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From RT

The chances of finding a message in a bottle are about the same as winning the lottery, but one Scottish fishing boat found two in the last six years, breaking its own world record after previously uncorking the world’s oldest message in a bottle.

Skipper Andrew Leaper from Shetland made his discovery off the coast of Scotland in April while working on the Copius fishing vessel. Guinness World Records has confirmed the find.

“The oldest message in a bottle spent 97 years and 309 days at sea,” Guinness announced. “The bottle was discovered 9.38 nautical miles from the position it was originally deployed.”

Leaper found the bottle by accident while pulling in his fishing nets.

When opened, the message in the bottle asked the finder to record the date and location of the discovery, and to return the drifting treasure to the Director of the Fishery Board of Scotland for a reward of six pence.

Numbered 646B and dated June 1914, the bottle had been cast into the sea by Captain CH Brown of the Glasgow School of Navigation.

It was part of a scientific attempt to monitor the undercurrents of the waters around Scotland.

To date, only 315 of the 1,890 bottles originally used in the experiment have been found. Each new find is being recorded by Marine Science Scotland.

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From The Maritime Executive

Titanic is an iconic shipwreck that has fascinated the public for a century.  But it also has a scientific and technological story to tell.

On Saturday, Sept. 8, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will host a public event entitled “Titanic in 3D: An Archaeological Exploration.”

The free presentations will be held at 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., & 3:30 p.m. in Redfield Auditorium, 45 Water St., Woods Hole. Reservations can be made online.

The program is an opportunity to hear first-hand from members of a 2010 expedition to Titanic, including Jim Delgado, a marine archaeologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Bill Lange, the director of WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Lab (AIVL), and his AIVL colleague Evan Kovacs.

Their presentation will describe the effort to create the most comprehensive map of the wreck site and will include 3D video clips from their work to explore and “virtually” preserve Titanic.

The work contributes to an effort by NOAA and the National Park Service, two U.S. agencies developing a “site formation plan” to tell the story of how the ship broke apart and where pieces of the ship fell to the seafloor. 

The stunning imagery they will show was collected by the WHOI AIVL during "Titanic Expedition 2010," an effort funded by Premier Exhibitions, Inc., the parent company of RMS Titanic, Inc., and is part of RMST’s overarching work to advance ongoing efforts to preserve the wreck site as a cultural heritage site.

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Photo Terri Bryce Reeves

By Terri Bryce Reeves - Tampa Bay Times

It was 1864 and the moon was full when the Maple Leaf steamed down the St. Johns River carrying Union troops and equipment to Jacksonville.

Lurking in the murky waters below: a dozen mines or "torpedoes" made from wooden kegs filled with 70 pounds of black powder.

When the transport vessel struck one, the explosion ripped apart the ship and killed four soldiers. The vessel sank and with it thousands of artifacts to be preserved in a muddy tomb for discovery 120 years later.

Now some of those artifacts can be seen at the Dunedin Historical Museum as part of a traveling exhibit called "The Maple Leaf: An American Civil War Shipwreck."

The exhibit is on loan from the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.

"What is unique about this shipwreck is that there were over 6,000 artifacts found, giving us a time capsule from the Civil War era," said Vinnie Luisi, executive director of the museum.

"It helps us understand what a Union soldier's life was like."

The large amount of civilian items found shows that widespread looting took place around the Union camps, he said.

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From WLFI

The wooden steamboat Montana has resurfaced on the Missouri River, thanks to the severe drought. Pieces of the sunken vessel are now clearly visible because of the near-record low water levels.

The Montana, built in 1882, was the largest vessel to ever travel the Missouri. It was longer than a football field.

The Montana struck an underwater tree in 1884 and was piloted ashore. The boat has been there ever since for the past 128 years. The Montana isn't the only shipwreck visible along the Missouri. But no treasure hunting allowed.

All of the shipwrecks on the Missouri belong to the state under federal law.

By susan Cocking - The Miami Herald

Some unidentified shipwrecks in Biscayne National Park have been plundered by divers who take artifacts illegally.

Divers who want to see the 6 sites can get information from the park service.

Scattered on the sandy bottom about 11 feet deep near Biscayne National Park’s Elliott Key are numerous ceramic shards guarded by schools of gray snapper and grunts.

The dusky white and bile green remnants of dinner plates and tea cups don’t look like much and they aren’t worth any money, even to television’s Pawn Stars. 

But those artifacts and some ancient burned timbers surrounding them have considerable cultural value as living snapshots of a long-ago, unsolved maritime mystery.

Chuck Lawson, archeologist and cultural resources manager at the park for the past two years, would love to identify the ship that carried all that china and find out where it was going and why it sank.

But it doesn’t help that divers have been plundering the wreckage illegally for years.

And that site, nicknamed “English China,” is one of more than 70 shipwrecks and artifact piles scattered throughout park waters that have been dug up, dredged and pillaged before their origins could be determined.

“Most of them will stay that way forever because people stole things off them in the 1960s and ’70s so you can’t tell who they were, where they were going, or what was on them,” Lawson said.

He’s a bit more optimistic about the English China site because of the large number of ceramic shards found there.

The crockery remnants have been positively identified as pieces made by England’s Staffordshire pottery sometime between 1765 and 1770.

By Annette Lambly - The Northern Advocate

While speculation may still remain as to the identity of a shipwreck found 30 years ago by locals at Pouto Point, near Dargaville, recent radio carbon dating of wood reveals it is New Zealand's oldest shipwreck.

The preliminary findings suggest the ill-fated ship sank around 1705, pre-dating Captain Cook's voyages by some 65 years .

Speaking at the Dargaville Museum this week, dendrochronologist, Dr Jonathan Palmer cautioned that his findings required further work before his research could be confirmed and published.

The wreck was discovered in 1982 by a local team led by Kaipara shipwreck explorer Noel Hilliam. A portion of a cross-member and rib was salvaged by the team, before the wreck was lost back to the sea under 30 metres of sand.

The wood (complete with iron nails) has been confirmed as teak (tectona grandis) and crepe myrtle (lagerstromei spp), both tropical woods, likely used for refitting at either Genoa or Java.

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By Ron Dicker - The Huffington Post

Ex-Navy pilot Bob Besal survived a mid-air jet collision in 1974 and later became a decorated war hero.

Last week, the 62-year-old discovered that the plane from which he ejected had a happy ending, too -- as a reef at the bottom of the Atlantic.

"That's absolutely remarkable," Besal told The Huffington Post on Wednesday. "It certainly shows the resilience of the ocean after having something like that burst into the middle of it."

Think It Sink It Reef It (TISIRI), a marine conservation company in Jacksonville, Fla., discovered the wreckage of Besal's Vought A-7C light attack plane last month, 20 miles east of St. Augustine, Fla.

TISIRI was able to link a data plate that Executive Director Joe Kistel unearthed on one of the dives to Besal's downed plane. When Kistel contacted Besal last week, the retired pilot confirmed it was a match for his jet.

Kistel told The Huffington Post that he was happy to report to Besal that the sunken plane, 80 feet below the surface, had generated a reef with a thriving eco system.

"He was surprised to say the least," Kistel said.

Besal doesn't dive, so Kistel said he'll probably invite Besal to go fishing over the crash site. Besal said he'll gladly accept.

"That will be a pretty cool conclusion, a good ending to the accident he had," Kistel said.

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From PR
 

Imagine navigating the Caribbean, scuba diving on lush coral reefs and picking up treasure that no one has touched for hundreds of years. Capt. Carl “Fizz” Fismer doesn't have to imagine.

As one of the last independent marine treasure hunters, this larger-than-life idealist and his dwindling posse of adventurers lead lives filled with mystique, intrigue and high-seas thrills.

But it's a lifestyle and passion that may soon disappear, relegated only to folk tales and legend as these champions of the sea find themselves increasingly mired in government regulations and the ever-present race against Time.

These salty dogs are the last of their kind, and they are quickly disappearing,” notes Director Karuna Eberl of Wandering Dog Films who has preserved many of their stories and adventures on tape.

Eberl is in the final stages of a crowdfunding campaign to finish the documentary with a bang – a final expedition to a mysterious shipwreck known as “The Boneyard.”

“Crowdfunding brings together enthusiasts from around the world to be a part of this important documentary project with appeal to history buffs, scientists, adventurers and dreamers alike,” notes Eberl.

Supporters can fund the project with contributions between $1.00 to $20,000.00 with associated premium perks at each of the different funding levels, and additional incentives for businesses.

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