HOT NEWS !

By Christine Armario


Peru's government wants to know if 17 tons of silver coins recovered from a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean last year were made there, complicating the legal quest to determine who rightfully owns the multimillion-dollar treasure.

Peru filed a claim Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tampa to determine where the coins originated, entering the fray over the $500 million loot found on a sunken ship by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration. Odyssey has been fighting the Spanish government for ownership of the ship and its contents.

Peruvian consumer rights advocates contend the coins were made with Peruvian metals and minted in Lima. When Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas sank west of Portugal with more than 200 people on board in 1804, Peru was still a Spanish colony.

"Probably every colonial Spanish shipwreck that has ever been discovered has had coins that originated in Peru," Greg Stemm, Odyssey Marine Exploration's chief executive officer, wrote in an e-mail. "So it will be interesting to see how successful they are in getting other governments and shipwreck explorers to recognize their interest."

Peru's claim states that it is entitled to any property that originated there and was produced by its people. An official at the Peruvian embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment.>

From Discover

Yesterday we wondered whether the U.S. Navy’s plan to intentionally sink some of its old warships, so that they’d become new homes for fish and attractions for recreational divers, would be such a great idea in the long run.

Today, a new study looking at a different shipwreck suggests that not only might intentionally sinking old ships be a bad idea, but officials might have to remove shipwrecks from sensitive ecosystems before they cause too much harm.

Back in 1991, a 100-foot-long ship sank in Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge near Hawaii. Now, 17 years later, scientists studying the area say the coral reef is under attack by an organism called Rhodactis howesii.

It is a corallimorph, a relative to anemones and corals that clears out competitors with it stinging tentacles. Rhodactis is an invasive species to the Palmyra Atoll, and it doubled its presence between 2006 and 2007, pushing out the diverse mix of corals that is native there.

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From The Jakarta Post


A Navy anti-submarine warship caught fire during a routine patrol in the waters off Lampung with all personnel on board surviving the accident. 

Navy spokesperson First Adm. Iskandar Sitompul said Tuesday the warship KRI Memet Sastrawiria, commanded by Maj. Gema Eka Putra, was heading to Labuhan Siging port when fire gutted the port side of its stern. 

"We are still investigating the cause of the fire. More importantly, everybody is safe," Iskandar said. 

The warship is a Parchim class corvette once operated by East Germany. Indonesia bought the corvette as part of the 1985 purchase of 39 East German warships. 

Measuring 75.2 meters in length and 9.8 in width, the corvette is armed with an anti-submarine rocket launcher, torpedoes and sea mines. It can cruise at a maximum of 24.7 knots.


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From Jordan Press Whig


Kenn Feigelman and his team of underwater filmmakers planned to spend the summer documenting on film all the known wrecks in the waters around Kingston. They also hoped to find a new wreck. 

They didn't expect to find four old ships, including one that likely hasn't been seen for nearly 200 years, along with a debris field of other ships near the city. 

One wreck was previously found then lost. The wreck, a large hulk sitting on the bottom of the lake, is believed to be HMS Montreal, a Kingstonbuilt ship that was scuttled after the War of 1812, said Feigelman, who runs DeepQuest2 Expeditions. 

"This isn't just Kingston history, this is North American history," Feigelman said, referring to the warships his crew stumbled upon. 

"We're not saying we found them for the first time, but it's a discovery for sure."

By Eric Baker


Cannons gave name to beach and town, and keep coming back. Hard aground. 

That's how Lt. Neil Howison and his ship, the schooner USS Shark, found themselves after arriving at the mouth of the Columbia River on July 18, 1846.

Waves pounded the ship's hull violently against the sandbar as Howison pondered how to free his ship from peril.

Although he had successfully navigated the treacherous sands of the Columbia Bar guarding the river's mouth -- using only an outdated, hand-drawn chart for reference -- he now found his ship wedged on a sandbar, five years to the day after another Navy warship, the USS Peacock, had met its end in these waters.

The Shark was freed from the sand this time, but after months of exploration in Oregon, that September it would suffer the same fate as the Peacock.

Although the Shark is long gone, remnants of its journey live on. Earlier this year, two carronades -- short cannons -- thought to be from the shipwreck were discovered south of Cannon Beach, renewing interest in the Shark and its historical ties to Oregon.

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From Wetherby News


After more than 60 years of silence, the dying tales of a warship named the HMAS Sydney were finally heard by the world.

The vessel, one of the Allies’ lesser known combatants against the German-Japanese pact, went down on November 19, 1941.

Critically wounded in combat with a disguised German vessel, it took some 645 crewmen with it to the seabed.

It was the greatest single loss of Australian life in the entirety of the war, and the fractured hull of the Sydney would be the country’s largest war grave.

Yet despite its scale, the ship sunk without trace.

It left many hundreds of families waiting for closure, the explanation of their loved ones’ deaths uncertain, their bodies never laid to rest.

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From WCAX News


It may be Lake Champlain's best kept secret: a sunken Revolution War gunboat lying on the bottom of the lake for the past 231 years.

Only a handful of people know where it's at. The boat is in one of the deepest parts of the lake, beyond the depths of most divers.

"It fell as if it was still sailing," said Art Cohn with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. "

We see artifacts showing in some places. We know there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of artifacts contained under the mud."

The Spitfire was sunk by the British at the Battle of Valcour Island, one of eight identical boats that held off the British advance from Canada.

"All of them were accounted for, either captured, sunk or burned, except for the Spitfire," said Rich Isenberg with the Maritime Museum.
 

From Daily Mail


Hollywood duo Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck portrayed the American desire to avenge the infamous Pearl Harbour bombings playing two US pilots in Michael Bay's hit 2001 epic.

But, the true devastation of the revenge attacks on Japanese forces in 1944 has been captured in one of the most ambitious underwater projects ever undertaken.

Operation Hailstorm was two years in the making - but on February 17, 1944, American forces blitzed the Chuuk Islands, in the south western region of the Pacific Ocean, sinking 70 Japanese ships, 270 aircraft and killing close to 3,000 people - though the official death toll has never been confirmed.

And commissioned by the BBCs Natural History Unit, a 30 strong team of divers, deep sea biologists and under water cameraman explored remotest depths of the Pacific to unravel some of the secrets behind the America's revenge attacks.


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