck in international waters with 17 tons of silver and gold coins and other precious artifacts, providing little additional detail. Odyssey co-founders Greg Stemm and John Morris believe, based on expert examination of the cache, that the treasure could be worth $500 million.
But Spain has challenged Odyssey in U.S. federal court in Tampa, claiming rights to the shipwreck treasure if either it or the vessel turns out to be of Spanish origin.
The case isn't expected to go to trial for nearly a year.
"According to the very limited information that Odyssey has disclosed so far, we believe the shipwreck was located near Cadiz," a Spanish port that was a key departure point for colonial-era Spanish ships, said James A. Goold, a Washington lawyer representing Spain in the Odyssey case.
The coins that have surfaced are gold escudos and silver reales, Spanish coins at the presumed time of the Black Swan shipwreck, Goold said.
Odyssey's founders contend that their discovery of the Black Swan site and importation of its treasure have been legal and in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which the United States and most seagoing countries belong.
The UNESCO convention on underwater cultural heritage protection, a different accord, is problematic, Odyssey's Stemm said, because "it took the code of ethics of one user group of the resource -- and shipwreck artifacts are a resource -- and ignored all other user groups and constituencies."
Shipwrecks are not of equal historical significance, and their artifacts are not of vital need to national heritage, he argued.
"We need to take a close look at every site and evaluate it on its own merits and significance," Stemm said. "Some sites are going to be very important from the cultural and memorial standpoint, while others are going to be nothing but big piles of coins."
University of Minnesota historian Phillips and NOAA attorney Varmer counter that keeping flagged vessels under state control is a sound principle.
"If you come down on the other side, then the whole world of shipping is up for grabs. That a U.S. Navy ship sinks off the coast of Italy and stays U.S. property makes sense to me in the interests of international law."
Varmer said the United States has not signed the UNESCO cultural accord because it didn't go far enough in guaranteeing nations' access to vessels that sink in foreign territorial waters.
"What is really important is that we acknowledge as a country that the principles are important and that they override private property rights," said Barbara T. Hoffman, a New York lawyer specializing in underwater heritage issues. "The salvors' view has been one of first-come, first-served."
chris.kraul@latimes.com
carol.williams@latimes.com
Kraul reported from Cartagena and Williams from Miami.

Posted by victoria at 01:31 PM

November 30, 2007

Rescuing Turkish shipwreck

Turkish Daily News

A survey and inventory was undertaken for the first time in the area where the frigate sank and a detailed map was prepared as the first phase of the project. In the second stage, the frigate will be completely lifted to the surface

The Culture and Tourism Ministry will support a project aimed at bringing the Turkish frigate Ertuğrul, which sank off the coast of Japan in 1890 in a severe typhoon, to the surface.

The voyage of the Ertuğrul was planned as a goodwill trip to Japan in response to a Japanese delegation visit in 1887. However, the Ertuğrul sank on Sept. 15, 1890 on its way back from Japan on the rocks of Kashinozaki, off the coast of Ooshima Island. A total of 533 sailors died in the accident and the Japanese rescued 69.

A survey and inventory was undertaken for the first time in the area where the warship sank and a detailed map was prepared as the first phase of the project. In the second stage, the ship will be completely brought to the surface and exhibited in the museum next to the “Ertuğrul Monument” built on the coast.

A team of well-known nautical archaeologists from Turkey, Spain, Japan, and the United States will carry out the underwater excavation as part of the second phase of the project.

Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay will join a Japanese princess in a trip to the area where the ship sank and where divers will be operating. The dives will kick off in January and will last around a month-and-a-half.

The project is being carried out with contributions from the Institute of Nautical Archaeology in Bodrum (INA), the Yapı Kredi Retirement Partnership, the Turkish Foundation of Nautical Archaeology and Turkish Airlines (THY).

A meeting with history:

Artifacts unearthed during the underwater surveys were taken to a conservation area and further underwater excavations will be held from Jan. 9 to Feb. 18, said project coordinator, Tufan Turanlı. Huge rocks that now cover the frigate because of earthquakes and tides will be removed, he said.

“We plan to reach the ammunition store section and administrative rooms of the ship,” Turanlı said.

“We could come across some unexpected artifacts with the archaeological excavations, which will be conducted for first the time. Some of the findings and personal belongings of the frigate's commanders and crew will be displayed in a museum in Japan, while some will be brought to Bodrum for conservation works and display,” he said.

New documents and photographs of the historical event were also collected from relatives of the shipwreck's crew.

Project leaders invited Günay and State Minister Kürşat Tüzmen to Japan to join the dives and the invitation was accepted.

“They will dive to the shipwreck with a Japanese princess. Günay said the ministry will provide all its support to the project,” Turanlı said.

The project will shed light on Turkish history and revive the memories of 530 sailors who lost their lives in the tragic accident, said Giray Velioğlu of the Yapı Kredi Retirement Partnership. A documentary film in three languages (Turkish, English and Japanese) will also be shot as part of the project.

About the Ertuğrul Frigate accident:

The frigate Ertuğrul was sent by Sultan Abdülhamit II to the emperor of Japan on a goodwill visit. The frigate set sail on July 14, 1889 and, after sailing for more than a year, arrived in Japan in June 1890. On the return voyage, the Ottoman frigate sank on the 16th day on the rocks of Kashinozaki off the coast of Ooshima Island because of a severe typhoon. The tragedy resulted in the loss of 533 sailors, of whom 50 were officers. Only six officers and 63 sailors survived.

There now stands in Ooshima, Wakayama Prefecture, near a lighthouse, the Ertuğrul Monument, built in memory of those pioneers of Turkish-Japanese friendship. The compassion demonstrated by the Japanese people in saving and returning the survivors of the crew of the Ertuğrul to Istanbul has left a lasting memory of gratitude in the minds of the Turkish people. Thus, this tragic accident became a solemn symbol of friendship between the two nations.

Posted by victoria at 02:57 PM

November 29, 2007

China to house shipwreck in underwater museum

China is building a giant underwater museum to preserve and exhibit an ancient shipwreck. The museum, the first of its kind in the world, is to contain a sunken ship more than 800 years old and its treasures.
Archaeologists say the ship is China’s most exciting underwater excavation. Named the Southern Sea Number One, it lies under 24 metres of water and two metres of sand and soil.
Archaeologists took more than 6,000 treasures from one small room on the ship in 2002. The Guangdong provincial government has now allocated £10 million to building a five hall underwater museum to preserve the wreck.
“We’ve estimated the ship to contain a total of 60,000 to 80,000 pieces of treasure,” says Wei Jun, director of the Guangdong Province Underwater Archeology Institute.
“Since the ship and its treasures have become accustomed to being underwater, it’s better to keep them there.” Experts say the ship may break up if it is exposed to air so they plan to put it into a 5,000 tonne steel container and then transport it into into the underwater museum. Construction work on the museum is well underway and it is expected to open to the public by the middle of next year. ananova

Posted by victoria at 11:34 AM

Protecting history in Great Lakes

By Sen. Carl Levin
WASHINGTON — Since the time glaciers receded leaving our pleasant peninsulas, the Great Lakes have shaped Michigan. And physical boundaries are only the beginning. From the Native Americans who lived around and explored the lakes and adjacent land, to the European settlers who developed trading routes for furs, then lumber, and eventually automobiles that Michigan shipped around the world, the Great Lakes hold the story of Michigan’s history. One part of that story is being preserved at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and earlier this month I introduced legislation to expand that sanctuary.

Thunder Bay has been a regular byway for ships traveling on Lake Huron, and it earned the name “Shipwreck Alley” because the geography and weather patterns in the bay led to over 300 shipwrecks. Thanks to a partnership established in 2000 between the State of Michigan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects the wreckage of 116 ships. It includes 448 square miles of water and 115 miles of shoreline.

The cold temperature and fresh water of Lake Huron have preserved many of the shipwreck sites, creating an underwater museum of maritime history. The shipwrecks span the 19th and 20th centuries and cover a wide variety of ship types and cargo, providing a wealth of information to researchers and students. The sanctuary is an unparalleled treasure for divers and snorklers.

In 2005, NOAA opened the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena, an educational station and visitors’ center that traces maritime history in the Great Lakes. Families, school groups and history buffs can even explore the shipwrecks by live video feeds from divers in the sanctuary, extending the reach of the vast educational opportunities in the sanctuary not only to large numbers of visitors each year, but to people around the country who visit the other 13 NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries.

These shipwrecks are a piece of history that must be carefully protected. NOAA initially proposed that the sanctuary cover an area twice as big as was established in 2000, but the proposal had to be scaled back to address concerns raised by some in the local community. Now, community leaders and residents agree that it is time to expand the sanctuary.

Under my proposal, the new sanctuary boundaries would include the historic site of one of the most intact shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, the Cornelia B. Windiate. This three-mast schooner sank in 1875 while delivering wheat from Milwaukee to Buffalo. The expanded sanctuary would also include the H.P. Bridge, a three-mast wooden ship that sank with a payload of pottery, clothing, ship tackle and hardware, all preserved since it sank in 1869. In total, the expansion would include 3,722 square miles of water, 226 miles of shoreline and an estimated 178 additional shipwrecks, although many shipwreck sites remain unexplored.

As we work to preserve this piece of history in the Great Lakes, we have also recently made major progress to protect the Great Lakes as a whole and to ensure that commercial navigation channels are maintained. Overriding a presidential veto, Congress passed the Water Resources Development Act earlier this month. The law will help our fight to stop invasive species like Asian carp from entering the Great lakes, to address the dredging backlog that impacts shipping channels and harbors, to prevent sewage systems from overflowing into Michigan lakes and rivers, and to move forward on studies and programs to protect the Great Lakes environment and ecosystem.

By protecting “Shipwreck Alley” and expanding the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, we can preserve a special chapter in the history of the Great Lakes. And by continuing to fight to make the Great Lakes safe and clean for the use and enjoyment of future generations, I hope that we can write another successful, prosperous chapter for Michigan’s people and for our Great Lakes.

Carl Levin, a Democrat, represents Michigan in the U.S. Senate.

Posted by victoria at 10:39 AM

November 26, 2007

Shark circles schoolgirls stranded on shipwreck

Two teenage girls were stranded on a shipwreck as a shark circled them at Byron Bay on the northern New South Wales coast.

The girls, named by the Northern Star newspaper as Byron Bay High School students Jett Coates and Caitlin Robinson, both 14, were diving off the wreck yesterday when one of them spotted the "large dark shark".

"I was just about to jump off and Jett yelled 'Watch out. There's a shark.'," Caitlin told the paper.

"We couldn't see it for a while, then it came under us again."

Northern NSW lifeguard co-ordinator Stephen Leahy said the alarm was raised early yesterday.

Two surf lifesavers in an inflatable boat went to the wreck, about 100m west of the surf club on Byron Bay's main beach, to save the girls.

"Apart from being very scared they were not injured," Mr Leahy said.

The beach was closed for a short time while lifesavers looked for the shark, but it was not seen again.

"There have been nine sightings of sharks in the Byron Bay area in the last two weeks," Mr Leahy said.

"It's unusual in that these sharks are close to swimmers, that definitely concerns us."

Yesterday's incident follows last month's attack on a woman who was knocked from her sea kayak by a shark near Byron Bay.

The woman was bitten on the arm.

Posted by victoria at 11:06 AM

November 23, 2007

Ship Sinking in Antarctic Waters

Antarctic cruise liner hits iceberg, ships rescue 150

SANTIAGO (AFP) — A cruise liner hit an iceberg off Antarctica on Friday and other ships rushed to rescue more than 150 people who took to the freezing seas in lifeboats, officials said.

The 100 passengers and most of the 54 crew from the MS Explorer were picked up safely after the Titanic-style accident near the South Shetland islands, officials from international coastguard and navy services said.

The captain and another senior officer stayed on board the Liberian-registered Explorer but it was not immediately known if it was sinking, the officials said. But problems with the ship's safety record were immediately highlighted.

Susan Hayes, vice president of marketing for Gap Adventures, which ran the tour, said the rescued passengers and crew were transferred to another ship which is in the area. "Everyone is safe and accounted for at this point," she told CNN television.

The 2,400 tonne Explorer began taking in water after it struck ice, she said. Although its pumps were managing the water, a decision was made to evacuate the passengers into life boats, she added.

A Chilean navy captain, Rodrigo Vattuone, told CNN a distress signal was raised at 12:54 am local time (0354 GMT). The ship was near King George Island, where Chile has its Teniente Marsh base.

The Chilean icebreaker Oscar Viel was on its way to the ship to help the rescue operation, Vattuone said.

The accident and ensuing operation was monitored by coast guard services in several countries.

A British coastguard spokesman, Fred Caygill, said another cruise liner, the Endeavour had taken on passengers. "All persons are accounted for," he told Britain's Sky News television.

The owners of a Norwegian vessel, the MS Nordnorge, said it had also taken on a large number. Stein Lillebo, spokesman for Hurtigruten, owners of the Nordnorge, told AFP only the officers from the Explorer were still on board the stricken ship.

"It's too early to say at this stage whether it will actually sink...but it is taking some ingress of water," Caygill said. Another spokesman earlier said the ship was listing at 25 degrees.

Weather in the area is relatively good, with the Antarctic heading from late spring into summer. The average temperature is about minus five degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit), Caygill said.

Cruise ships regularly take passengers to the remote region to view icebergs and other Antarctic natural features at this time of year.

But the specialist Lloyds List maritime publication said the Explorer had five "deficiencies" at its last inspection including problems with a watertight door.

The ship also had lifeboat maintenance problems and missing search and rescue plans, according to a report on Lloyds' website.

Watertight doors were described as "not as required," and the fire safety measures were also criticized, it said, citing an inspection done by Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency in May this year.

Chilean port inspectors also found six deficiencies during an inspection in Puerto Natales in March, including two related to navigation matters, it said.

In August, 17 British tourists and a Russian sailor were injured when a cruise ship, the Aleksey Maryshev, was hit by falling pieces of iceshelf in the Arctic.

It was carrying nearly 50 passengers and 19 crew at the time.

Posted by victoria at 09:04 AM

November 22, 2007

Divers Cleared to Dive Canterbury Wreck

www.canterburywreck.co.nz

Canterbury will ultimately become a link in the Northland Dive Trail, a chain of sunken ships reaching from Tutukaka to the Cavalli Islands. Northernmost of these is the former Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior.

The Bay of Islands Canterbury Trust declared the former naval frigate sunk near Cape Brett on November 3rd safe to dive. She sits in 30 meters of water at Deep Water Cove. Marine life is already moving in!

A Truly World Class Location
The Canterbury promises to be one of New Zealand's top dive sites according to expert divers from the area. Deep Water Cove is a feature of the Cape Brett Peninsula, which forms the southern arm of the Bay of Islands. The site is favored by marine experts because of its sheltered aspect, flat sandy bottom and relative lack of tidal currents.

Underwater visibility at Deep Water Cove can be as much as 60 meters. Visibility at other popular dive sites in the area is low compared to Deep Water Cove. It has the makings of a first-class dive site with the advantage that the Canterbury can be enjoyed by less advanced divers. She is even visible to snorkelers at a depth of 5 meters!...

A Bit of History
The approved sinking location at Manawahuna (Deep Water Cove) is in the shadow of Rakaumangamanga, one of the sacred mountains of Ngapuhi. For this reason it has deep spiritual and cultural significance, particularly for its guardians, the Patukeha and Ngati Kuta hapu of Te Rawhiti. The English name for Manawahuna is Deep Water Cove, made famous by the American fisherman, Zane Grey in the 1920's. There was a fishing lodge at the Cove for many years.

Dive Status
Navy divers cleared the Canterbury declaring her safe to dive. Caution is advised due to a few boards covering holes and detonation cable that have yet to be removed from some areas. Non-commercial dive vessels are invited to dive the wreck free of charge. However, all commercial operators must pay a fee to help cover the enormous outstanding debt incurred despite a very efficient scuttling operation. All divers are asked to follow the code of conduct available for download at the Canterbury Trust website.

Stay Informed
Auckland diver Paul Morris told the press he believes the Canterbury will become one of New Zealand's top dive sites because of its sheletered location and crystal clear waters. He will post images on his web site, www.diveplanet.co.nz, which provides information about Northland's dive sites and wrecks. Morris promises to post updates to show the sea creatures moving into this new home!

The Canterbury Trust has created a very informative website with mapping of the wreck dimensions, sonar images, rules of conduct, and much more. To learn about this exciting new dive site, visit: Dive the HMNZS Canterbury

Sources: Canterbury Charitable Trust; Stuff NZ

sonar image depicting the Canterbury bolt upright on the ocen floor.
Images courtesy of Electronic Navigation Ltd (Auckland) 09 373 5595 using WASSP sonar

Posted by victoria at 09:31 AM

Key to Great Lakes history; Preservation

The Great Lakes hold the story of Michigan's history. One part of that story is being preserved at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Earlier this month, I introduced legislation to expand it.

Thunder Bay has been a regular byway for ships traveling on Lake Huron, and it earned the name "Shipwreck Alley" because the geography and weather patterns in the bay led to more than 300 shipwrecks.

Thanks to a partnership established in 2000 between the state of Michigan and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary protects the wreckage of 116 ships. It includes 448 square miles of water and 115 miles of shoreline.
In 2005, NOAA opened the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena, an educational station and visitors' center that traces maritime history in the Great Lakes. Families, school groups and history buffs can explore the shipwrecks by live video feeds from divers in the sanctuary, extending the reach of the vast educational opportunities in the sanctuary not only to large numbers of visitors each year, but to people around the country who visit the other 13 NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries.

The expanded sanctuary also would include the H.P. Bridge, a three-mast wooden ship that sank with a payload of pottery, clothing, ship tackle and hardware, all preserved since it sank in 1869. In total, the expansion would include 3,722 square miles of water, 226 miles of shoreline and about 178 additional shipwrecks. Many shipwreck sites remain unexplored.

As we work to preserve this piece of history in the Great Lakes, we also have made major progress to protect the Great Lakes as a whole and to ensure that commercial navigation channels are maintained. Overriding a presidential veto, Congress passed the Water Resources Development Act earlier this month.

The law will help us fight to stop invasive species such as Asian carp from entering the Great lakes, to address the dredging backlog that impacts shipping channels and harbors, to prevent sewage systems from overflowing into Michigan lakes and rivers, and to move forward on studies and programs to protect the Great Lakes environment and ecosystem.

By protecting "Shipwreck Alley" and expanding the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, we can preserve a special chapter in the history of the Great Lakes. And by continuing to fight to make the Great Lakes safe and clean for the use and enjoyment of future generations, I hope that we can write another successful, prosperous chapter for Michigan's people and for our Great Lakes.

Carl Levin is the senior U.S. senator from Michigan. Write him at: Russell Senate Office Building Room SR-269, Washington, D.C. 20510; call him at: (202) 224-6221; or e-mail him at: senator@levin.senate.gov.

Posted by victoria at 09:26 AM

November 20, 2007

Possible shipwreck found in Ocean Shores, Washinton

By GLENN FARLEY / KING 5 News

Mystery washes up at Ocean Shores

OCEAN SHORES, Wash. – A mystery has washed up on the beaches of Ocean Shores – a possible shipwreck.

Everyday, Steve Sauve takes a drive along the beach. And he's found all sorts of stuff, but nothing like what he's uncovered now.

From a distance, he thought it was just a piece of an old dock. It showed up after a violent storm last week.

He estimates it could come from the 1880's, or even earlier.

Washington has seen hundreds of shipwrecks off its coast, from early explorers to modern days. They ran from the exotic to the mundane. Many were lumber ships heading in and out of Grays Harbor.

(A piece of a possible shipwreck found in Ocean Shores, Wash.)

Looking at the wreckage, you can see the big timbers held together with large wooden pins and iron or possibly steel rods.

Ocean Shores' Museum and Interpretive Center will take over the find, protect it, and try and find out just what ship the piece came from.

The Museum's director says he'll consult with marine historians and naval architects. Historic drawings and how the piece was put together should be able to narrow down the time frame as to just how old this ship is, if it is in fact, a ship.

"You find buoys from China, and different types of rocks here. But, something like this -- to find this is amazing," said Sauve.

If you are an expert on old shipwrecks, please leave a message with the Ocean Shores Interpretive Center at 360-289-4617.

Posted by victoria at 10:19 AM

November 15, 2007

Diving Turkey's Lycian Coast

Shipwrecks, Sunken City Lure Divers to Turkey's Lycian Coast

By Anna Jenkinson

Gripping the broken hull of the ``Duchess of York,'' a 19th-century steamer, I struggle with a dilemma -- do I swim further down into one of the best wrecks along the Turkish coast or heed my dive computer's warning that I am running out of time?

Decisions, decisions. The display on my wrist shows I must start to ascend within two minutes. I peer underneath and around the corner of the jagged metal, the portholes and railings of the smashed vessel easy to identify in the clear water. One minute. I desperately want to look at the shipwreck a little longer. Zero minutes.

I recall the advice given to me before the dive: Resist the temptation to descend to the deepest parts of the wreck and for goodness sake keep an eye on your air. Reluctantly, I let go and begin my ascent, to be suddenly surrounded by a shoal of 30 or more, two-foot-long, amber-striped fish.

``You were lucky,'' said Ender, my guide, in the speedboat on the way back to the local town of Kalkan. ``No current, excellent visibility, and all those amberjack swimming around us.''

The ``Duchess of York'' was identified when the ship's bell was found, though the parts of the wreck I visited may have belonged to different vessels, local divers said -- testament to a coastline that has been devouring vessels for at least 3,300 years. History, warm waters and sunshine are attracting adventure seekers to the region, which is about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from the current political strife with Kurdish rebels.

Winding Road

Half an hour from Kalkan by local minibus, or dolmus, is the small coastal town of Kas (pronounced ``cash''), which I had made my base. The winding road hugged the rocky coastline, the turquoise sea dotted with islands on one side, the Taurus Mountains on the other.

This is the heart of ancient Lycia, ally of Troy in Homer's ``Iliad,'' whose citizens built tombs that can still be seen, carved into the cliff face, or dotted along the ``Lycian Way,'' a marked coastal footpath that stretches about 500 kilometers (310 miles).

``Lycia is practically an open-air museum,'' said archaeologist Ilhan Aksit in his book ``The Land of Light, Lycia.'' Avid hikers come to Turkey to walk the entire length of the trail. A two-hour stretch from Kas was enough for me.

After a secluded cove or two, countless olive trees and glorious views across the mountains and sea all to myself, I came to a steep descent, no wider than my feet. Clinging to the rock face and trying not to look down at the sheer drop to the sea, I began to think maybe it wouldn't be so bad to meet a fellow hiker.

I reached the bay below and celebrated with a dip in the sea before catching a boat back to Kas, quietly proud of my success. When a Turkish friend described my path that evening as ``fairly gentle,'' I consoled myself that I was unaccustomed to the heat.

Warm Water

The temperature hovered around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) in October. Even the water was a pleasant surprise. As someone who has done most of her diving in tropical southeast Asia, the 26 degrees of this part of the Mediterranean, visibility as far as 40 meters and abundant marine life were a world away from my current home in Brussels.

At Besmi Adasi, a short boat trip from Kas's harbor, a mass of tiny silver fish darted to and fro, glinting like a sheet of glass in the sun's rays. Around them, dozens of tuna hunted for a mid-morning snack. Sea urchins, worm cucumbers and featherstars clung to rocky outcrops below, while barracuda, jacks and trumpetfish all came out to play.

``Now that's my type of diving!'' said one holidaymaker, a qualified diving instructor, as she got back on the boat and was handed the customary post-dive glass of Turkish tea.

Ancient Trashyard

Her group had seen amphora strewn on the seabed and a turtle, both of which I was to meet later in the week. Little in the underwater world beats quietly finning next to a turtle as it glides along, propelled by its front flippers. In Turkey, rubbish can come a close second, though.

Around Kas, the seabed is what one local diver called a ``trashyard for the ancient people.'' I saw tall, slender storage jars, some firmly embedded into the rock. While many of the seabed objects are of limited interest to archaeologists, now and then, pieces of much greater value come to light.

In 1982, at Uluburun near Kas, a bronze-age ship was discovered together with a cargo of copper ingots. Egyptian ebony logs, the earliest known intact ingots of glass, Cypriot ceramics, Canaanite jewelry and bronze tools were all excavated, according to the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.

The original 14th-century B.C. shipwreck is now housed in the Underwater Archaeology Museum down the coast in Bodrum. Still, two replicas were made, one of which was sunk last year in Kas as part of a new Underwater Archaeology Park, a tourist attraction and training ground.

Sunken City

Some underwater sites are so sensitive, they are off limits to divers. To see the partially submerged city of Kekova, I took a sea kayak. You need calm water and good eyesight to see the sunken walls that date back 2,000 years, before earthquakes destroyed the city. Many structures though are still above the surface -- steps of ancient houses eerily descending into the water, tops of buildings with square grooves to support long-vanished beams.

Kas, about 2.5 hours drive from the airport at Dalaman or 3.5 hours from Antalya, is also a center for other outdoor sports, including canyoning, mountain-biking and paragliding.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of ways to relax after the exertion, be it a poolside dinner against a backdrop of bougainvillea and pomegranate trees, a visit to the Turkish baths or an afternoon game of backgammon in a local cafe.

As I sat in the back garden of a Turkish home on my last evening, the scent of jasmine in the air and a chilled Efes beer in my hand, I started to plan my return.

Kalkan Dive Centre does one-day dive trips including the ``Duchess of York'' for 40 euros ($58) per person. BT adventure & diving and Dragoman run dive trips from Kas.

(Anna Jenkinson writes for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Jenkinson in Kas, Turkey, at ajenkinson@bloomberg.net

Posted by victoria at 09:35 AM

November 07, 2007

Carpathia surveyed

A British-led team of technical divers has successfully completed a survey of the Titanic’s rescue ship, the Carpathia, which lies at 160m in the north Atlantic. The team, led by Ric Waring and including Rich Stevenson and Jeff Cornish, penetrated the wreck situated 200 miles from the Irish Coast.

RMS Carpathia was on her way to the Mediterranean on the night of 14 April 1912 when it received the Titanic’s SOS call. Negotiating 58 miles of iceberg-strewn water, the liner recovered 712 survivors. Six years later a German U-boat sank her.

The wreck was first found by the famous author and adventurer Clive Cussler in 1999, however, because it lies 200 miles from the nearest land and lies at depths of more than 150m, only a few dives have been completed at the site.

Technical divers Rich Stevenson, Ric Waring, Zaid Al-Obaidi and Bruce Dunton carried out a short dive in 2001. Bad weather prevented further exploration by the team and hampered two following attempts until now. Using rebreathers the ten-strong team comprised of British, Italian and German divers dived the site for six days.

‘We did a total of six days diving on the wreck with both teams doing three dives each,’ said Waring. ‘Bottom times ranged from 20 to 27 minutes, with total in water times of between four and a half and six hours. All divers used rebreathers as the logistics to conduct an expedition on open circuit would be impractical, not only carrying the gas on the dive, but also carrying enough gas on the boat.’

He added: ‘The wreck has seen better days and after 95 years under water is in an advanced state of collapse.’ According to the team, the wreck stands upright, however, its deteriorating condition made it difficult to identity particular sections.

‘Visibility on the wreck was fantastic albeit it slightly dark,’ explained Stevenson. ‘You can see without lights and can clearly see divers 30m away, although we used powerful torches on the dive. There is crockery strewn all over the place and lots of artefacts, such as gauges, portholes, sinks and even three toilets in a row are plainly visible.’

While Waring’s team was diving the Carpathia in August this year, the owners of the wreck, Titanic INC, were conducting surveys using remotely operated vehicles (ROV).

‘We were buzzed a couple of times by the ROV from Titanic INC as it carried on its survey work and its recovery of artefacts for the forthcoming Titanic exhibition. It only stopped when it came over to film us,’ said Cornish. ‘As the Titanic INC team was out there at the same time as us, we handed over the crockery we had found and also the double-headed telegraph as soon as we had raised them.’

Cornish believes that the expedition is the first to be conducted by a sport diving team so far from shore and so deep. ‘I guess we have conducted the deepest, independently verified [by ROV] wreck dive in the world,’ said Cornish.

The Titanic INC exhibition is expected in the UK in 2008 following restoration of the Carpathia exhibits. For more information on the Carpathia expedition, see the dive team’s website www.provenvcts.com/carpathia/index.php.

Posted by victoria at 10:57 AM

October 31, 2007

US court dispute over Spanish shipwreck treasure far from over

By MITCH STACY – 9 hours ago

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The legal grappling between deep-sea explorers and the Spanish government over an estimated $500 million in sunken treasure could drag on for another year or more, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

A case management report filed in federal court indicated that Odyssey Marine Exploration, based in Tampa, and attorneys for the Spanish government agree on little beyond their ability to be ready for a trial sometime after Oct. 1, 2008.

Spain has filed claims to the vast treasure of Colonial-era silver and gold coins and other artifacts that Odyssey salvaged from an undisclosed shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean this year.

Spain contends it is entitled to the treasure if it or the ship belonged to Spain, or if the treasure was removed from Spain's territorial waters.

Odyssey, citing security concerns, has said publicly only that the wreck was situated in international waters, but an export document filed with the court last month indicated the treasure was found about 200 miles west of Gibraltar, a British territory at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula.

An attorney for Spain has asked a judge to order Odyssey to disclose the exact location and identity of the shipwreck, which the company has code-named "Black Swan."

"They've yet to provide any of the information that has been demanded of them," said James A. Goold, an attorney for the Spanish government. "This has been going on for a long time, and it's increasingly disturbing."

Odyssey has argued in court filings that it has followed proper legal channels in seeking exclusive rights to the wreck site in U.S. District Court and must continue to keep the wreck's location secret to protect it from competing salvagers.

Odyssey co-founder Greg Stemm said Tuesday that the company has offered to share information with opposing attorneys if they agree to keep it secret. But Goold said Spain is pushing for full, unconditional disclosure of all details — especially regarding the types and characteristics of the coins. He did say, however, that he would agree not to disclose the wreck's exact location.

The legal challenge could be resolved within the next year, Stemm said.

"We want to go to trial as quickly as we possibly can," he said.

The situation has led to deteriorating relations between Odyssey and the Spanish government, which briefly detained the company's two vessels leaving Gibraltar.

Stemm said the company has been unfairly portrayed as modern-day pirates looting archeologically significant shipwrecks for profit, a reputation that has been perpetuated in the European press.

It is routine for other countries or parties to challenge treasure finds in U.S. federal court if they believe they have a claim, he said, and a judge will ultimately decide if the claim has merit.

Posted by victoria at 09:38 AM

October 26, 2007

Civil War Shipwreck Evidence in Georgia River

Experts Find Shipwreck Evidence in River

By RUSS BYNUM

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Captured by Confederate sailors in a bloody midnight sneak attack in 1864, the gunboat Water Witch became one of the few Civil War ships to sail under the flags of both the Confederate and Union navies. Archaeologists say they found strong evidence Thursday they've located the Water Witch's wreckage buried under more than 10 feet of mud in the Vernon River south of Savannah.

Divers pushed a 20-foot metal rod through the river mud Thursday and tapped solid wood and metal underneath. It was the same location where an 1865 survey map showed Confederate sailors burned the ship to prevent Union Gen. William T. Sherman's army from recapturing it.

"In all likelihood, it is the Water Witch," said Gordon Watts, an underwater archaeologist hired by the state of Georgia. "We'd have to absolutely dig something up to say for sure."

If Watts is correct, the Water Witch would be just the third Civil War shipwreck — along with the ironclad CSS Georgia and the blockade runner CSS Nashville — to be found out of dozens known to have been sunk in Georgia waters, said Dave Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist.

"There are lots more that are out there and we know where the are, but it's cost prohibitive" to go after them, Crass said.

Archaeologists got lucky with the Water Witch. The state Department of Transportation had to survey a part of the Vernon River it plans to bridge with a parkway extension. The agency agreed to go ahead and check a spot just two miles away where the Water Witch was believed to have burned.

Using a magnetometer, a giant metal detector, surveyors detected large iron objects scattered beneath the river's surface in an area 200 feet long. An 1865 map marked the same spot as the Water Witch's grave.

Crass said the state will consult with the federal government, which technically owns the wreckage, to see if they support funding an expedition to verify whether the diver found the Water Witch.

The 160-foot, wooden-hulled Water Witch was built by the U.S. Navy in 1851 as a sort of hybrid of old and new seafaring technologies. Though outfitted with a steam engine and side-mounted paddle wheels, the ship also had 90-foot masts for sailing.

During the Civil War, the Water Witch patrolled blockades off the coasts of Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, but mostly in the waters of Ossabaw Sound between Ossabaw Island and the Georgia mainland 15 miles south of Savannah.

That's where Confederate Navy Lt. Thomas Pelot got assigned to lead a raid to capture the ship in the early morning darkness on June 3, 1864.

Pelot led a group of about 120 men who used small boats to slip alongside the Water Witch undetected. Their numbers gave them a healthy advantage over the ship's crew of 65 sailors.

Taken by surprise, the Union sailors still put up a fight, engaging the Confederates in close quarters combat with sabers and revolvers. Luther Billings, the assistant paymaster aboard the Water Witch, later estimated 40 men were killed or wounded in the raid.

The dead included Pelot, who led the assault, and Dallas Moses, a slave who was also paid a $100 monthly salary as a Confederate river pilot.

Moses piloted the lead boat in the sneak attack, and was supposed to steer the captured Water Witch back to Savannah — under the flag of the Confederate Navy.

Though numerous ships were captured by both sides in the Civil War, few actually served on both sides during the war, said Bruce Smith, executive director of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus.

"It was fairly uncommon," Smith said. "It did happen a number of times, less than a handful."

Because Moses was killed before he could pilot the captured Water Witch, the ship never made it back to Savannah. Confederate sailors dared not take their prize back to sea, where Union battleships watched for it, and the inland waterways to the city were too shallow.

The Water Witch remained in the waters near Ossabaw Sound for about six months until December, when Sherman's Union troops closed in on Savannah. Fearing the Union would reclaim the ship, Confederate sailors burned it in the water.

Smith said written orders from the period show that sailors stripped the Water Witch of its guns, ammunition and most of its supplies before burning it. But he said any artifacts that could be recovered would be valuable.

"If it was just doorknobs, that would be fantastic as far as I'm concerned, if it was the real deal," Smith said.

Posted by victoria at 10:18 AM

October 25, 2007

Shipwreck Added to US National Register of Historic Places

Wisconsin gains 28th shipwreck on historic registry
The Associated Press

ALGOMA, Wis. (AP) — The wooden schooner Daniel Lyons, which has rested at the bottom of Lake Michigan for nearly 130 years, has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The three-masted, 143-foot long vessel struck and nearly sliced the ship named Kate Gillett on Oct. 18, 1878, about nine miles northeast of Algoma, according to a news release from the University of Wisconsin's Sea Grant Institute.

Gillett's captain worked to keep the bow of his ship lodged in the Lyons hull to keep it from flooding, so the five crew members could get onto the Gillett, according to the institute. When the boats separated, the Lyons settled at the stern, rolled to its side and sank bow first.

The vessel was built to fit through the locks of Welland Canal, which bypass the Niagara Falls between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. It transported grain from ports on western Lake Michigan, collected from newly settled farmlands of the Midwest, to eastern ports on Lakes Erie and Ontario, according to the institute.

Wisconsin now has 28 shipwrecks listed on the National Register, more than any other state, according to Keith Meverden, an underwater archaeologist at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Meverden led a team of nautical archeologists and other divers to conduct a survey of the wreck in 2005, getting the information in order to nominate the vessel.

Posted by victoria at 10:16 AM

October 16, 2007

Probing ancient shipwrecks with DNA

Special to World Science

Studying an ancient Greek shipwreck, scientists say, they’ve found they can decode ancient DNA to learn about the original contents of jars sunken for over 2,000 years.
It’s a feat “no one thought was even possible,” wrote Maria Hansson of Lund University in Sweden, one of the researchers, in an email. The discovery “opens up a whole new field of molecular archaeology,” she added, as scientists could could use the technique to gain insights into ancient agriculture and trading networks.

Ancient amphorae, or storage jars, at the Chios shipwreck site. (Courtesy Chios 2005 Shipwreck Survey - WHOI, Hellenic Ministry of Culture: Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities, Hellenic Center for Marine Research)

Ancient Mediterranean civilizations, some of the world’s earliest, often used ceramic jars called amphorae as shipping containers. Invented by the Canaanites of the Near East in the 16th century B.C., amphorae took on varied styles in different regions and time periods, wrote Hansson and a colleague in a paper reporting their work.
Piles of amphorae often remain as lone, mute witnesses to ancient shipwrecks where the boats themselves have been long since eaten away.
But researchers trying to learn the jars’ original contents usually come up dry, according to Hansson and colleague Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. That’s because the amphorae only infrequently contain visible clues, such as olive pits.
Ancient DNA molecules, though degraded with time, could supply some of the needed evidence, wrote the pair, whose findings appear in the advance online edition of The Journal of Archaeological Science.
The researchers scraped ceramic from inside two amphorae from a 4th-century B.C. shipwreck found near the Greek island of Chios in 2004. The wreck, about 60 meters (200 feet) underwater, has drawn headlines before because—being to deep to explore by conventional diving—investigators have mapped it using robotic devices.

Model of an 4th-century B.C. Greek merchant ship based on the Kyrenia, a wreck salvaged in 1967.

Adding another new technology to the project, Hansson and Foley analyzed small DNA fragments found trapped in the pottery.
They determined that one vessel probably contained olive oil flavored with oregano, a surprise because historians have believed that amphorae of that style from Chios usually carried wine, they wrote. Chios was known for “fine and distinctive vintages,” they noted, but the find suggests Chian agricultural exports might have been more diverse than generally assumed.
The other jar, they wrote, contained DNA of mastic—a shrub cultivated on Chios—or of pistachio, a related plant. Scholars have hypothesized that ancient Chians used mastic resin as a wine preservative and flavoring, Hansson and Foley wrote.
Some ancient foods, they added, are more likely than others to leave genetic calling cards behind. For instance, because the second jar was thought to have likely contained wine, they checked for grape DNA, but found none. It may have washed away because wine dissolves in water better than oil or resin, Hansson and Foley observed. But overall, they wrote, the findings “contribute definite evidence for Classical Greek commodity exchange and open new vistas for molecular archeological analyses.”

Posted by victoria at 10:48 AM

October 10, 2007

Oldest American shipwreck discovered in Alaska

Shipwreck Found Off Alaskan Coast

By JEANNETTE J. LEE

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A private dive team has discovered the wreckage of an American ship that sank off the south-central Alaska coast 139 years ago. The Torrent sank in Cook Inlet in 1868 after tidal currents rammed it into a reef south of the Kenai Peninsula. Documents from the period show that all 155 people on board survived.

The U.S. had purchased Alaska from Russia less than a year earlier, and about 130 Army soldiers had come north on the Torrent to build the first U.S. military fort in south-central Alaska.

The shipwreck is the oldest American wreck ever found in Alaska.

"It's a very significant find because it's right after the purchase, during the transition from Russian to American authority," said Judy Bittner, a state historic preservation officer. "It's the very beginning of federal presence in Alaska and the establishment of order."

A four-man dive team led by Steve Lloyd, owner of Anchorage's largest independent book store, found remnants of the wreckage in July. They kept the discovery secret at the request of state officials, who wanted more time to document the site before any looters arrive. Its discovery was announced Monday.

An array of objects, from guns, cannons, shoes and plates, are hidden beneath the broad leaves of giant kelp beds or concealed in caverns and crevices among massive boulders, Lloyd said.

"It's like walking through a field of tall grass and undergrowth looking for a baseball that you've lost," Lloyd said.

Big finds include the two anchors, sections of hull and heavy bronze rudder hinges weighing about 100 lbs.

About 2,500 ships have wrecked off the Alaska coast since Russian explorers first arrived in 1741, according to Mike Burwell, a cultural anthropologist for the federal Minerals Management Service. A partial database on the service's Web site lists Japanese submarines and fishing trawlers, Liberian freighters and New England whaling ships, among others.

The Torrent is now being considered for listing in the National Registry of Historic Places. Bittner said state or federal archaeologists may study the wreck if they can secure enough funding.

Posted by victoria at 01:55 PM

October 09, 2007

Employment oppurtunity at NURC/UNCW

Closing date: October 12, 2007

http://www.uncw.edu/hr/employment.html

Position Information

Job Title Research Operations Manager

Job Category: Marine Science

Position Number 008158

License or Certification Required by Statute or Regulation: The candidate must be capable of passing mandatory swim test and a NOAA/AAUS annual dive physical examination. Dive certification by a nationally recognized sport Scuba diving agency (or military equivalent) is mandatory.
Summary of Position Assists scientists in conducting undersea research activities by planning and coordinating projects, serving as a diver and divemaster, overseeing dive training, and maintaining dive equipment and ancillary research tools.

Minimum Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Graduation from a four-year college or university and two years of general research experience preferably including supervision; or an equivalent combination of training and experience. Familiarity with a variety of the research fields concepts, practices and procedures. Demonstrated experience and judgment to plan and accomplish goals.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities - Ability to maintain and service scuba diving equipment a must.

- Ability to operate research vessels (16-42' LOA).

- Possesses DMT certification or has the ability to become certified as a first responder/diver medic.

Preferred Qualifications: - Certified scuba instructor

Contact UNCW for employment posting/application information.
Douglas E. Kesling, BSN, M.A., DMT-A Manager, Advanced Diving Technology NOAA Undersea Research Center University of North Carolina Wilmington 5600 Marvin K. Moss Lane Wilmington, NC 28409

910.962.2445 wk 910.962.2410 fax

Posted by victoria at 09:07 AM

September 10, 2007

Cyprus to seek ancient shipwrecks

By Michele Kambas

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus is to launch sea surveys in an area where dozens of vessels led by warring successors to Alexander the Great are believed to have sunk in battle for control over the island in 306 BC.

Encouraged by the discovery of one wreck from a later Roman era, the survey slated for the summer of 2008 will extend into deep waters from the south-east tip of the island, known as Cape Greco, the island's Antiquities Department said.

"Cyprus is a crossroads and is very rich in ancient shipwrecks," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprus's Department of Antiquities.

Historical accounts suggest that the Cape Greco region -- a rocky outcrop between the now popular tourist resorts of Agia Napa and Protaras, saw one of the biggest naval battles of the ancient world.

According to the ancient Greek historian, Diodorus of Sicily, in 306 BC Demetrios the Poliorketes (Besieger) triumphed over Ptolemy I of Egypt in a naval engagement off Cyprus, with dozens of vessels sunk as the result of combat.

"It is well known that there was a naval engagement in the region in 306 BC, so there is a potential of finding wrecks, or parts of wrecks, in deeper waters," Flourentzos told Reuters on Thursday.

Ptolemy I, one of the generals of Alexander the Great, lost control of Cyprus for a period of 10 years after his defeat at the hands of Demetrios Poliorketes. Demetrios was son of Antigonus, a Macedonian nobleman who later ruled Asia Minor.

The Cypriot Antiquities Department announced on Thursday that an ancient Roman shipwreck, dated the 1st century AD, had been found in the same area.

The extensive wreck, dating from the early Imperial Roman era, carried a mixed cargo of several amphora, predominantly jars from the southeast Aegean area.

Further mapping of the wreck would take place in 2008. Searches for better preserved shipwrecks would extend to the deeper sandy seabed which was suited to remote sensing techniques, the antiquities department said.

Authorities said the projects were financially and logistically supported by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, the University of Pennsylvania and the RPM Nautical Foundation.

Posted by victoria at 10:05 AM

Century-old Shipwreck found in Lake Superior

By JOHN FLESHER – 8 hours ago

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Explorers have discovered a century-old shipwrecked ore carrier that sank mysteriously during a Lake Superior storm less than two months after it was launched.

All but one of the Cyprus' 23 crew members died in the Oct. 11, 1907, disaster. A team with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society found the wreckage last month about 460 feet beneath the surface and planned to announce the discovery Monday, said Tom Farnquist, the group's executive director.

The Great Lakes are littered with thousands of shipwrecks. But the Cyprus is among the more puzzling — especially because it foundered on just its second voyage, while hauling iron ore from Superior, Wis., to Buffalo, N.Y.

The 420-foot-long ship is about eight miles north of Deer Park, a village in Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula, where lone survivor Charles G. Pitz stumbled ashore after floating aboard a life raft for nearly seven hours. He died in 1961, following a long career as a mariner.

Pitz's great-niece, Ann Sanborn, said she hoped the discovery would lead to an explanation of the Cyprus' fate.

"The people who died on that vessel deserve that the truth be brought out, whatever that truth is," said Sanborn, a former sailor. She is now an associate professor in the marine transportation department of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.

Built in Lorain, Ohio, the Cyprus was launched Aug. 17, 1907. It was as "seaworthy a vessel as has ever been turned out by a lake ship yard," The Marine Review, a Cleveland trade publication, said after the sinking.

The gale in which the ship perished was "so moderate that only the smaller class of vessels sought shelter while the big steamers scarcely noticed it at all," the Review said.

But Pitz, the second mate, said after the wreck that the Cyprus was being pounded by northwesterly waves and developed a gradually worsening list the fatal afternoon.

The engines finally stopped and crew members donned life jackets. Most headed to lifeboats, but Pitz and three others — the captain, the first mate and a watchman — gathered near a raft closer to the front.

About 7:45 p.m., the Cyprus capsized and quickly sank.

Pitz and his companions were hurled into the lake. They climbed aboard the raft and by 2 a.m. had drifted within 300 feet of land. But the raft flipped over several times in the churning surf, drowning everyone but Pitz, who washed ashore, cold and exhausted.

All but two of the 22 victims' bodies were recovered.

The cause of the wreck is a matter of debate. News reports speculated water had entered the Cyprus' hold through faulty hatch covers, causing the ore cargo to shift and create the dangerous list.

Pitz insisted the hatch covers were battened down, although Sanborn, who has researched the tragedy, said water did get through them.

"There were absolutely no doubts that there were problems with the hatches," she said in a phone interview last week.

Hull damage is another possibility, said Farnquist of the shipwreck society.

Fred Stonehouse, a marine historian and author in Marquette, offered another theory: The Cyprus was doomed by engine or rudder trouble that prevented the crew from staying out of deep troughs between the waves, where ships are especially vulnerable to tipovers.

Farnquist said the shipwreck society would send its underwater cameras back to the site for further study. Two inspections have shown that half the pilot house is missing and wreckage is strewn 270 feet off the bow, he said.

Pitz had estimated the ship was 10 miles farther offshore than it turned out to be — one reason no one discovered the site earlier, Farnquist said.

"It's a relief knowing that finally this ship has been located," said Bill Thorne of Sault Ste. Marie. His uncle, George Thorne, was the watchman who almost made it to shore with Pitz. His body was found three days later, still strapped to the raft.

"Now we have a better understanding of what happened to George," Thorne said.

Posted by victoria at 10:02 AM

September 07, 2007

Divers find Roman wreck off Cape Greco

By Jean Christou

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have found a Roman wreck dating from the first century A.D. off Cape Greco towards the Protaras area, it emerged yesterday.

During late July and early August, a small international team of archaeologists and students undertook a brief season of underwater diving survey along the island’s east coast.

The project followed four seasons in and around Episkopi Bay on the south coast, and was financially and logistically supported by the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, the University of Pennsylvania, and RPM Nautical Foundation, with the additional support of a research vessel and equipment from the Thetis Foundation of Limassol.

Three weeks were spent at sheltered inlets and dangerous promontories in the area of Cape Greco and north towards Protaras area, in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities in an effort to determine the area’s long-term maritime history in advance of eventually locating well-preserved shipwrecks, an announcement said.

“A total of six stone and metal anchors recorded through the area, testify to a long history from antiquity through at least the mediaeval period of merchants stopping at the numerous natural and manmade ports that dot these shores,” it added.

It said that among the more important findings was an extensive wreck site dating to the early imperial Roman era, around the 1st century AD, which carried a mixed cargo of several amphora types, predominantly jars from the southeast Aegean area.

“Though the wreck is in shallow to moderate waters and thus disturbed by the environment, the site can still be recognised as one of some importance for understanding the region’s maritime trade during the period of Cyprus’ early incorporation into the Roman Empire,” according to the statement.

Next year, the team plans returning to several large ceramic concentrations for more extensive documentation, as well as more intensive mapping of the early Roman wreck.

“The search for cultural material, including better preserved shipwrecks, will also be extended to the deeper sandy seabed, well suited to remote sensing techniques, especially sonar but potentially also magnetometry,” the statement said.

It said the area’s prominent maritime history was evident not only by the ceramic deposits recorded at ports, anchorages and promontories, but also through reports from local divers and specific events in the historical record.

According to Diodoros, it was somewhere in the area, where in 306BC the Macedonian Demetrios the Poliorketes triumphed over Ptolemy of Egypt in one of the largest naval engagements of antiquity.

Although Ptolemy eventually victoriously returned, thus controlling the island through the rest of the Hellenistic period, nearly a hundred warships were reported as sunk during the combat.

“Hence, the course of the survey of archaeologists working in deeper waters offshore, far from the coastline appears to be hopeful,” the archaeologists concluded.

Posted by victoria at 10:04 AM

August 31, 2007

Hurricane unearthed 18th-century cannons in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hurricane Dean's rampage over Mexico's Caribbean coast last week unearthed three rusted 18th century cannons that had lain buried under a sandy beach for decades.

The cannons, around 1.80 meter (5.9 feet) long, were spotted poking through the sand on a beach near the arty resort of Tulum after Dean hit on August 21, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said on Wednesday.

Believed to be from a shipwrecked European galleon, the badly corroded cannons will be put back in to the sea to protect them from faster corrosion onshore and for scuba divers to enjoy, it said.

"People started working to clear up the beach and they found three artifacts that were uncovered when sand was torn away by the strong winds that hit the region," INAH's director in the region, Adriana Velazquez, said in a statement.

She could not be reached directly because of damage to telephone lines from Hurricane Dean.

The cannons appeared just south of the clifftop Mayan ruins at Tulum, which INAH said were left intact by the Category 5 storm's 160 mph (256 kph) winds and lashing rains.

Lying on what is now a bar-lined tourist haven, the cannons were a flashback to the centuries following Spain's 1521 conquest of Mexico, when fleets of Spanish galleons loaded with gold, silver and other New World plunder crossed the Caribbean, often with English, French or Dutch pirates in pursuit.

The cannons are similar to others discovered in past years along Mexico's Caribbean coast and they appear to be more than 200 years old, Velazquez said.

Their bad state of corrosion suggests they were taken out of the sea many years ago and left out in the salty air, she said.

Posted by victoria at 09:42 AM

August 24, 2007

Blackbeard's ship to be excavated

By: Alex Henderson, Assistant State & National Editor

Posted: 8/23/07

State-sponsored divers kicked off an intensive underwater search for booty Wednesday, more than a decade after shipwreck researchers discovered the ruins of Blackbeard's flagship off the N.C. coast.

Mike Daniel, leader of the crew that found Queen Anne's Revenge, said the pace of the excavation is only now picking up despite his years of pressuring the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources to do what he called "serious expeditions."

"It's been 10 years since I've found it, and they've worked about a total of 50 days," he said. "For all the bruises I've taken for being their bad guy, it's finally taking off."

The divers hope to retrieve as much as 30 percent of the wreckage of the ship, said Jeffrey Crow, archives and history deputy secretary for the department of cultural resources.

Media Credit: Courtesy of N.C. Department of Cultural Resources
A researcher examines an anchor at the wreck of the presumed Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's flagship, near Beaufort. The city's tourism witnessed an upward surge because of the discovery of the find.

"I don't think it would be possible to get the entire shipwreck up in one season," Crow said, referring to the period of optimal diving time between August and November.

"I know at the end of this month we're going to bring up a cannon."

The ship, which sunk in 1718, is one of the most significant historical finds in recent years, Crow said.

"It's the most important underwater archaeological site that we've found to date," he said. "It would be hard to find a more important one in N.C. waters."

The ship's discovery also highlighted several elements of Beaufort folklore, said Laura Windley, a third-year law student at UNC who grew up in Beaufort.

"The oldest house in Beaufort is the Hammock House, and it was Blackbeard's house," she said, adding that bloodstains remain on the stairs of the house from the time that Blackbeard - ne Edward Teach - killed a romantic rival during swordplay.

Tourism in Beaufort rose significantly due to the discovery, she said.

"I know that there was an influx of people, because my grandmother complained about the ditdots," she said. "My grandmother calls tourists ditdots."

Laura's grandmother, 81-year-old Alice Windley, said Blackbeard lore is intertwined in the history of the town.

"We have pictures all over everywhere with Blackbeard on them, with the long beard," she said.

"We really relate to Blackbeard."

Daniel suggested that his discovery - and Blackbeard's history in North Carolina, where he died after receiving 20 stab wounds and five gunshot wounds - could be a marketable state legacy.

"Blackbeard is one of the most famous men in the history of the world," he said. "Don't you think the state of North Carolina is missing the boat, here?"

Posted by victoria at 02:24 PM

Edmund Fitzgerald excitement sunk

BY JEFF KAROUB

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Edmund Fitzgerald, already the stuff of Great Lakes legend, has spawned another tale.

A vacationing family hunting for rocks along a remote patch of Lake Superior shoreline earlier this month believed they had found a life preserver from the famed ship that sank roughly 200 miles away 32 years ago. It reads "Edmund Fitzgerald" in faded but mostly legible white letters, and matched in many ways a ring recovered from the ship now on display at a shipwreck museum.

But the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum received a visitor recently who disputes the ring's authenticity.

Cynthia Edwards told a museum employee last week that her father bought the orange preserver at a garage sale many years ago, painted the name of the ore carrier on it and hung it at his cabin in Eagle River -- not far from where it was found in the Upper Peninsula's Keweenaw Peninsula. When they remodeled two years ago, they put the ring on a tree and it disappeared.

"With the information coming in now, it looks more and more like it's not from the Edmund Fitzgerald," said Tom Farnquist, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, which owns the museum.

A message seeking comment from Edwards was not returned Monday.

Farnquist believed it could be the real deal but made no promises when Joe Rasch and his family brought the life preserver to the museum in Whitefish Point in early August. It matches in size and configuration to the ring on display, but has some key differences: The one Rasch found has no "S.S." before "Edmund Fitzgerald" and reads "Duluth" on the back.

Farnquist said the differences were puzzling but at least the latter came with a plausible explanation: The Milwaukee-based ship spent its winters in Duluth, Minn.

Rasch, an apple farmer from Conklin, near Grand Rapids, said he plans to hang it in his shed, but wouldn't be opposed to returning it if Edwards' family wants it back. He added he's disappointed by the news but accepts it.

"You can't change the facts," he said Monday. "What appears isn't always so."

That also could sum up many of the stories that swirl around the ship that sank in a vicious storm Nov. 10, 1975, killing 29 men, Farnquist said.

"It's still a mystery why the Edmund Fitzgerald went down," he said.

Posted by victoria at 01:10 PM

August 20, 2007

Titanic Explorer to Search for Shipwrecks in the Black Sea

By Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 17 August 2007 12:12 pm ET

The explorer who discovered the Titanic shipwreck now plans a robotic expedition to look for sunken ships on the floor of the Black Sea as well as clues to its geologic history.

Robert Ballard, a University of Rhode Island oceanographer whose team located the long-lost RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic in 1985, will lead the new effort that will rely on an autonomous underwater vehicle called DOERRI, short for Delaware Oceanographic and Environmental Research Remote Instrument. The vehicle will dive into the depths of the Black Sea as well as the Aegean Sea. In ancient times, both waterways were major trade routes.

"This is a truly exciting expedition that will shed light on important geological features in the Mediterranean while also uncovering vital information about ancient trade routes and the maritime history of the Black Sea," Ballard said.

Expedition member Art Trembanis, a marine scientist at the University of Delaware, said the team will use DOERRI to return to a Byzantine-era shipwreck in the Black Sea that Ballard and his team located last year and to search for other wrecks. "We hope DOERRI ... will allow us to discover very ancient shipwrecks, previously unknown, on the Black Sea floor," Trembanis said. "Along the way, DOERRI will also give us new insights into the dynamics ... that help to shape and mold the seafloor."

When the research expedition arrives on site, the team will deploy the 240-pound (109-kilogram) DOERRI submersible. The craft then will map the Black Sea's floor about 656 feet (200 meters) below the surface with sonar. DOERRI also will measure the local temperature, salt content and oxygen levels of the sea.

Scientists expect extremely well-preserved finds when the craft locates wreckage, thanks to large oxygen "dead zones" where few bacteria thrive.

"At depths beyond 150 meters, the Black Sea is not unlike a giant natural bell jar from which life-supporting oxygen has been entirely removed," Trembanis said.

Immersion Presents and on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are funding the expedition.

Posted by victoria at 03:59 PM

August 14, 2007

Shipwrecks of the Gulf of Finland

Beneath the waves

The findings of underwater archeologists reveal a wealth of sunken treasure among the shipwrecks of the Gulf of Finland.

By Ali Nassor For The St. Petersburg Times

It is estimated that there are more than 10,000 shipwrecks in the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga.

St. Petersburg archeologists have discovered last month what they say is Russia’s oldest shipwreck in the Gulf of Finland.

But the state of the wreck of the 40-meter tall ship, similar to the Vasa, the famous giant mid-16th century battleship that sank in Stockholm harbor, has puzzled the researchers, preventing them from giving an accurate account of the discovery three weeks following the endeavor.

“The spoiled wreckage is randomly scattered all over a 300 square-meter area of the seabed in differing depths of between 17 and 35 meters,” said Andrei Lukoshkov, who led a twelve-man team of scholars and divers in a two-week archeological odyssey in the Gulf of Finland as part of a long-term, Gazprom-sponsored program to explore Russia’s seas and fresh waters.

“It’s too early to give an accurate account, pending study of the wreck’s remnants which are currently being examined in our laboratories,” Lukoshov told journalists last week.

However, he said preliminary examinations have indicated that the ship was more than 30 years older than the Vasa and belonged to the same Swedish fleet. It is believed to have sunk between 1580 and 1610 during the reign of Tsar Boris Gudunov (Boris I) who ruled over ancient Russia while the Swedes had conquered the north western part of the territory.

The latest discovery has put into question last year’s findings by the same team that established that the 25-meter tall Russian ship, the Novgorod, which sank in the River Volkhov between 1550 and 1560, is the oldest known wreck in Russian waterways. But unlike the Swedish ship, the Russian vessel was found “almost intact enough to serve as an underwater museum,” Lukoshkov said.

“The location of the latest discovery reminds us of a dump for sunken ships,” said Ilya Kochorov, a film producer with the team who noted that seven shipwrecks belonging to various historical epochs had been earlier located in a 1.5 square-kilometer section of the Gulf of Finland. The latest mission involved the study of three shipwrecks among the seven.

They include the Swedish frigate the Archangel Raphael, which sank in 1724, the Swedish yacht Aurora, which was wrecked in 1790 and a Finno-Swedish battleship that sank in the same year.

Another vessel that was found lying 37 meters under the Gulf of Finland is a two-mast cargo ship whose consignments were traced to the mid-19th century. Historical records indicate the sinking of a British ship, named the Fruit, in that area in October 1863.

About 300 meters away, at a depth of 42 meters, is a better preserved ship the construction of which is typical of the late-17th century Dutch Smack- and Hooker-class merchant ships. It was probably one among a Dutch fleet of ten ships that sank in a fierce storm on September 9, 1717, according to archeological experts. An “invaluable consignment” was found in the ship, they say.

Meanwhile, the explorers are working out the initial stages toward establishing a permanent museum in St. Petersburg to display findings from the program, which began in 2004. A rotating team of a dozen men has explored hundreds of underwater objects including crashed aircraft, tanks, ammunition, torpedoes, mines, battleships and oil tankers and even remnants of ancient monuments and cemeteries. But the initial phase of the planned museum will be limited to the provision of “virtual services,” pending further developments, Kochorov said.

Rough estimates suggest that there are more than 10,000 ships lying on the bottom of the Gulf of Finland and in Lake Ladoga, say the explorers, who have announced a mission to Lake Ladoga in 2008.

www.baltic-sunken-ships.ru

Posted by victoria at 10:25 AM

August 08, 2007

Legal clash escalates between Fla. treasure hunters and Spain

PHIL DAVIS Associated Press Writer
Aug 7, 10:15 AM EDT

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Florida deep-sea explorers have gone on the offensive in a legal dispute with the Spanish government over a treasure-laden shipwreck, asking a federal judge to protect the secret locations of possible wreck sites and demanding damages for the nation's "appalling" interference with its operations.

Odyssey Marine Exploration wants protective orders to maintain the confidentiality of three shipwreck sites it has located and compensation for Spain's "illegal" seizure and interference with its ships working out of the British port of Gibraltar, according to documents filed late Monday in federal court in Tampa.

The continued secrecy surrounding the recovery of roughly $500 million in silver coins from an undisclosed shipwreck code-named "Black Swan" has contributed to increasing tension between the Tampa company and Spain, which believes it has a claim on the treasure.

James A. Goold, an attorney who filed a claim in U.S. federal court on behalf of Spain, said Tuesday he was still reviewing the latest court filings, but that it appears Odyssey "wants to talk about anything but" the nation's demand for more details about the treasure find.

Odyssey's 240-foot Ocean Alert was seized by Spanish authorities after it left Gibraltar July 12. The vessel was eventually released, but Odyssey claims in its complaint that Spanish authorities illegally copied privileged information from a lawyer's laptop computer and forced Ocean Alert's crew to "sit in the scalding sun for approximately seven hours without food or water or use of the restroom." The company said another ship, Ocean Explorer, "remains blockaded in Gibraltar" because of Spain's threat to seize it, court records show.

Spanish government officials did not immediately respond to phone calls.

Odyssey said in a statement Tuesday it is prepared to release details about the three shipwreck sites to a federal judge to decide who, if anyone, should see the information.

"We continue to hope that Spain will recognize that we are acting in good faith and that we remain ready to cooperate with the Spanish government on any sites that we discover that may involve Spanish heritage," Odyssey co-founder Gregg Stemm said in a statement.

At the heart of the dispute is Spain's claim that it has a right to share in the "Black Swan" treasure if it was recovered in territorial waters or is connected to the nation's heritage in any way.

Citing security and other concerns, Odyssey will not disclose the location of the shipwreck. The company says it is not yet sure of the identity of the sunken ship, which yielded 17 tons of coins that were flown to the United States in May.

Spain has filed a claim in federal court in Tampa and has tried to force the company to disclose more details.

Even if another country or party is able to prove a claim to the shipwreck and its cargo, Odyssey said it would apply for a salvage award in U.S. federal court, which has jurisdiction over admiralty cases. In similar cases, salvage companies are usually awarded a large percentage of the recovery.

Some experts think Odyssey found the wreck of the Merchant Royal, a British ship loaded with tons of Spanish coins that sank off the southwestern tip of England in 1641. The company received exclusive salvage rights to a wreck site in the area where the Merchant Royal is believed to have gone down.

But Spanish officials say circumstantial evidence indicates otherwise. In March, before the "Black Swan" story broke, Spanish officials gave Odyssey permission to resume its search for the wreck of a British vessel, the HMS Sussex, in the western Mediterranean Sea.

Despite Odyssey's emphatic statements to the contrary, some in Spain believe the "Black Swan" treasure came from the Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.

Posted by victoria at 08:23 AM

August 07, 2007

Salvaging the Titanic

Monday, August 6, 2007

Emory law professor helps local company become sole owner of items taken from the wreck site
By Andy Peters, Staff Reporter

WITH SPECIAL THANKS to Emory University law professor David J. Bederman, an Atlanta company can now make, with a high degree of certainty, this claim: Artifacts recovered from the Titanic wreck site are theirs, all theirs.

Last month, the company, Premier Exhibitions Inc., finalized an agreement with a British insurer to acquire ownership of Titanic artifacts in Premier’s possession. While Premier had recovered the artifacts in seven separate expeditions to the Titanic wreck site in the North Atlantic, it had done so only under the legal status of salvor-in-possession. That left some legal question as to whether Premier actually owned the artifacts its stores and presents in traveling exhibits.

Not anymore, Bederman said.

“Normally, as salvor-in-possession, you’re rescuing someone else’s property,” Bederman said. “We’ll be recovering our own property now” and also own the artifacts already recovered.

Bederman is an authority in the arcane area of maritime law, also known as Admiralty law, or Law of the Sea. Bederman said he’s been hired as a legal adviser by most major players in the world of shipwreck salvaging, including Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. and Treasure Salvors, the company founded by legendary shipwreck hunter Mel Fisher.

He’s given advice to these companies on their legal rights on exploring and recovering objects from shipwrecks and their legal rights to ownership of these artifacts. In addition to the Titanic wreck, Bederman has offered legal counsel on the exploration of the RMS Republic and the Brother Jonathan sites, as well as dozens of others.

Attorneys with knowledge of maritime law are few. The number of lawyers who specialize in the legal questions surrounding shipwrecks is even smaller, said Edwin D. Robb Jr., a partner with Bouhan, Williams & Levy in Savannah.

“I’ve been at this for more than 37 years, and I think I’ve only had one salvage case,” said Robb, a member of the Maritime Law Association of the United States.

Premier Exhibitions hired Bederman for that knowledge in the company’s pursuit of stronger legal claims to ownership of the artifacts it has recovered from Titanic—and which it has exhibited around the world, generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

Also known for its “Bodies” exhibits of plasticized corpses, Premier has toured its Titanic collection in two separate exhibits, “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” and “Titanic Science,” around the world. The collection includes more than 6,000 pieces, ranging from coins to china, jewelry to diaries, cufflinks to paper money.

“Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition” ended its stop at the Atlanta Civic Center in May. It’s now on display in Denver, Toronto and other cities.

All of the artifacts from the touring exhibits are classified as personal possessions, meaning they belonged to the passengers on board the doomed ship. Virtually all of Titanic’s passengers, from all classes, bought insurance policies on their property before the ship departed from England and France.

The policies were acquired from one insurance company—the Liverpool & London Steamship Protection & Indemnity Association Ltd. After the Titanic crashed into an iceberg and sank in April 1912—killing more than 1,500 people—victims’ families made claims on their policies. Liverpool & London paid those claims and through those payments, became owner of the personal property recovered from the wreck site, as well as remaining personal belongings ensconced in the Titanic’s ocean grave.

When the original Titanic salvage case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 1993, Liverpool & London was the only claimant that showed up at the courthouse. The court granted ownership of the personal possessions to Liverpool & London.

A predecessor company of Premier Exhibitions, in separate legal proceedings in 1994, was named salvor-in-possession of the Titanic wreckage by U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. Marex Titanic Inc. v. Titanic, No. 92-cv-00618 (Eastern District of Va., filed Aug. 7, 1992). That gave the company the exclusive right to recover artifacts from the ship.

Leveraging its legal status as salvor-in-possession, Premier later paid an undisclosed settlement amount to Liverpool & London, which resulted in the dismissal of Liverpool & London as a claimant to the Titanic wreckage.

Last month’s agreement between Premier and Liverpool & London simply firmed up that settlement, Bederman said.

“We did it out of an abundance of caution,” Bederman said. “We were interested in clarifying to everyone in the world our status—which is that we have title to the artifacts.”

Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed, but Premier paid Liverpool & London a “sizable exchange” of money, Bederman said.

Armed with its salvor-in-possession rights, as well as the subrogation rights to the personal belongings still on the ship, Premier is planning its eighth expedition to the Titanic wreckage to recover more property, as well as to photograph the wreckage site and to film its work recovering the property for the purpose of making documentary films.

Time is running out on Premier’s opportunity to visit the Titanic wreckage, Bederman said. Located about two-and-a-half miles below the ocean’s surface, about 400 miles southeast of Newfoundland, the Titanic is rapidly disintegrating. Some metallurgists have estimated the site has between 10 years and 50 years before the ship’s two sections collapse. (Titanic broke in half when it sank.)

Artifacts, even those made of fragile materials like paper or wood, can be preserved, however, despite having been submerged for more than 90 years in the salty water. Premier has contracts with two French laboratories for restoring the artifacts to museum-quality appearance.

The Titanic wreckage was discovered in 1985 by Robert Ballard, of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Jean-Louis Michel, of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea. Ballard and Michel made no legal claim to the wreck site.

Hastening the decline of the wreck site is an onslaught of “adventure tourism” groups that land submersible vehicles on the shipwreck. Premier believes those types of visits are illegal and violate the company’s status as salvor-in-possession.

Although Premier can’t have a boat hovering on the ocean’s surface above the Titanic wreck site at all times, there are other ways the company can monitor illegal visits, Bederman said. There are only a small number of submersible vehicles in the world that can plunge to the depths where Titanic rests.

Plus, Bederman said, there is a window of only four months when weather permits a safe trip to the area.

“These are some pretty rough seas,” Bederman said, who has not been to the site. A trip to the site takes about one month. Plunging down to the Titanic in a tiny submersible alone takes eight hours, then another eight hours to return to the surface, he said. Titanic is probably the deepest shipwreck that has ever been explored and had artifacts recovered, he said.

At some point, Premier will be granted a salvage award by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. While many shipwreck-salvaging companies receive a salvage award after each exploration, Premier has chosen to wait to receive the award until after it has completed its final expedition, Bederman said.

The amount of the salvage award has not yet been determined.

Bederman’s occasional gigs as maritime counsel to shipwreck-exploration companies don’t supplant his regular day job at the Emory law school. He said his assignments for these companies enrich the classroom experience for his students, he said.

“International admiralty law can appear to be very abstract,” Bederman said. “But this helps students learn of real life stories, rather than just reading them in a book.”

Andy Peters can be reached at apeters@alm.com

Posted by victoria at 10:41 AM

Shipwreck Central - Live Dive Blog

Shipwrecks, diving, underwater archaeology and science from around the world

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Posted: 8/23/07

Edmund Fitzgerald excitement sunk

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Beneath the waves

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Salvaging the Titanic

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