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By Neil Murphy - The Mirror
 

Paintings by one of Russia's most famous artists which were lost in a shipwreck over 124 years ago could be worth millions of pounds, experts say.A number of highly-valuable works by Ivan Aivazovsky were lost when the General Kotzebue steamship sank off the coast of Crimea in 1895.

The wreckage was finally discovered last year by divers from Russia's Neptune underwater expedition along with the fragments of ten paintings.

Aivazovsky is believed to have given the crew the paintings and sketches after he travelled on board their vessel. An earlier expedition to recover the items was halted over fears that the operation would further damage them.

Roman Dunaev, the head of the Neptune expedition, confirmed to local media in Russia that it woould restart the operation next month. Crimea-born Aivazovsky, who died in 1900, was well-known for his depictions of naval life and was considered one of the greatest masters of marine art.

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By Park Chan-kyong - South China Morning Post

A 14th-century Chinese trading ship, which was wrecked carrying priceless cargoes before being discovered in 1976 off the southern coast of South Korea, provides an endless source of information about China’s porcelain manufacturing, maritime trade and high culture in East Asia.

The National Museum of Korea in Seoul marked the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the treasure boat in Sinan County with a special exhibition in 2016 and published in three volumes the results of decades of examinations of 24,000 recovered relics.

Most recently, the museum opened a special display of 180 of 800 black-glazed porcelains from the wreck. The museum also has a permanent display corner dedicated to Sinan shipwreck treasures.

“This is a rare chance of seeing the highly prized black glazed porcelains manufactured at various kilns in 14th-century China that have been brought together in the same place,” curator Kim Young-mi said.

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By Hannah Maltwood - Cornwall Live

An unusual underwater expedition is being planned off the Cornish coast, to send a submarine 100 metres below the ocean to retrieve rare bottles of 100-year-old wine and champagne sitting on the seabed for a century.

During the First World War a boat laden with alcohol, travelling between England and Bordeaux, was shot down on its journey, by a German U boat. Sinking to the bottom of the sea, the ship and its cargo have laid undisturbed since 1918.

Now experts want to salvage the historical artefacts in what they believe will be "one of the most significant historical discoveries of the century", and they're allowing a member of the public to go along on the voyage.

Through a partnership between Cookson Adventures, maritime experts 10994 and dive and survey expert Nigel Hodge, from Cornish Fishing, the wreck has now been located, sitting in the English Channel, just off the coast of Cornwall.

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By James Rogers - Fox News
 

The wreck of a 12th-century ‘Viking-style’ ship discovered in a German port is revealing its secrets thanks to high-tech 3D-scanning technology.

The shipwreck was found in just 10 feet of water when workers were extending the Baltic Sea port of Wismar. Thanks to the seawater and harbor silt, the ship’s timbers are perfectly preserved, according to archaeologists.

Measuring almost 80 feet by 13 feet, the ship’s remains have been dated to around 1188. Experts used 3D scanner technology to reveal that the open-decked ship was constructed entirely with axes and adzes.

Analysis of the ship’s timbers revealed that they were from Western Sweden. Maritime Archaeologist Dr. Jens Auer, who led the project, described the ship as a descendant of Viking vessels. “It was a heavy, load-bearing cargo ship, of Nordic design, built with great care and durability…with overlapping pine planks, clinker-style, with a beautiful curved construction…made during a relatively peaceful period of time," he explained, in a statement.

The ship likely carried cargoes such as timber, stones, or even beer, Auer added.

Experts estimate that the ship had a crew of 8 to 12 men.

From Associated Press
 

Near the northern Greek island of Alonissos lies a remarkable ancient shipwreck: the remains of a massive cargo ship that changed archaeologists' understanding of shipbuilding in antiquity.

Now this spectacular find is to become the first ancient shipwreck to be made accessible to the public in Greece, including to recreational divers. Greece's rich underwater heritage has long been hidden from view, off-limits to all but a select few, mainly archaeologists.

Scuba diving was banned throughout the country except in a few specific locations until 2005, for fear that divers might loot the countless antiquities that still lie scattered on the country's seabed. Ancient shipwrecks and even many more recent ones are still off-limits.

Now that seems to be gradually changing, with a new project to create underwater museums. Divers will be able to tour certain shipwrecks and non-divers will experience the sites through virtual reality in information centers on land.

The first of these sites is the Peristera shipwreck, named for the uninhabited Greek island opposite Alonissos where it was discovered in the early 1990s.

The cargo ship was laden with thousands of amphoras, or vases, probably containing wine, when it sank in the late 5th century B.C. All that survives is the cargo, the exposed parts of the wooden ship having long since rotted away.

But the sight is spectacular. Thousands of ancient vases, the vast majority intact, lie in layers. Fish, sponges and other sea creatures have made the amphoras their home, adding color and life to the site. In some places, the cargo towers above divers as they pass along the perimeter of the wreck.

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From BBC News

It is being hailed as a lucky accident, after salvage teams searching for containers that fell off a ship in a storm discovered a 16th Century shipwreck on the North Sea floor.

The ship, dating back to 1540, was filled with a cargo of copper plates and some of them were put on display on Wednesday when the find was revealed. It was owned by the Fugger family, one of Europe's richest banking families.

The wreck is being described as "the missing link" in shipping construction. "It's the way the ship was built that's very interesting because you have to think 100 years later the Netherlands was in the middle of its Golden Age - and this ship is from a transition period," maritime archaeologist Martijn Manders told the BBC.

Although it is still on the seabed, divers intend to revisit the ship during the summer. It is considered to be the oldest seafaring ship ever found in Dutch waters.

When 345 containers fell from merchant ship MSC Zoe into the North Sea during a storm on 2 January, some spilled on to land in the next days, but many more remained in the sea.

As salvage teams scoured the Dutch North Sea, their sonar equipment found an unknown object on the seabed a few miles to the north of the island of Terschelling in the Wadden Sea.

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By Cat Bolton - The Epoch Times

One of the world’s most famous large-scale disasters was the maiden voyage of the British passenger liner RMS Titanic, which sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a shipwreck that killed more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

Nearly every student and film enthusiast has either heard the story or seen the movie, making the deadly nautical disaster both one of the biggest peacetime tragedies of the 20th century and one of the most famous.

It would stand to reason that, with the grim history behind the massive liner and its name, few would dare board a replica a century later. But thrill seekers everywhere will potentially get that chance within the next five years—and even for the most superstitious among us, it’s a pretty tempting-looking adventure.

Australian billionaire and cruise line chairman Clive Palmer is the brainchild behind the “Titanic II,” which is currently projected to set sail from Dubai some time in 2021.

She’ll arrive at Southampton in time for a 2022 maiden voyage, exactly 110 years after the first Titanic went to cross the ocean, and the ship will be a near-identical replica to the original Titanic, with a capacity of 2,500 passengers who will get to experience a cruise experience just as the original passengers had hoped to.

In an almost eerie parallel to the original ship, the project has hit a handful of obstacles since first being announced in 2012. Financial disputes with the Chinese manufacturers working to build the ship left the project seemingly dead in the water, crushing a controversial yet exciting-sounding dream hatched in the era of limit-pushing and past-era nostalgia.

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By James Rogers - Fox News

The wreck of World War II aircraft carrier USS Wasp has been discovered in the Coral Sea more than 70 years after the ship was sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign.

Wasp was spotted on the seabed by experts from the vessel RV Petrel, which is part of a research organization set up by the late billionaire Paul Allen.

The carrier was escorting Marine reinforcements to Guadalcanal when she was hit by four torpedoes fired by the Japanese submarine I-19 on Sept. 15, 1942. Of the ship’s 2,162-strong crew, 176 were killed in the attack.

Unable to battle the fires that raged on the carrier, Wasp’s crew were forced to abandon the ship. Drifting and aflame, the vessel was scuttled by U.S. forces.

In a statement, Allen’s Vulcan organization notes that, although the torpedoes caused a massive inferno, Wasp’s crew were reluctant to leave the ship until all their crewmates were safe.

The storied ship, which was the first to launch U.S. Army planes from a U.S. Navy carrier, was also deployed to Iceland in 1941 and to the besieged Mediterranean island of Malta in April and May 1942.

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