HOT NEWS !

From The Guardian
 

A former deep-sea treasure hunter is about to mark his fifth year in jail for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of 500 missing coins made from gold found in a historic shipwreck.

Tommy Thompson, a research scientist, isn’t incarcerated for breaking the law. Instead, he’s being held in contempt of court for an unusually long stretch – well past the normal maximum limit of an 18-month internment in cases of witnesses refusing to cooperate.

But nothing is usual about Thompson’s case, which dates to his discovery of the SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, in 1988. The gold rush-era ship sank in a hurricane off South Carolina in 1857 with thousands of pounds of gold aboard, contributing to an economic panic.

Despite an investors lawsuit and a federal court order, Thompson still won’t cooperate with authorities trying to find those coins, according to court records, federal prosecutors and the judge who found Thompson in contempt.

“He creates a patent for a submarine, but he can’t remember where he put the loot,” federal judge Algenon Marbley said during a 2017 hearing. Thompson’s legal troubles stem from the 161 investors who paid him $12.7m to find the ship, never saw any proceeds and finally sued.

Back in 2012, a different federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the coins’ whereabouts. Instead, Thompson fled to Florida where he lived with his longtime female companion at a hotel near Boca Raton. US marshals tracked him down and arrested him in early 2015. Thompson pleaded guilty for his failure to appeal and was sentenced to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Thompson’s criminal sentence has been delayed until the issue of the gold coins is resolved. That April 2015 plea deal required Thompson to answer questions in closed-door sessions about the whereabouts of the coins, which the government says are worth $2m to $4m.

Importantly, he must also “assist” interested parties in finding the coins under that deal.

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By Graham Keeley - Independent.co.uk

For centuries, sunken Spanish galleons laden with gold, silver and emeralds have guarded their priceless treasures at the bottom of the oceans. Now Spain’s modern day armada is to launch a new vessel that will help in efforts to find the lost loot which Madrid claims as part of its cultural heritage.

Researchers have traced 710 shipwrecks off Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the US Atlantic coast.

About half of these were travelling from the empire in Latin America to Spain when they sank, laden with treasures, because of bad weather, running aground on reefs, or pirate attacks.

The Spanish defence ministry is to purchase a €192m (£173m) Underwater Intervention Maritime Action Vessel (BAM-IS), which should be operational by 2022.

The vessel will be equipped with remotely operated underwater robots and specialised sonar equipment that can help marine archaeologists to locate wrecks. The ship will also help rescue stricken submarines and the bodies of fallen crews for humanitarian reasons.

“This ship could help us in finding and, if necessary, recover wrecks. The last time the Spanish navy helped us in this way was when we located ships lost in the Battle of Trafalgar, but their current ship is very old and outdated,” said Carlos Leon, a marine archaeologist who works with the Spanish government.

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De Var Matin

Jean-Pierre Joncheray est décédé à l’âge de 79 ans ce jeudi à Saint-Raphaël.

C’est avec une grande tristesse que nous avons appris le décès de l'archéologue sous-marin Jean-Pierre Joncheray, survenu à l’âge de 79 ans, jeudi à Saint-Raphaël.

Né en Algérie, l’étudiant en pharmacie à Marseille se passionne tôt pour la plongée et la recherche sous-marine. Biologiste et auteur de nombreux ouvrages, « Jean-Pierre, mon pygmalion, adorait fouiller, comprendre et transmettre », dit de lui Anne Joncheray, la directrice du musée archéologique de Saint-Raphaël.

Ensemble, passionnés par la recherche et l’exploration d’épaves, ils ont notamment effectué des fouilles approfondies sur la Chrétienne, le sous-marin l’Alose ou le Alain en baie d’Agay.

Le couple s’est même rendu en Islande pour étudier le Pourquoi pas ? du commandant Charcot.
 

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By Peter Suciu - The National Interest

It was dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” a golden-hued, jewel-encrusted chamber that was made of several tons of gemstones, gold and amber.

The opulent “Amber Room” disappeared during the Second World War and was considered a casualty of the conflict, but now divers off the coast of Poland believe they may have found the lost Tsarist-era treasure.

The room was part of the Catherine Palace near St, Petersburg (Leningrad during the war), and it was last seen in the Baltic port city of Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad) in East Prussia. After that point its location was lost to time, and it was long assumed the panels that once graced the walls of the palace were destroyed.

However, it has been suggested that instead the Amber Room may have been loaded onto a ship, and now divers believe it could be on the steamer Karlsruhe, which set sail from Königsberg in early 1945 laden with cargo and subsequently sunk after being attacked by Soviet airplanes.

Divers from Baltictech Group have found the wreck after more than a year of searching.

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From The Independent

A man on Cambodia’s southern coast was arrested for possessing almost 300 centuries-old earthenware jars that he is believed to have salvaged from a shipwreck an official said Tuesday.

Khieng Phearum, a spokesman for Preah Sihanouk province, said the 42-year-old man was arrested late Sunday after authorities determined that he was illegally keeping 281 small and big jars presumed to be legally protected antiquities at his home.

The man, who was still being interrogated on Tuesday, is an expert diver and had been spotted in the area of an underwater shipwreck in the Gulf of Thailand off the coastal city of Sihanoukville from which the pottery is believed to have been retrieved, Khieng Phearum said.

He said he did not know how the man retrieved the jars or how long they have been in his possession, but the authorities had become aware of his collection, and after observation, arrested the man at his home.

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By Clare Mccarthy - Mail Online
 

The wreck of an 18th century floating gin palace has been found in the Gulf of Finland. The vessel was spotted by Russia's Baltic naval fleet and has given up its secrets.

The boat - believed to be Dutch - was delivering hundreds of bottles of gin to Tsarist capital St Petersburg, seat of power of the Romanov emperors. Other small bottles contained perfumes or the ingredients for fragrances including eucalyptus and the essence of pine needles.

Some elaborate gin bottles appear to have a 'London' seal on them, though it still needs to be verified as genuine.

Roman Prokhorov, an underwater archaeologist with the Russian Geographical Society, said: 'These bottles are the most interesting. 'They were transported in wooden boxes. 'Obviously, they were not empty. 'There are bubbles of air in the glass, so they must have been hand-manufactured.'

The reason the ship sank, and the date it went down, near Moshchnyi island is so far unknown but Russian experts intend to solve the mystery of the floating gin palace. Little is left of the vessel but it is believed to be a Dutch tjalk - or barge - used to carry cargo.

Sadly, no surviving gin has been found at the wreck site. It is possible to determine what was transported in the vessels only by the smell and type of bottles, say reports. 'Most likely, the ship was sailing to St. Petersburg and was carrying bottles of alcohol on board,' said Prokhorov.

The vessel sank some 80 miles west of St Petersburg.

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By Alex Lemaire - The Maritime Excecutive

On this same day, 35 years ago, the legendary deep-sea explorer Mel Fisher discovered the shipwreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. The galleon was sailing from the new world to Spain. It was hit by a hurricane and sank in 1622. 260 people lost their lives in this accident. Only five survived by climbing the mizzen, which remained above the water.

Senora de Atocha was loaded with several precious items. But what makes this ship so special is that it contained 40 tons of gold and silver and around 70 pounds of Colombian emeralds, some of the finest and most expensive in the world.

Spanish salvors tried and failed to recover this precious cargo because the hatches were locked tight. A second hurricane further destroyed the shipwreck and it was lost without a trace.

In 1969, more than 300 years later, Mel Fisher started looking for Atocha’s treasure. This mission was lengthy and dangerous. A few finds along the way convinced him that he is getting closer to the great discovery. The crew found some silver bars in 1973; their tally marks matched Atocha’s paperwork. Two years later, they found five of the galleon’s cannons. In 1980, they discovered the wreck of the Santa Margarita (Atocha’s sister ship).

Three members of his crew (a diver, his son, and his wife) lost their lives during this quest when their boat capsized. The treasure hunter was shaken but he didn’t lose hope and he knew that the lost teammates would have wanted the expedition to resume. He always kept saying “Today’s the day!”.

In addition to the previous difficulties, the treasure hunter has to fight a court battle against the state of Florida who wanted ownership or at least a percentage of the treasure. The US Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

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By Alex Fox - Smithsonian Magazine

Two professional divers exploring the waters off the coast of northern Italy have discovered the wreck of a large wooden ship thought to date to the 16th century, reports Vincenzo Bruno for Italian news site Notizie.

Investigation of the find is ongoing, but a statement from the Archaeology Superintendency of Italy’s Ministry for Cultural Heritage & Tourism suggests the wooden hull may represent the remnants of a much sought-after galleon that sank in the area in 1579.

Named the Santo Spirito and Santa Maria di Loreto, the ship was one of the largest Italian merchant vessels of its time.

In February, Gabriele Succi and Edoardo Sbaraini of local business Rasta Divers were diving near Porto Pidocchio when they spotted the remains of a wooden ship at a depth of around 164 feet, according to Diver Net.

The pair immediately knew their find was something special, as wood rarely survives in saltwater unless it is buried by sediment.

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