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From CBC News

A Canadian archeological firm has been cleared to test robotic submersibles in Larsen Sound this summer, provided it does not disturb the possible resting place of Sir John Franklin's lost ships.

Nunavut regulators have approved a revised proposal from ProCom Marine Survey and Archeology's to test AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) in the sound, located 195 kilometres northwest of Taloyoak in western Nunavut.

Earlier this year, the Nunavut Impact Review Board rejected ProCom's original proposal, partly over fears the company's work might disturb an area where the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror are believed to be located.

Archeologists have long been searching for the Erebus and Terror, which vanished — along with Franklin and his crew — during the British explorer's doomed expedition to the Northwest Passage in 1845.

When ProCom was invited to resubmit its application for the AUV project, the company was asked to address how it would avoid disturbing the shipwrecks should they be discovered during the tests.

"There was a commitment that should any such site be encountered that an appropriate buffer would be established immediately," review board official Ryan Barry told CBC News. "The location would be reported to the Government of Nunavut, and no further work would be done in that area."

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By Meg Jones - The Journal Sentinel

When the wooden steamship Niagara sank in Lake Michigan in 1856, scores of people died, their bodies washing ashore near what is now Harrington Beach Park.

The wreck of the ship that carried to Wisconsin thousands of immigrants, mostly Germans and Scandinavians seeking new lives, has gotten a second life as a popular destination for scuba divers.

The Niagara almost claimed two more lives on Sunday.

Two Wisconsin divers who ventured out to the Niagara on the Fourth of July were recuperating in a hospital Monday from hypothermia after strong currents swept them away from the shipwreck and their boat that was moored to the wreck.

Jamie Smallish, 28, and David Rittmann, 29, were reported missing around 7 p.m. Sunday when they failed to return from their diving excursion.

They both were found on shore at about 11:30 p.m. near Amsterdam Beach several miles north of Harrington Beach. The wreck of the Niagara lies in 52 feet of water about one mile off the shore of Harrington Beach.

"There were strong currents under the water pulling in different directions from the bottom current," said Marcus Evans, officer in charge of the U.S. Coast Guard station in Sheboygan on Monday. "When they surfaced, their boat was too far away and the winds were out of the southeast, so they were unable to swim back to the vessel."

Smallish and Rittmann ditched their scuba tanks and weight belts - common in emergencies - and managed to swim to shore. Evans said the divers' scuba tanks washed ashore on Monday.

Winds Sunday afternoon were blowing at 18 knots and waves were 2 feet, according to the marine weather report.

While most scuba divers practice a buddy system and dive with a partner, for safety reasons it's best to have another person in the dive boat keeping an eye on divers in case of emergencies. If divers are blown off course, the boat can simply pick them up.

"Leaving someone on the boat is the best practice and having someone watching your (air) bubbles to see where you're going," Evans said.

Rittmann and Smallish were expected back around 3:30 or 4 p.m., and authorities were alerted around 7 p.m. The Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department sent a dive team to search the wreck but couldn't find the men.

Their boat was empty and still moored to the wreck.

The Coast Guard sent a boat and helicopter, arriving around 9 p.m.

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By Andrew Bomford - BBC News

After 37 years sitting on the seabed in the Falklands, the SS Great Britain was brought back home to Bristol in 1970. Exactly 40 years since its return, it has been restored to its former glory with a little help from the Duke of Edinburgh.

For the 100,000 people who lined the banks of the River Avon in Bristol on 5 July 1970, it must have been a strange sight.

There to welcome home one of the jewels of Britain's maritime history, the dark rusting hulk which slowly came into view must have seemed like a disappointment. On that boat was the Duke of Edinburgh.

"There were a lot of people there, I think they were intrigued," he said.

"The story was fascinating. The dock they built her in was still there, untouched, after all that time. It was extraordinary. There was a real sense of occasion."

Like a mortally wounded warrior from the battlefield, the SS Great Britain limped home to her birthplace, a shadow of her former glory.

This was the culmination of a salvage operation which at times seemed futile. The ship has now become a museum, with over 150,000 people visiting it each year.

The SS Great Britain was the world's first iron-hulled screw-driven ocean liner, propelled by a combination of steam and sail power and launched from Bristol in 1843.

She criss-crossed the Atlantic, made 32 runs to Australia with emigrants, served as a troop ship in the Crimean war and the Indian Mutiny, and later became a cargo ship.

The ship was eventually scuttled in the Falkland Islands in 1937 after 50 years as a storage hulk. It had been a sad end for a great ship. Then came the daring rescue mission.

"She was a ship-shaped lump of iron, rust, and scrap," said Ivor Boyce, one of the tugboat skippers who gently towed her home.

He remembered telling his friends: "What are they going to do with her? No way can they make that into a viable ship anymore."

Many others though were swept away by the romance of the story. The daring rescue 8,000 miles from home, the near impossible task of raising Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great iron steam ship from the sea bed, the perilous journey across the Atlantic - all this stirred the hearts of Bristolians.

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From Stuff.co.nz

Not just flora and fauna are getting caked in oil. So is the Gulf of Mexico's barnacled history of pirates, sea battles and World War II shipwrecks.

The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages.

Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.

Within 30 km. of the well, there are several significant shipwrecks - ironically, discovered by oil companies' underwater robots working the depths - and oil is most likely beginning to cascade on them. 

"People think of them as being lost, but with the deepsea diving innovations we have today, these shipwrecks are easily accessible," said Steven Anthony, president of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society.

"If this oil congeals on the bottom, it will be dangerous for scuba divers to go down there and explore," Anthony said. "The spill will stop investigations; it will put a chill, a halt on (underwater) operations."

The wrecks include two 19th Century wooden ships known as the Mica Wreck and the Mardi Gras Wreck. The German submarine U-166 and ships sunk by other German submarines during World War II are within the spill's footprint.

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By Carolyn Crist - The Times, Gainesville

A piece of history left Gainesville 135 years ago, but now it's back.

A diving bell - the only one of its kind still left from the Civil War - was unearthed from the Chestatee River decades ago and is finally being restored before it is displayed in downtown Dahlonega.

Usually found in port towns such as New Orleans, Savannah and Charleston, S.C., the diving bell was used in Dahlonega in 1875 to mine gold at the bottom of the river.

The object, which measures 8 feet high, 15 feet long and almost 6 feet wide, allowed divers a place to breathe under water while skimming river bottoms.

Historians have compared the design to turning a glass upside down in water, which creates a pocket of air at the top.

"It's a very rare piece of Civil War-era technology and the only one surviving of its kind," said Chip Wright, project manager and preservation planner for the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission. "This diving bell should never have been here. It's a good thing because that's why it has survived."

During the metal drives of World War I and World War II, bells of this type were melted down and used by the military, he said.

"This was lying on the bottom of the river and forgotten for all these years," he said. "You can read about these in books and see drawings, but this one is even more unique because it was customized to serve in a gold mining operation."

Philologus Loud, a Dahlonega inventor and entrepreneur, was doing business in New Orleans when he came up with the idea to use the bell to search for gold. The Benjamin Mallifert bell model, which includes two hatches and a pressurized air-lock system to create a pocket of air under water, was part of the salvaging ship named The Glide that scanned the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers.

Loud bought the bell when the ship was converted to a package steamer. The bell was loaded onto a rail car and reached the end of its rail trip in Gainesville, where it was loaded onto a Southern Express wagon and toted to Dahlonega.

In 1983, local gold miners decided to pull out the object that fishers had noticed.

"The gold miners knew what it was right way," said Anne Amerson, a Dahlonega historian who has studied the bell for years. "I didn't see it until 1990, and we still haven't figured out everything about it."

By David Keys - The Independent

The final resting places of six German U-boats sunk in the final months of the Second World War's greatest naval conflict have finally been identified.

After years of research, maritime experts say their discoveries will force historians to re-evaluate the battle for control of the Atlantic.

Evidence from the wrecks suggests many U-boats were sunk by mines rather than attacks by Allied air and naval forces, as had previously been believed.

The findings show coastal minefields were around three times more effective than British naval intelligence gave them credit for.

Experts believe their view was distorted, unintentionally, by reports from over-enthusiastic airmen and escort ship commanders who sometimes claimed they had sunk U-boats with depth charges or anti-submarine mortars.

One submarine, the U-400, previously believed sunk by Royal Navy depth charges south of Cork in Ireland, has now been identified off the coast of north Cornwall. The German sub was on its very first patrol in December 1944 when it hit a mine, underwater photography suggests.

Another, the U-1021, also identified off the north Cornish coast, was on its first patrol in March 1945 when sunk by mines. Previously, it was thought the Royal Navy had sunk it with depth charges hundreds of miles away, off the west coast of Scotland. The U-326, also on its first patrol when it was destroyed by a US aerial depth charge attack in April 1945, has been identified 100 miles off the coast of Brittany.

The U-325, sunk on its second patrol in May 1945, was thought to have been destroyed by Royal Navy depth charges in the Irish Sea. Now marine archaeology and underwater photography have identified it on the seabed 230 miles away – off Lizard Point, south Cornwall.

Other U-boats, sunk far from British coastal minefields, have also been identified. The U-1208, on its first patrol, was identified off the Scilly Isles after being sunk by Royal Navy depth charges in February 1945. The U-650, recently identified through underwater photography near Land's End, was sunk by a direct hit from a hedgehog anti-submarine missile in January 1945.

More to read...

Dari Suara Karya

Harta karun barang muatan kapal tenggelam (BMKT| peninggalan era dinasti China ditemukan lagi di Laut Jawa, tepatnya di perairan Belanakan-Subang, Jawa Barat. Sejak awal 2010, pengangkatan BMKT berupa benda antik yang dibuat tahun 1600-an ini sudah mulai dilakukan PT Comexsindo.

"Diperkirakan, penemuan BMKT kali ini lebih besar dibanding di Laut Cirebon. Selain keramik, memang belum dapat diketahui jenis dan jumlah persis barang muatan yang ada di kapal karam tersebut," kata Dirjen Pengawasan Kelautan dan Perikanan (PSDKP) Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan (KKP) Aji Su-larso saat melakukan tinjauan ke kapal tongkang (submarine service) pengangkat BMKT di Subang, Rabu (5/5).

BMKT peninggalan Dinasti Ming tahun 1600-an telah diangkat pihak Co-mexsindo berupa keramik berjumlah 12.415 unit. Dalam satu hari, diturunkan 22 penyelam untuk mengangkat BMKT tersebut.

"Mungkin pengangkatan baru selesai dalam kurun waktu beberapa bulan ke depan. Ini mengingat faktor cuaca yang sangat menentukan kece-patan waktu pengangkatannya," kata Aji lagi.

Lokasi penemuan BMKT terletak pada $ derajat 28-768 lintang selatan dan 107 derajat 53-275 bujur timur dengan kedalaman 50 hingga 54 meter di bawah laut. Pengangkatan BMKT mengusung tema Project Belanakan I.

Seperti diketahui, ada sekitar 100 lebih pekerja yang berada dalam kapal tongkang, di. mana sekitar 50 persen merupakan operator dan eksekutor pengangkatan BMKT. Sedangkan sisanya merupakan anak buah kapal (ABK) serta petugas pengawas pengangkatan BMKT dari TNI, Polri, KKP, serta Ke-menterian Kebudayaan dan Pariwisata.

Ketika ditanya mengenai sejauh mana pengawasan yang dilakukan instansi terkait dalam proses pengangkatan BMKT, menurut Aji, semua instansi terkait berada dalam satu kapal dan terus mengawasi kegiatan yang dilakukan para kru pengangkatan BMKT itu.

Dengan demikian, sangat minim terjadi penyelewengan oleh perusahaan atau oknum pekerja terhadap harta karun BMKT.

Ini karena semua kegiatan yang dilakukan selalu berada dalam pengawasan ketat, termasuk pada saat penyelaman.

From News & Star

The heart of Carlisle is to be transformed into an outdoor theatre for a spectacular re-enactment of the sinking of the Titanic.

Carlisle Castle will provide a dramatic backdrop for Theatre Titanick’s dazzling 70-minute performance that will set sparks flying, fireworks shooting into the sky and water cascading across the stage.

A huge open-air set with seats will be constructed in the grounds of the English Heritage site and the stage will be dominated by the bow of the great ocean liner.

Set to an orchestra, the drama will begin with engineers constructing the Titanic and end with its legendary sinking. This remarkable production has proved a major hit around the world, including New York, Berlin and Sydney.

The story of the Titanic, which sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in April 1912, has a particular resonance in Cumbria. Thomas Henry Ismay, who founded the White Star Line – the company that built the doomed liner – was brought up in Maryport and started his seafaring career there.

The event is one of Lakes Alive’s outdoor arts events taking place across Cumbria during the summer. It is Cumbria’s contribution to the Legacy Trust UK programme which was set up to help build a lasting cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Julie Tait, the director of Kendal Arts International, which creates and directs Lakes Alive along with Manchester International Arts, said: “The atmospheric Carlisle Castle will offer a stunning setting for this epic performance that has amazed audiences across the globe.

“It is a mammoth show with pyrotechnics, fire, water and music by one of Europe’s leading outdoor performance companies. The scale, sheer drama and quality of the production has to be seen to be believed.”

The play begins with a symphony of clanging and screeching as engineers rush around to complete the Titanic on time.