HOT NEWS !

By Randy Boswell - Windsor Star

Relics from doomed ship hit the auction block on Wednesday in the biggest sale ever from 'Titanic'.

There's a ghostly deck chair and a heart-wrenching locket, a poignant last letter to a young man's parents, a White Star Line candy dish and a massive hunk of the doomed vessel's hull - anything and everything with a genuine link to the world's most famous shipwreck catastrophe seems to be up for grabs in time for the 100th anniversary of the RMS Titanic's first and last voyage.

But would-be buyers harbouring hopes of owning a piece of Titanic history might find their plans going the same way as the great luxury liner itself - lost in a sea of competitive bidders.

And given the feverish interest in Titanic-themed auctions ahead of Saturday's centenary of the April 1912 tragedy, it may be the bank accounts of winning bidders that are ultimately headed for a shocking plunge.

The biggest sale ever of Titanic relics is set to take place Wednesday in Richmond, VI., where more than 5,000 objects retrieved from the Atlantic Ocean seabed since the wreck's discovery in 1985 are to be auctioned by Guernsey's as a single collection - as ordered by a U.S. court - to preserve its historical integrity.

"Titanic is slowly being consumed by iron-eating microbes on the sea floor and, at some point in the not-too-distant future, it will be only a memory," Premier Exhibitions and RMS Titanic Inc.'s Mark Sellers, chairman of the firms that controversially plucked objects from the wreck site and later toured them at commercial exhibits, said in announcing the sale earlier this year.

"Many of the artifacts we've brought up from the site would have disintegrated and been lost forever had this company not risked life and limb, and spent millions of dollars and countless hours to raise and rehabilitate them using cutting-edge conservation techniques," Sellers said.

"After all of these efforts, we have determined that the time has come for us to transfer ownership of this collection to a steward who is able to continue our efforts and will preserve and honour her legacy."

Le mystère de l'USS Scorpion

By Dan Vergano - Tucson Citizen

Shipwreck disaster experts are calling for a deep-sea expedition to a lost U.S. nuclear attack sub, the USS Scorpion, in an effort to verify a new theory on what caused the Cold War vessel to sink.

The Scorpion was lost May 22, 1968, killing 99 men, about 400 miles south of the Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The sub has been inspected by undersea recovery teams, including a visit in 1985 by oceanographer Robert Ballard before his team’s discovery of the Titanic shipwreck.

The cause of the sub’s loss remains hotly disputed. A Navy Court of Inquiry found “the cause of the loss cannot be definitively ascertained.”

“The families of those 99 men are still out there, and they want to know what happened,” says former U.S. naval officer Paul Boyne, who presented a new mechanical explanation for the loss of the sub at a recent marine forensics symposium outside Washington.

Panelists at the event called for a summer expedition to the sub’s wreck, led by P.H. Nargeolet, another Titanic explorer, saying it might put to rest a multitude of theories about the Scorpion’s demise — ranging from a covert Soviet attack to a torpedo self-firing into the ship to a faulty trash disposal.

Evidence for a more mundane explanation comes from the sub’s propeller shaft, Boyne says. Undersea photographs show it rests about 20 yards outside the wreck on the seafloor, about 11,220 feet underwater.

Boyne suggests that rubber bearings holding the propeller shaft failed, putting stress on the coupling connecting it to the engine.

The coupling’s bolts failed catastrophically during a deep test dive, the theory goes, spilling water into the sub too rapidly to allow ballast maneuvers to raise the ship to the surface.

As support, Boyne points to the loss in 1963 of the USS Thresher, the only other nuclear submarine lost by the Navy. The Thresher suffered a similar crushing end but retained its propeller shaft within its hull.

By Philip R. Devlin and Michael Hayes - Darien Patch

Edward Kamuda, founder of the Titanic Historical Society (THS) and curator of its Titanic Museum in Indian Orchard, MA, remembers well how he first got hooked on the story of the Titanic.

He was in junior high school in Indian Orchard, a part of Springfield, MA, in the early 1950s, and his teacher required the class to read an essay and write about it. Ed chose “A Great Ship Goes Down,” by Hanson Baldwin. It was about the sinking of the Titanic. The experience changed his life.

Edward S. Kamuda started the Titanic Historical Society’s collection of survivors' artifacts in the early 1960s, and he and his wife, Karen, have been caring for it ever since.

The collection is housed in the back room of his family’s jewelry shop at 208 Main St. in Indian Orchard. Titanic survivors donated many of these artifacts to Ed himself.

The collection is diverse and includes an original blueprint for the ill-fated ship from its builders, Harland and Wolff, in Ireland, Mrs. John Jacob Astor’s lifejacket, a 9-foot-long, remote-controlled model of the ship, the ice warning message that never made it to the bridge, menus from the ship, various letters and postcards from the Titanic, a wooden breadboard, a piece of a railing and a deck chair picked up as flotsam from the site, photos, many books, film posters, and sheet music, among many other interesting items.

The museum also has artifacts from other ships, such as the bridge bell of the Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic, and a bronze bell from the cable ship Mackay-Bennett, a Halifax vessel dispatched to pick up the frozen bodies floating near the site of the disaster.

Something you won’t find at Ed’s museum are any artifacts that have been collected from the bottom of the ocean since the location of the ship was discovered in 1985.

As far as Ed is concerned, that site is a burial area and should never be disturbed: “Protect the Wreck!” is his motto.

In fact, Dr. Robert Ballard—the explorer who discovered the wreck and a man Ed knows well—and his team placed a bronze plaque on the Titanic for the Titanic Historical Society in memory of those who lost their lives.

Full story...

By Sonny Long - Victoria Advocate

A former Israeli paratrooper, an archaeologist and a university professor, Shelley Wachsmann is normally cool, calm and collected.

But he admits to a rush of excitement that day in 1986 when it became evident a ship that had been unearthed by his excavation team was indeed very, very old.

"I guess it was an even mixture of awe, joy and intense excitement," Wachsmann wrote of that moment in his book, "The Sea of Galilee Boat."

"I felt as if the air had been knocked out of my lungs, like the feeling you have standing on a very high and steep snow-swept mountain, with bright sunlight reflecting in your eyes and cold, dry air burning your lungs."

Wachsmann, a professor of biblical archaeology and the coordinator of the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University, will share his story of finding the biblical-era boat at the Yoakum A&M Club's Aggie Muster on April 21.

"It was an amazing, and truly humbling, experience," Wachsmann said in an email interview. "Early on, we realized that we were not just discovering history, we were also making it by excavating the first ancient boat in the Sea of Galilee.

"As the excavator in charge, I was constantly required to make decisions, any one of which could spell the destruction, or damage, to the boat.

"Additionally, the boat almost immediately became a media event, with film crews from major media outlets constantly filming and interviewing us. This made me feel like I was living in a glass fish bowl," he said.

Four years after the discovery of what is sometimes referred to as the "Jesus boat," Wachsmann joined the faculty at Texas A&M.

"At the time, as an Israeli nautical archaeologist, I realized that the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A&M University and its sister Institute of Nautical Archaeology, were leaders in the field," he said. "So when I was invited to join the faculty, first as a visiting associate professor, I thought that I had died and gone to heaven."

The nautical archaeology program at Texas A&M is a source of pride for Wachsmann, who was named an associate professor in 1999 and promoted to professor in 2010.

Full story...

From Paul Fraser Collectibles

The Apollo 11 mission was a milestone for mankind, and it inspires collectors to this day...

This week a story caught my eye that, to me, says everything about the power of historic memorabilia.

In 1969 a five-year old boy by the name of Jeff Bezos sat in front of the television with his family and, along with 530 million people around the world, watched as Neil Armstrong took his "one small step" onto the surface of the Moon.

As NASA's chief historian Steven Dick commented in an interview with National Geographic magazine; "Putting a man on the moon not only inspired the nation, but also the world."

It certainly inspired Jeff Bezos.

"Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration."

If the name Jeff Bezos sounds familiar to you, there's a good reason - in 1994 he took his experience as a computer analyst on Wall Street and founded an online retail business called Amazon.

The rest, as they say, is history.

But the power of watching the Apollo 11 mission stayed with him, as it has stayed with millions of others who watched it live. And it turned into a life-long passion which led him to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

A journey into the deep...

In 2011 Bezos decided to mount a search for the five enormous F-1 Rocket engines which launched Apollo 11 in such spectacular style. T

They detached from the ship and plunged back to earth just a few minutes later, lost in the ocean as Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins headed off to their date with destiny.

Full story...

 
Photo Antonie Robertson

By Colin Simpson - The National

A pearl diver wearing the traditional, light-coloured costume used by generations of Emirati treasure hunters reaches out for an oyster shell on the seabed off Jebel Ali.

Only his modern diving mask shows that the scene did not take place many decades ago, before the pearl industry collapsed in the 1930s.

It actually happened yesterday, thanks to a new initiative by the Emirates Marine Environmental Group (Emeg) and Jumeirah.

From tomorrow, members of the public can take part in a traditional pearl diving trip on a dhow, using authentic clothing and techniques.

Pearls were gathered in the Gulf for centuries and the industry was the only source of income for the seven emirates. But the development of much cheaper cultured pearls in Japan killed off the trade.

The new venture intends to draw attention to this important part of the UAE's heritage.

"This is a great thing. If you don't think about your traditions, you will lose all your future," said Major Ali Saqar Al Suweidi, the president of Emeg and the son and grandson of pearl divers. He said the Gulf's oyster beds had deteriorated greatly since the end of pearl diving.

"The old people believe that the oyster is like a plant," he said. "If you cut the plant it comes again, but if you leave it then it will be destroyed. This is what has happened - I've dived at many places and there are not as many oysters as before.

"I teach children to pearl dive. One said, 'I can't go pearl diving because a shark will eat me', and his grandfather was a pearl diver. I taught him, and in the end he loved pearl diving. This is in their blood."

At the industry's peak there were 500 pearl diving boats in Dubai and the fleet spent three months at sea each summer without returning to port.

Full story...

From Phys

Leading Monash University archaeologist Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Dr Mark Staniforth from the School of Geography and Environmental Science and a 60-person team will examine the excavation, reburial and preservation of the Clarence, a historically significant colonial wooden trading vessel wrecked off Portarlington in 1850.

Dr. Staniforth, a specialist in Australian colonial shipbuilding and maritime archaeological excavation and one of three chief investigators on the three-year Australian Historic Shipwreck Preservation Project (AHSPP) said Australian wooden shipwrecks had huge potential to tell us about historic connections, technological innovation and daily life in colonial Australia.

“Their archaeological potential is often under enormous threat from natural and human impacts and we must find ways to preserve them for future generations,” Dr. Staniforth said.

“One of the main aims of the project is to develop a protocol for the excavation, recording and reburial, as well as the preservation of significant shipwrecks and their associated artefacts on the sea bed.”

Excavation work will start on the site on 16 April and continue for a month. It will involve maritime archaeologists and conservators from Monash University, UWA, the Australian National University, the Western Australia Museum, the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology, and many State and Territory museums and heritage authorities as well as students and volunteers.

Six maritime archaeologists from Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines New Zealand and the USA have also been invited to participate in the research.

Full story...