HOT NEWS !

By Christopher Solomon - Smithsonian

Among the old-timers casting for stripers along the Arthur Kill between Staten Island and New Jersey talk tends to return to a few well-thumbed topics.

The most intriguing of these is the tale of the silver ingot that once snagged in the eel trident of the old Indian fisherman named Blood. From there, conversation invariably turns to the Lost Guggenheim Treasure.

On the still, moonlit night of September 26, 1903, a tug urged the barge Harold out of what’s today the South Street Seaport and south past the Statue of Liberty.

The Harold’s load that night was nearly 7,700 silver-and-lead bars. They were destined for the glowing Asarco smelters of Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The silver, and the smelters, belonged to the Guggenheim family, which had made its fortune in mining and smelting.

The cargo never arrived, at least in one batch. Somewhere in the Arthur Kill tidal strait the Harold tipped, sending most of the silver bars to the bottom.

The barge’s deckhands—“dumbest skunks I ever had to do with,” the salvage company’s owner later told the New York Times—didn’t notice until docking at dawn.

A secret salvage effort recovered about 85 percent of the bars, but that still left up to 1,400 “pigs” unfound. Today they could be worth $20 million.

One morning last fall, Ken Hayes set out to find himself some sunken treasure—that is, if no one got to Hayes, or to the treasure, first.

Hayes is president and founder of Aqua Survey, a Flemington, N.J., company that usually grabs sediment from the bottom of waterways for clients like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In recent years Aqua Survey also has gained a reputation for looking for less mundane things someone has lost underwater: Spanish doubloons off Key West. Fighter planes in the Bermuda Triangle. UFOs off Catalina Island.

Read more...

By Sandra mcCulloch - Times Colonist

Five Victoria divers and one from Cowichan plan to be 240 feet under the surface of Indian Arm Inlet near Vancouver this weekend, exploring the remains of a historic vessel that was scuttled in 1936.

Chris Fenton, a commerce student at the University of Victoria, heads a team set to explore the 216-foot-long wreck of the SS Amur, also named the SS Famous, at the request of the Underwater Archeological Society of B.C.

The group, which also includes two divers from Richmond, did a previous underwater exploration of a wreck for the UASBC in the water off Royal Roads University where they found an old wooden sailing ship that was intact.

This type of exploration is called technical diving, requiring training beyond that of recreational scuba divers and using specialized equipment.

"We like to say it's safe but if you make mistakes on these kinds of dives, the consequences are pretty extreme," said Fenton.

The Famous/Amur was launched in England in 1890. It worked in Siberia and China before sailing to Victoria to transport gold miners to Wrangell, Alaska, from where they hoped to get rich in the Gold Rush of 1898. Later, the vessel returned to China, moved on to Japan and then Australia.

The vessel then returned to Canada after being purchased by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Its last owners deliberately sank the Famous/Amur in Indian Arm. It was rediscovered in the summer of 2007 during an underwater survey by the Canadian Hydrographic Service.

Since the vessel is too deep for recreational divers to reach, the UASBC sent a remotely operated vehicle to the site. The ROV sent up blurry images which were enough to raise interest of society members.

By Ashleshaa Khurana - Times of India

Burned and scuttled off the Carribean in the 17th century, The Quedagh Merchant, an Armenian trade vessel that was built in Gujarat and hijacked by the notorious William Kidd — whose story inspired 'Treasure Island' — is preparing for a return to her homeland as a 'living museum'.

Shiver me shattered timbers" screamed headlines across the world, when the 310-year-old , barnacle-covered , coral-encrusted 'The Quedagh Merchant' was discovered in the pristine seas off the Dominican Republic, 70 feet off Catalina Island.

This was no ordinary vessel — it was stuff that legends are made of, on the hot list of every treasure hunter.

The Quedagh Merchant, alias Cara Merchant, belonged to the notorious Captain William Kidd — a Scottish privateer-turned-pirate who was hanged after a summary trial in London in 1701. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug are some among the works of pirate lore inspired by Kidd's story.

Now, three years after this find, Charles D Beeker, director of Underwater Science and Academics at Indiana University, USA, is preparing to visit the Gujarati city of Surat, where the ship was built in the 17th century, for "a presentation on a unique and significant aspect" of India's maritime lore.

Read more...

By M Dee Dubroff - Amog

The mysterious mechanism was discovered in 1900 in the wreck of a Roman vessel off the Greek island of Antikythera.

The ship held other treasures that were taken over by the Greek government, but one of the items retrieved by the divers was an odd-looking corroded lump of some kind.

When the lump fell apart some time later, a damaged machine of unknown purpose was revealed. It bore large gears, small cogs and a few words engraved in Greek.

At first it was believed to be some kind of astronomical time-keeping device. One researcher in particular, Derek J. de Solla Price, established initial tooth counts and believed that the device followed what is known as the Metonic cycle, which in the ancient world was used to predict eclipses.

The full function of this odd device remained a mystery until recently. Advances in photography and x-rays have revealed the true complexity of this astonishing creation that, anachronistically speaking, is akin to finding the remnants of a supersonic jet plane in the ruins of ancient Egypt.

Photography unlocked many of the mysteries of this device by exposing its surfaces to varying lighting patterns, which in turn created different levels of contrast. Researchers were then able to read more of the inscribed text than was previously possible.

Details of the interactions of the gears were quite complex and clearly revealed through the marvels of x-ray imaging and the creation of 3-D computer models of the mechanism.

The Greek National Archaeological Museum also found some boxes filled with 82 mechanism fragments.

Read more...

By Beth Hale - Mail Online

She may have been a mongrel, but in the finest tradition of seafaring, this old sea dog went down with her ship. And there she stayed, on the seabed - for the next four and half centuries.

The unfortunate hound was on board Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose when the ill-fated warship sank to the bottom of the Solent on July 19, 1545.

The dog, now preserved as an almost complete canine skeleton, acquired the nickname Hatch after divers discovered her remains near the sliding hatch door of the Mary Rose’s carpenter’s cabin.

Experts believe the hound, estimated to have been between 18 months and two years old, earned her keep as the ship's ratter – superstitious Tudor seafarers did not have cats on board ship as they were thought to bring bad luck.

And she was probably very good at her job – only the partial remains of rats’ skeletons have been found on board the Mary Rose.

By contrast Hatch's skeleton is remarkable for how well it has been preserved, it is 99 per cent complete with a just a few teeth and a few paw bones missing.

After 34 years at sea and three wars, the Mary Rose had been regarded by many as invincible.

Then, as she defended England from a French invasion force, she sank taking with her 500 men and a treasure trove of Tudor history with her to the seafloor.

So complete was the Mary Rose's demise that even the rats didn't even the chance to leave the sinking ship, as experts discovered when they brought the vessel and her contents (rodent skeletons included) back to the surface.

But the rats on board ship didn't stand much of a chance back in the 16th century, not with Hatch on board.

Read more...

From Directions Magazine

The “AMAP2 - Characterising the Potential for Wrecks” project (AMAP2), commissioned in October 2009, is a collaborative project between SeaZone and the University of Southampton (UoS) which seeks to improve the management of the marine historic environment through the interoperability of reference and archaeological data for marine spatial planning.

The aim of the AMAP2 project is to study relationships between the survival of shipwrecks and the natural environment. The results will be used to develop a characterisation of areas of maritime archaeological potential (AMAP) based on the environmental parameters affecting the survival of wrecks in seabed sediments, thus providing the basis for a more justified assessment of potential for unrecorded wrecks.

Following the success of the AMAP1 pilot project in 2008, the AMAP2 project seeks to further the monitoring, mitigation and management of the marine environment for offshore industries such as renewable energy and marine aggregates by facilitating the assessment of potential threats to archaeological assets.

This will be achieved by:

(1) comparing and unifying wreck data acquired by the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) and held at English Heritage’s National Monument Record (NMR);

(2) developing interoperability between the wreck data published in SeaZone HydroSpatial and historical data available from the NMR, thereby enhancing the usefulness and accessibility of both datasets; and

(3) analysing the statistical relationships between maritime archaeological data and the environment.

Improving the understanding of the relationships between wrecks and their environment, coupled with the results of seabed modelling undertaken by UoS, will provide a firm basis for interpreting the variables which affect the potential for wrecks to survive in different seabed conditions.

From Yahoo Finance

For the full year 2009, Odyssey reported revenues of $4.3 million, compared to $4.1 million in 2008 while operating expenses decreased $6.4 million from $29.1 million in 2008 to $22.7 million in 2009.

The company reported a net loss of $18.6 million for the full year 2009, compared to a net loss of $24.8 million in 2008. The net loss per share for the full year 2009 was $0.33, compared to a net loss per share of $0.50 in 2008.

"We are pleased with the results of our 2009 operations, which despite some interesting challenges, saw some key strategic opportunities realized that I believe will have a profound effect on our business going forward.

Several significant announcements made in late 2009 and early 2010 represent outstanding new opportunities for Odyssey, including the intention to syndicate multiple shipwreck projects with Robert Fraser & Partners that will mirror the structure of the "Enigma" project already executed.

Taking into account expected revenue from multiple sources including these syndicated projects, we believe our current cash position is sufficient to fund operating cash flows through 2010, barring unforeseen circumstances," said Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm.

"Also in 2009, we acquired a stake in a venture to pursue the exploration of deep-ocean gold and copper deposits.

By providing our technical expertise and certain marine assets, we believe this will provide a lucrative future opportunity and is a natural extension to leverage our core competencies in deep-ocean exploration," stated Stemm.

"In 2010, Odyssey will remain focused on continuing to strengthen our relations with several governments to conduct shipwreck searches with no upfront cost to taxpayers while returning cultural heritage and economic value to the governments.

In September 2009, the UK Government awarded Odyssey a salvage award for the two cannon recovered from HMS Victory, while discussions continue to determine future plans for the site.

The UK Government also awarded the exclusive salvage contract to Odyssey for the cargo of silver from the SS Gairsoppa," continued Stemm.

"We have a very ambitious operational schedule planned for 2010, with seven separate projects planned, utilizing at least three ships as well as some outstanding new deep ocean assets we have just acquired.

We also have some interesting new technology on the drawing board that will extend our capabilities to a depth of 6,000 meters."

By Catherine Kozak - The Virginian-Pilot

Legend has it that Alexander Hamilton, the early American statesman, gave the Outer Banks its colorful moniker, one that over time came to romanticize what mariners once dreaded.

According to author Ben Dixon MacNeill in "The Hatterasman," published in 1958, Hamilton "passed Cape Hatteras on a summer night in 1773 and thereafter remembering the night's terror, he spoke of that portion of the sea as the Graveyard of the Atlantic."

Hamilton's story was a creation of the imaginative MacNeill, said Kevin Duffus, author of the 2007 "Shipwrecks of the Outer Banks, An Illustrated Guide."

"Unfortunately," Duffus said, "many, many writers and historians have repeated this."

Over the years, "Graveyard of the Atlantic" has come to broadly describe the area where an extraordinary number of shipwrecks are scattered off the waters of the Outer Banks, or more correctly, off the coast from Cape Henry to Cape Fear.

Hamilton, who as U.S. secretary of the treasury under George Washington encouraged construction of coastal lighthouses, was on a vessel heading from the West Indies to Boston at age 14 when the ship caught fire.

But there is nothing in historic records indicating that Hamilton was off the coast of Hatteras when his boat caught fire, Duffus said, or that the ominous description can be attributed to him.

"Nowhere in Alexander Hamilton's personal writings did he ever say that he was in danger of being shipwrecked off the Outer Banks," Duffus said.

Read more...