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From BBC News

The wreck of an Elizabethan merchant ship is being transported to a new home in Leicestershire after being raised from a Portsmouth lake.

The so-called Gresham Ship has been 6m (20ft) underwater at Horsea Island Lake since being moved there after its discovery in the River Thames in 2003.

A large crane was used to lift the 400-year-old wreck for the journey to the Stoney Cove National Diving Centre.

Project director Mark Beattie-Edwards said the ship was "in good order".

Its destination is the National Diving Centre - a flooded quarry at Stoney Cove - where it will be used as an "underwater classroom" to train nautical archaeologists.

The convoy is due to leave Portsmouth at 05:30 BST and make its way along the M27, M3, M25 and M1.

It is due to arrive in Leicestershire around lunchtime.

On Monday and Tuesday, a team of eight divers working for the Nautical Archaeology Society raised iron bars, the ship's anchor and 400-year-old pieces of timber, the largest of which is more than 8m (26ft) long and weighs 8 tonnes.

From The Associated Press

Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the conventional theory that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes rather than risking the open sea, an official said Tuesday.

Greece's culture ministry said the two third-century wrecks were discovered earlier this month during a survey of an area where a Greek-Italian gas pipeline is to be sunk. They lay between 1.2 and 1.4 kilometres (0.7-0.9 miles) deep in the sea between Corfu and Italy.

That would place them among the deepest known ancient wrecks in the Mediterranean, apart from remains found in 1999 of an older vessel some 3 kilometres (1.8 miles) deep off Cyprus.

Angeliki Simossi, head of Greece's underwater antiquities department, said sunken ancient ships are generally found 30-40 metres (100-130 feet) deep.

Most scholars believe that ancient traders were unwilling to veer far offshore, unlike warships which were unburdened by ballast and cargo.

"There are many Roman shipwrecks, but these are in deep waters. They were not sailing close to the coast," Simossi said.

"The conventional theory was that, as these were small vessels up to 25 metres (80 feet) long, they did not have the capacity to navigate far from the coast, so that if there was a wreck they would be close enough to the coast to save the crew," she said.

U.S. archaeologist Brendan Foley, who was not involved in the project, said a series of ancient wrecks located far from land over the past 15 years has forced experts to reconsider the coast-hugging theory.

"The Ministry of Culture's latest discoveries are crucial hard data showing the actual patterns of ancient seafaring and commerce," said Foley, a deep water archaeology expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Jeffrey Royal, director of the Key West, Florida, based RPM Nautical Foundation, said that in many cases -- as when winds threatened to push ships onto rocks -- ancient mariners made a conscious effort to avoid coastal waters.

Royal, whose foundation has carried out a series of Mediterranean underwater projects, said the depth of such finds is immaterial from an archaeological standpoint.

Full story...

From Expatica

A US treasure-hunting company recently failed in its attempt to claim ownership of the 500 million treasure trove it discovered off the Spanish coast.

The dispute over the booty of the Mercedes had drawn in Spain's government, a US court and Washington lawmakers.

With the Mercedes treasure safe in Spain, the five-year legal battle over an estimated 594,000 silver and gold coins recovered from a 19th-century shipwreck finally came to a close earlier this month.

Not only was it a costly public dispute for all parties engaged, but it involved a canny behind-the-scenes ruse blending greed, deceit, political intrigue and even mutiny within Odyssey Marine Exploration, which eventually saw all the half-million historic minted pieces plucked from its hands after losing one court battle after another.

The Tampa-based underwater salvager fought hard to keep the trove, but to no avail. On May 14, the US Supreme Court rejected Odysseys final appeal in the company’s last-ditch hope not only to remain with the coins but also to set a precedent in international finders-keepers litigation.

Odyssey made a global splash in May 2007 when it announced it had recovered what it billed as the biggest shipwreck treasure in modern history – a 17-ton trove of artefacts plucked from the Atlantic, including silver and gold pieces valued at about 500 million.

But while it lodged a tooth-and-nail fight with Spain – which always insisted that the treasure belonged to the government because it came from a navy shipwreck – to keep possession of the discovery, it made generous political contributions to US congressmen with the hope of persuading them to change the law before the courts made their final ruling.

The company even backed a criminal complaint against one of the discoverers of the treasure who tried to make money on the stock market on the back of the find.

Records from the US Federal Elections Commission and the US Security Exchange Commission during this period show that Odyssey was actively engaging in covert strategies to keep others from profiting from its discovery.

But in the end,Odyssey, a publicly traded firm listed on the NASDAQ, lost all the legal arguments. The coins and other artefacts, including cannons, gold boxes, wooden fragments, pottery and jewellery, were put on two Hercules C-130 cargo planes sent by the Spanish military and transported to Torrejn air force base in late February.

The entire booty is being guarded at a secret location by the Civil Guard under orders from the Cultural Ministry, which hopes to put it on display soon.

By Adam Linhardt - Keys News
 

The Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes' $500 million worth of centuries-old coins and other treasure will remain in Spain, not in the hands of the Tampa-based salvors who found it or the wealthy South American families who say it belonged to their ancestors.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by lawyers for Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc., and Key West attorney David Paul Horan, who represented the descendants.

Horan filed a brief in March asking the justices to order Spain to return 23 tons of silver and gold coins to the families whose ancestors allegedly owned the treasure when the Spanish galleon sank off Portugal in 1804.

That was in response to an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals order that the Odyssey group, which found the treasure in 2007, turn it over to Spain.

The justices' decision not to hear the case -- they filed no written comment in their dismissal -- effectively drives a final nail in the coffin for any remaining hope that the treasure will ever leave Spain, said Washington D.C.-based attorney Jim Goold, who represented Spain in the legal wrangling.

"The Supreme Court decision closes the books and makes victory for Spain final," Goold said.

"The treasure is in Spain, where it is being inventoried and conserved by the Spanish National Museum of Archaeology, where it will be placed in public exhibits for the public benefit."

Spain successfully argued that U.S. courts are bound by international maritime law and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which essentially state that foreign warships on military missions are exempt from U.S. court jurisdiction.

Similarly, most U.S. warships and those of her allies that are sunk in battle are protected from salvagers, as many governments view them as sacred mass grave sites.

"These materials are for public benefit and, just like other archaeology discoveries, they don't belong hung on chains around the necks of collectors," Goold said. Goold knew of no other legal recourse for the Odyssey group or South American families, but Horan's clients are holding out hope.

Some of the treasure apparently didn't make it to Tampa, and then to Spain, and instead was held in the tiny British territory of Gibraltar at the entrance of the Mediterranean.

By James Ewinger - The Plain Dealer

A mournful headline in the Daily Cleveland Herald marked the passing of the Sultan during a storm in 1864, a few miles offshore from what is now the Collinwood neighborhood.

The 148-year-old wreck got a marker of a different sort Saturday, when 15 divers placed a white-and-blue buoy over the site, then made multiple dives to view the ship, which still lies in 45 feet of water in Lake Erie.

The buoy will make it easier for recreational divers to explore the ship and will protect a significant historical artifact for future generations.

The most dramatic sight "was all the grindstones still on the deck," part of the vessel's cargo, said Chris Kraska of the private nonprofit Maritime Survey Team, or MAST. "One appeared to be 6 feet across."

The sunken vessel, which perished as it sailed from Cleveland, was discovered in the 1980s but went unreported. It was found a second time last year by the Cleveland Underwater Explorers, or CLUE, said David VanZandt, that group's chief archaeologist.

A CLUE PowerPoint presentation said the Sultan was launched in 1848 in Chicago. It would spend 16 years hauling passengers and cargo on the Great Lakes and along the East Coast.

Full story... 

By Petti Fong - The Star

Dave Martynuik posted a jaunty message on his Facebook page May 7: “Prawnin ! See you in July.”

Two days later, disaster struck.

Despite being a clear day, strong waves hit and engulfed his boat, MV Pacific Siren. Martynuik and his fishing companions — brother Brian and friend Jesse Brillon — got into their life raft just in time to the see their vessel go down in the Hecate Strait off the coast of northern B.C.

After being lost at sea for several hours, the trio reached land — Banks Island across from Haida Gwaii. But their adventure was only beginning. For the next 10 days they were stranded on the remote island, living off seaweed and clams and foraging debris that had washed ashore.

“When we finally got to land after all those hours wet and sitting in water in that boat, we looked at each other and one of us said, ‘Well boys, we’re on our own,’ ” Brillon said.

The fishermen said they knew it would take a long time before they would be rescued.

The remote island is uninhabited and without any communications devices so their only chance of being rescued was to be spotted by someone sailing past or flying past. A plane flew by just once during their 10 days there.

Brillon set about looking for materials that could be used to signal for help while Dave Martynuik and Brian Martynuik went in search of water and debris that could be fashioned into shelter. What they found was an isolated island, where tonnes of junk had washed ashore. They fashioned shoes out of Styrofoam for Brian Martynuik, a size 13. His brother, a size 10, was able to find one Croc and one sandal that fit him.

Brillon found an oil drum with oil still inside and used it as paint to write out SOS.

“There were thousands of plastic bottles, ping pong balls, flip flops. Tonnes of junk and I looked for the brightest colour junk to hang around the shore and put it on the highest point to make ourselves visible,” said Brillon. 72MFS4UZZK5U

Full story...

From Bayside Bulletin

Redland boaties are being asked to help document shipwrecks off the Queensland coast as part of National Archaeological Week, which ends on Sunday (20 - 26 May).

Boaties with any information on shipwreck sites along the east coast can contribute to a five-year Queensland Historic Shipwreck Survey being run by the state government.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell said along with details of shipwrecks, the department wanted information on dive sites, unusual fishing spots or net “hook ups” and photographs, drawings or family records of shipwrecks.

Mr Powell said the survey team would dive around wrecks and use sensing surveys of Moreton Bay.

Information gathered would be used to update the Australian National Shipwreck Database. The location of the Grace Darling wreck, near Bulwer on Moreton Island, was verified in September, thanks to information from the local diving community.

Marine archaeologists estimate more than 1400 ships have been wrecked or abandoned along the Queensland coast since the 18th century.

“While we know the locations of ships that were deliberately scuttled on beaches and foreshores or abandoned up rivers and creeks, others were lost at sea and never seen again and we are keen to find exactly where those wrecks are," Mr Powell said.

To be declared “historic” ships must be wrecked for 75 years or more.

From the Destin Log

A trail of a different kind will soon be passing through Destin.

The Panhandle Shipwreck Trail, which stretches from Port St. Joe to Pensacola, will feature 12 shipwrecks for divers to explore.

The Miss Louise, a 95-foot tugboat just off Destin, will be one of the dozen stops along the trail.

“We do a lot of our training there,” said Capt. Nancy Birchett, co-owner of Scuba Tech in Destin.

“It’s the shallowest dive in Destin,” which makes it a good training ground, she said.

The Miss Louise was sunk in 1997 as part of the artificial reef program. The tugboat lies at 57 feet with a 15-foot profile.

Birchett was out near the site the day the Miss Louise was sank.

“They started pulling the plugs on it and it didn’t want to go down,” she said.

Birchett started doing circles in her boat around the tugboat. “I threw up enough wake on it to sink it.

Birchett was one of the first to dive the Miss Louise.

“I dove it as soon as it went down and saw a mola mola,” she said. In the early days after it went down, Birchett also saw a whale shark hanging around on the tugboat.

“It’s right there on the beach … it’s a nice spot to dive.”

Scuba Tech diving instructor Mary Ann Epp, who just dove the Miss Louise Thursday, said it is a gathering spot for schools of fish.

“It’s like swimming in a fish bowl with all the fish around you,” Epp said.

On Thursday, divers even saw a 3-inch seahorse.

Other fish that have been spotted around the Miss Louise include spadefish, mackerel and tropical fish. Goliath grouper have also been known to hangout around the tugboat.

In fact, there are reports of a 200-pound goliath haunting the Miss Louise.