HOT NEWS !

By Kate Hill - ABC.net.au

When a passenger ship foundered miles off the south-east coast of Kingston in 1840, the events that followed ensured the story of the Maria became one of the darkest and most controversial events in South Australian maritime history.

What is fact is that 26 passengers and crew boarded the Irish-built brigantine Maria under Captain William Smith and left Port Adelaide on June 26, 1840, bound for Hobart.

But neither they nor their ship would ever reach their destination.

The first inkling that events had gone awry was in newspaper reports in late July that "a massacre site" had been found along the Coorong coastline.

Reports began to circulate that Maria passengers and crew had been murdered by natives after abandoning their foundering ship.

A group of men set off from Adelaide to investigate, and brought back horrible stories of finding "legs, arms and parts of bodies partially covered with sand and strewn in all directions", and described a trail of native footprints leading from the scene.

The men brought back wedding rings, allegedly found on the slain bodies of two female passengers, and said they had found local natives in possession of blankets and tellingly, one wearing a sailor's jacket.

As wild rumours swirled and a horrified public demanded information and action, Governor George Gawler sent a team on horseback to investigate further, lead by Major Thomas O'Halloran.

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By Stephanie Webber - US Weekly

Buckle up…and never let go! A ride inspired by the famous 1912 Titanic shipwreck is set to launch at an amusement park in 2018.

Variety reports that Twentieth Century Fox is building the structure for a Dubai resort, and the studio is also developing attractions based on TV shows and films such as Sons of Anarchy, Planet of the Apes, and Aliens.

It will reportedly cost $850 million.

"This will build a tremendous amount of fan engagement with these brands," Jeffrey Godsick, president of Fox Consumer Products, said in a statement. "There are strong merchandising opportunities and it will allow us to connect with our audiences on an ongoing basis."

Some are already putting in their two cents. Critics specifically took to Twitter to talk about the new Titanic ride, and are still scratching their heads.

"How the hell will they make a 'Titanic' theme park ? What will be the rides ? A fluke ride of sliding down the tipped boat?" one commenter tweeted on Thursday, Nov. 5. A second added: "They do know lots of people died on the Titanic, don't they ?"

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From the Straits Times

Large boats from outside Malaysia carrying groups of divers are illegally scavenging for scrap metal from ships sunk during World War II near Pulau Tioman off Pahang, the New Straits Times (NST) daily reported yesterday.

The South China Sea area is a graveyard for more than 100 ships and submarines, including the historically important HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse that were sunk by the Japanese navy in 1941, the report said.

The two ships were deployed by the British to counter Japanese forces during World War II.

The salvage operators masqueraded as fishermen to avoid detection, NST quoted sources as saying, as they used GPS to locate these sunken ships.

Buoys are also used to mark working sites. The parts brought up included propellers, steel parts, high-grade aluminium and brass fixtures.

The boat operators are mostly from Vietnam and Thailand, the report said. They use thin rubber hoses connected to rusty air compressors on their boats to provide breathing air to their divers some 60m below the waters.

Explosives are first set to break up the ship's hull so that the parts can be brought up in smaller pieces.

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By Bess Browning - Kent Online

A man from Teynham has been arrested after historical artefacts were stolen from a sunken Royal Navy warship.

Police arrested two men following the reported theft of items from HMS Hermes which sits at the bottom of the English Channel.

On Monday, officers executed warrants at two addresses, one in Teynham and another in Rye in East Sussex, after an investigation in partnership with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Marine Management Organisations, the Receiver of the Wreck, Sussex Police, Historic England and the French authorities.

A 55-year-old man from Teynham was arrested on suspicion of theft and released on bail until February 22.

A 56-year-old man from East Sussex was arrested on suspicion of theft and fraud and was also released on bail until February 22.

Officers also seized a number of historical artefacts they believed to have been stolen from HMS Hermes and other underwater locations.

Full story...

By Garret Ellison - mlive

When it comes to Great Lakes shipwreck hunting, sometimes it's a matter of feast or famine.

In 2014, New York wreck sleuths Jim Kennard and Roger Pawlowski found four undiscovered shipwrecks in the waters of Lake Ontario.

This year, the duo found one — a propeller steamer named the Bay State, which foundered in a storm off Fair Haven, N.Y. in 1862.

Discovery of the ship, launched before the Civil War, was announced on Wednesday, Oct. 21. "We were getting pretty discouraged when something popped up on the depth finder," said Kennard. "About 15 seconds later, the side-scan sonar went over." "Finally, we found something."

The Bay State is the oldest propeller-driven steamship discovered in Lake Ontario. It sank en route to Ohio with a cargo of general merchandise after leaving Oswego, N.Y. late on Nov. 4, 1862.

There were no survivors. Kennard, who has been exploring shipwrecks since the 1970s, would only say the wreck is in several hundred feet of water about seve miles north of Fair Haven.

Vagueness helps guard the wreck from potential looting and inexperienced divers, he said.

Full article...

From Carrick Times

The team led by Dr Ruth Plets, School of Environmental Sciences at Ulster University, captured data about the SS Chirripo, which sank in 1917 after striking a mine.

The researchers, employing the new multi-beam system (EM2040) on board the Marine Institute’s Celtic Voyager, also surveyed the SS Polwell, which was torpedoed in 1918 northeast of Lambay Island and the RMS Leinster, which sank in 1918 after being torpedoed off Howth Head when over 500 people lost their lives.

“We were able to capture the most detailed images of the entirety of the wrecks ever. Some of the wrecks, which are too deep to be dived on, have not been seen in 100 years.

So this is the first time we can examine what has happened to them, during sinking and in the intervening 100 years, and try to predict their future preservation state,” explained Dr Plets.

“We moved away from traditional survey strategies by slowing the vessel right down to allow us to get many more data points over the wreck, with millions of sounding per wreck.

With the visibility conditions in the Irish Sea, no diver or underwater camera could ever get such a great overview of these wrecks.”

The project is carried out to coincide with WWI centenary commemorations.

The next step is to use the data collected to create 3D models which can be used for archaeological research, heritage management and dissemination of these otherwise inaccessible sites to the wider public.

Full story...

By Laura Hodgetts - Pratical Boat Owner

Historic England is taking steps to protect and investigate a shipwreck in Hampshire that is believed to be the second of four ‘great ships’ built for Henry V’s royal fleet.

Experts from Historic England believe the wreck that lies buried in mud in the River Hamble near Southampton, is the Holigost (Holy Ghost).

The Holigost was a major part of Henry V’s war machine, playing a key role in the two battles that broke French naval power and enabled Henry to conquer France in the early 15th century.

The Holigost joined the royal fleet on 17 November 1415 and took part in operations between 1416 and 1420, including two of the most significant naval battles of the Hundred Years War. It served as the flagship of the Duke of Bedford at the battle of Harfleur in 1416, suffering serious damage, and was in the thick of the fighting off the Chef de Caux in 1417.

It was rebuilt from a large Spanish ship called the Santa Clara that was captured in late 1413 or early 1414, then acquired by the English Crown.

The name of the ship is derived from Henry V’s personal devotion to the Holy Trinity.

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From Chris Sorensen - Macleans

After collectively spending more than 100 hours in the water this summer, dive teams exploring the wreck of HMS Erebus in Canada’s High Arctic have hatched a plan to explore the gloomy, partially collapsed interior of the nearly 170-year-old shipwreck.

Marc-André Bernier, the head of Parks Canada’s underwater archaeology unit, says the team took advantage of several weeks of unusually good weather to map out the site, cut away seaweed and determine the best way to enter the ship, which was first discovered last year in the eastern Queen Maud Gulf.

They plan to return next season to begin the laborious process of working their way down to the lower decks.

“That’s where everyone believes the key to the Franklin mystery lies—mainly inside the officers’ cabins,” Bernier says.

It won’t be easy. While the bow of the ship is almost intact—Bernier says it will be a “swim in”—other sections have been badly damaged by ice and will need to be reinforced before divers can venture inside.

Bernier says the archaeological exploration of the ship could take as long as five years to complete, but is hopeful it will shed new light on the Arctic’s greatest maritime mystery.

Full story...