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From Xinhua

Archaeologists have discovered details which could confirm a shipwreck found in the Yellow Sea to be the cruiser Zhiyuan, sunk by the Japanese navy 121 years ago during the Sino-Japanese War.

After more than two months of underwater exploration and salvage, archaeologists believe they have identified a wreck found off the port of Dandong in northeast China as one of the Beiyang Fleet, defeated in 1894 by the Japanese navy in the Battle of Yellow Sea.

The 50-meter wreck is about 10 nautical miles southwest of Dandong Port, at depth of around 20 meters.

Severely damaged in the battle, the ship is not well preserved, said team leader Zhou Chunshui. No cabins have been found intact and the engine room is still buried in the sand During the past two months, divers have brought up over 120 items from the seabed, including some 60 copper coins, armaments and personal belongings.

"We found a piece of a leather belt, insoles, and comb," Zhou said."They are too badly damaged to infer anything about their owners."

The archaeological investigation remains exclusively submarine and it has not yet been decided whether or when the ship will be salvaged, he added. Team member Cui Yong said three porcelain plates had been retrieved from the wreck, clearly showing the characters "Zhi" and "Yuan", strong evidence of the identity of the ship.

Three shells found have been confirmed as belonging to the Zhiyuan.

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By Nick Squires - The Telegraph

The wreck of a Flying Fortress bomber shot down by Messerschmitt fighters during the Second World War has been found lying on the seabed off the coast of Sicily.

The B-17, nicknamed Devils from Hell by its nine-man crew, was discovered by divers at a depth of 245ft (75 metres), around four miles from the port of Palermo in southern Italy.

The discovery was the result of months of detective work, with historians and amateur divers matching official wartime records with the accounts of elderly Sicilians who still remember the raid.

The aircraft was located by a group of amateur divers who are part of a project called “Shadows of the Deep”, which aims to locate the wrecks of planes and boats off Sicily.

Described by one Italian newspaper as the “Indiana Jones’s of the sea”, they were helped by a sonar scan carried out by a diving unit of the Italian fire brigade.

“The wreck was found a few months ago thanks to the help of the fire service. Our job was to dive down and try to identify it,” said Riccardo Cingillo, one of the divers.

It took several attempts – when they first dived down to the wreck, visibility was poor. Eventually they were able to find and photograph serial numbers on the engines and in the cockpit which enabled a positive identification.

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From Phys Org

Archaeologists excavating the famous ancient Greek shipwreck that yielded the Antikythera mechanism have recovered more than 50 items including a bronze armrest (possibly part of a throne), remains of a bone flute, fine glassware, luxury ceramics, a pawn from an ancient board game, and several elements of the ship itself.

"This shipwreck is far from exhausted," reports project co-Director Dr. Brendan Foley, a marine archaeologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

"Every single dive on it delivers fabulous finds, and reveals how the '1 percent' lived in the time of Caesar."

The shipwreck dates to circa 65 B.C., and was discovered by Greek sponge fishermen in 1900 off the southwestern Aegean island of Antikythera.

They salvaged 36 marble statues of mythological heroes and gods; a life-sized bronze statue of an athlete; pieces of several more bronze sculptures; scores of luxury items; and skeletal remains of crew and passengers.

The wreck also relinquished fragments of the world's first computer: the Antikythera Mechanism, a geared mechanical device that encoded the movements of the planets and stars and predicted eclipses.

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Photo: Robert Schoch

By Kate Schneider - News.Com.Au

When scuba diving instructor Kihachiro Aratake plunged into the water off the coast of the Japanese island of Yonaguni in 1986, he discovered an incredible sight.

Six metres below the surface lay a series of monoliths that he described as appearing to be “terraced into the side of a mountain”. The huge rectangular formations had strikingly perfect 90 degree angles, including straight walls, steps and columns.

Over the following years experts descended upon the site in a bid to determine whether the structure was natural or man-made.

Yet to this day, it remains a great unsolved mystery. Initially it was proposed that the Yonaguni Monument was built when the area was above sea level some 10,000 years ago.

So could ‘Japan’s Atlantis’ be a remnant of a preglacial civilisation that was eventually inundated ? Or could it be the result of an earthquake, putting it at 2000-3000 years old ? Experts disagree.

As the structure was mapped out over the following years, more details came to light. Divers found what appeared to be a huge arch, as well as temples, carvings, paved streets and a large pyramid-like structure measuring 76 metres long at its base.

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By Kirste Smith - The Cornishman

A heritage centre will be taking over the ownership of a ship's bell from the 1800s next month.

Hayle Heritage Centre will be taking over the ownership of the bell from the SS Carnsew, which was a coastal steamer built by Harvey's Foundry in 1888.

The ship was used to ferry coal, tin and copper ore between ports in Cornwall and South Wales via Bristol.
It sunk in a collision with another cargo ship, the SS Everest, off Bull Point on the North Devon coast on October 17 1903 but the captain and crew survived.

The bell, which was discovered by North Devon Diving Club, has been donated in memory of Phil Durbin, a keen diver with the club.

By Bruce Smith
 

The hull of the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship has been cleaned and revealed for the first time in 150 years.

After a year of painstaking work, scientists using small chisels and hand tools have removed encrusted sand, sediment and rust from the outside of the hand-cranked Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

Now, the outside appears much as it did when the Hunley and its eight-man crew rammed a spar with a powder charge into the USS Housatonic and sank the Union blockade ship off South Carolina in 1864.

But scientists said Thursday that cleaning the hull didn't solve the mystery of why the Hunley itself sank with its crew before returning from its mission.

Cleaning the hull showed some dents on both sides of the submarine.

But scientists say it's not clear when the dents occurred. The Hunley sank twice before it went on its 1864 mission, though it also could have been dented at the time of the Housatonic attack or later when the sub sat for decades on the ocean floor off Charleston.

"If there was a smoking gun, we would have seen it a long time ago," said Johanna Rivera-Diaz, a conservator with the Hunley project.
 

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From Plymouth Herald

Nearly 100 years ago the Plymouth Breakwater was the scene of a catastrophic shipwreck as a vessel attempted to escape the rough seas by sailing into Plymouth.

On August 8, 1920 the four-masted barquentine Yvonne smashed into the rocks and the ship's crew were forced to scramble to safety on the breakwater's surface. Hours later the Plymouth lifeboat and the tug Rover arrived just in time to pull the sailors from the water – as waves 10metres high were breaking over the Yvonne.

This terrifying scene has been captured by local artist Tim Thompson, commissioned by Plymouth man David Rendle. David, aged 79, remembers playing on the breakwater as a child and wanted something to remember his precious memories by.

He said: "I was looking down at the breakwater with my grandchildren, and my youngest granddaughter said to me 'Grandad, what's that post on the end with the ball on top ?' "I said 'That's the Plymouth Beacon.

When I was perhaps just a year or two older than you I used to go out there, and one day I plucked up the courage to climb the steps of it'.

"David, who lives in Peverell, explained how the beacon on the eastern end of the breakwater was designed as a refuge for up to six shipwrecked sailors. It is most likely the crew of the Yvonne tried to make their way towards the Beacon, and even attempted to climb it.

He said: "It's all very well to talk about it, but I wanted to have this painting done as I knew it would make a lovely subject. It really is a terrific picture."

By Erick Trickey - Boston Daily

Federal prosecutors have “ample evidence” that Maine treasure hunter Greg Brooks schemed to defraud investors of at least $8 million in a salvage operation off Cape Cod, a federal appeals court declared today as it ordered further evidence turned over to a grand jury.

The opinion from the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston includes the most detailed account yet of the federal investigation of Brooks and his former researcher, Ed Michaud of Framingham, Mass.—a tale told in “Hook, Line, and Sinker,” in our September issue.

Brooks’ company, Sea Hunters, raised millions from investors to salvage what he claimed was $3 billion worth of platinum from the S.S. Port Nicholson, sunk by a Nazi U-boat in 1942.

No criminal charges have been filed, but the opinion makes clear that Brooks is the target of an ongoing grand jury investigation.

Here are some key details from the court’s 26-page opinion (below):

• The feds think the Brooks and Michaud kicked off their alleged fraud in 2006, when Brooks paid Michaud to buy a copy of the reference book Lloyd’s War Losses. The book says the Port Nicholson sank with a cargo of automobile parts and military stores. Michaud, who is now a government witness, claimed that when he showed Brooks the info, Brooks commented that Michaud “needed to show more to get investors on board.”

• In 2008, Michaud admits, he altered an image from Lloyd’s War Losses, adding a line that said the Port Nicholson was also carrying 1,707,000 troy ounces of platinum. Michaud also “admitted to heavily redacting the remainder of the document and adding a forged ‘declassification’ stamp to conceal its origin,” the court’s opinion says. The altered document was later filed in court and given to some investors in Brooks’ company. (Brooks also showed it to CBS News in 2012.)

• Federal agents are looking into whether six pieces of metal that Brooks’ company presented to a federal court really came from the Port Nicholson. Salvagers need to present a piece of a vessel in court to make a salvage claim under admiralty law. Agents have interviewed two crew members who said that no material was recovered from the Port Nicholson during trips they took part in.

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