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By  Brendan Kirby - Al

A federal judge ruled Monday that a local man and his family have no claim to a shipwreck discovered at the mouth of Mobile Bay 7½ years ago.

In an opinion laced with whimsical references to the 1960s sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele agreed with the conclusion made by the explorer who found the shipwreck — that it is the British barque Amstel and not the clipper ship Robert H. Dixey.

Thus, the judge wrote, descendents of the Dixey’s captain — who was named Richard Dixey — have no claim to the ship or its cargo.

The explorer, David Anderson, could not be reached for comment. Nor could his legal representative. An attorney for the Dixey descendants, David Bagwell, said via email that he could not comment.

Steele gave lawyers for Anderson’s company, Fathom Exploration, and the state of Alabama until April 9 to recommend a procedure to determine whether the ship was legally abandoned, which would determine whether the state has a claim to the wreck.

The judge wrote that there is no “‘smoking gun’ evidence’ to definitively determine that the wreck is the Amstel. He wrote, “No direct proof has been found (or is likely ever to be found) carved into a beam, fitting, equipment, dishes, or bell.” 

And he expressed discomfort with settling the issue, writing that “the proper identity of Shipwreck #1 is a matter better suited for spirited scholarly discourse than black-letter judicial construction.

Yet the parties have submitted their dispute to a federal judge, not a 19th century maritime historian.”

Full story...

From Fox News Latino

Peruvians feel robbed over a decision by the U.S. courts to give Spain 17 tons of silver and gold coins that a private company retrieved from a wreck of a colonial-era sailing ship.

The treasure's origin is not in dispute. The metals were mined and the coins minted in the Andes. The Spanish navy frigate that was carrying them to Spain exploded during an attack by British warships in 1804.

Peru argued it should get the precious metal recovered from the Nuestra Senora de Las Mercedes. But its legal case was sunk in large part by a historical fact: This country was, at the time, a Spanish dependency. It didn't gain independence until 1821, the last bastion of Spanish rule in South America.

"It is uncontested that the Mercedes is the property of Spain," a three-judge U.S. appeals court ruled in September.

Many Peruvians, however, feel they are entitled to the booty because of colonial Spain's violent, exploitative legacy.
Countless natives of the Andes were forced to abandon home and family and toil in life-choking conditions extracting ore underground.

"Spain's progenitors were genocidal to our progenitors, the indigenous of Peru, thousands if not millions of whom died in underground mines going after that metal," said Rodolfo Rojas Villanueva, an activist with the eco-cultural movement Patria Verde.

Other Peruvians would be happy to get a share of the 594,000 coins, whose value has been estimated at $500 million, not so much as reparations but because they are Peru's heritage.

Spanish officials flatly reject any Peruvian claim.

Spain's culture minister, Jose Ignacio Wert, received the treasure with considerable fanfare Feb. 27 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid by Peru to halt the shipment. Wert said U.S. courts were clear: "The legacy of the Mercedes belongs to Spain."

The coins, mostly silver reals but also gold doubloons, came from ore mined in present-day Peru and Bolivia and likely also Colombia and Chile. It's not clear exactly what portion was minted in Lima, Spain's continental capital after its conquistadors subjugated the Incas.

Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, recovered the treasure in 2007 about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of the Strait of Gibraltar and placed it in the custody of U.S. courts, which declared the find exempt from their jurisdiction and ordered it turned over to Spain.

Peru and Odyssey have appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to overturn those rulings.
Peru's government says the coins are the country's patrimony.

"There existed an entity, a country that had not yet become independent but was a territory that later converted itself into an independent country, that is called Peru," said Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde, foreign minister in the 2006-2011 government of President Alan Garcia.

"The money belonged to that territory."

Peru's ambassador in Washington, Harold Forsyth, put it less abstractly: "The ship departed from the port of Callao (adjacent to Lima) with a cargo of coins minted in Peru, extracted from Peruvian mines with arms and sweat of Peruvians."

Peru has fought previously for archaeological artifacts lost to the developed world. Under Garcia, it successfully campaigned to persuade Yale University to agree to return hundreds of items taken from the famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu a century ago by the U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham.

In the case of Las Mercedes, it is not just Odyssey and Peru laying claim to the doubloons and reals.

Others include descendants of the ship's captain, Diego de Alvear Ponce de Leon, and of merchants who Odyssey says collectively owned three-quarters of the coins.

Those merchants paid Spain a 1 percent conveyance tax.

From Coast Explorer

Beeswax, porcelain and teak timbers, among other artifacts, have been found along Manzanita's beaches and the adjacent Nehalem Spit and Bay.

Ahh, shipwreck treasure... perhaps no other subject is quite as magical, and I grew up with that magic.

I was born just six miles from the wreck of Gold Rush paddle steamer Brother Jonathan, which took $500,000 in gold to the bottom just off Crescent City, California in 1865, and grew up listening to Dad spin tales of lost gold mines, sunken ships and, with the fire glowing bright and a glass of sweet wine in his hand, the fables of treasures to satiate desire.

When I landed in Key Largo, Florida as a teen, I jumped in the water and never looked back.

After hundreds of dives on Spanish galleons and other historic shipwrecks around the world, the question I'm most often asked these days is: Are there any Spanish galleon shipwrecks off the Oregon coast ?

Had I been asked that question in the Keys, I would have said, "No." But when I moved back to the Oregon coast in 2010, it wasn't long before I heard the intriguing story of the "beeswax wreck" reputed to lie somewhere in the surf beyond the sleepy seaside town of Manzanita, just south of Cannon Beach.

These stories told of large blocks of beeswax (some weighing 175 lbs.) with strange markings on them, teak wood timbers and delicate Chinese porcelains which had been washing up on the beach for the last several hundred years. My first thought ? A Manila galleon !

These Spanish trade ships sailed from Acapulco, New Spain (present day Mexico) to Manila, the Spanish capital of the Philippines, for 250 years, delivering silver from New World mines in exchange for the fabled silks and spices of the East.

Full story...

By Eoghan Macguire - The Denver Channel

Deep sea treasure hunters may evoke storybook images of swashbuckling buccaneers on daring ocean adventures.
For those in the rapidly expanding sector of marine archeology however, scouring the depths of the sea for sunken riches is business -- big business.

"There are multi-hundreds of billions of dollars of potential in this industry," says Sean Tucker, founder and managing member of Galleon Ventures, a U.S. based historical  shipwreck and salvage exploration company.

"Treasure bearing ships that have historical artifacts, coins, emeralds" dating back hundreds of years are lying at the bottom of the sea just waiting to be brought to the surface, he adds.

UNESCO estimates there to be as many as three million shipwrecks scattered across the bottom of the world's oceans.

Although Tucker points out that only 30,000 of these are likely to bear treasure of any value, discoveries such as the $3 billion of platinum located on a World War II merchant vessel by American salvage company, Sub Sea Research, last month confirm the industry's potential.

The possibility to reap such bountiful rewards has inevitably led to increased industry investment in recent years, says Tucker.

Hedge funds, private equity firms as well as cash rich individual investors have all been eager to provide the capital to back increasingly specialized treasure ventures.

As a result, the biggest salvage companies are now able to utilize the same advanced tools used by big oil firms to locate deep sea drilling opportunities, explains Tucker.

The most expensive exploration projects, which are almost always in a deep sea environment, can cost in the region of $30 million dollars to undertake, he adds.

High tech developments are a logical progression for a sector where the rewards for success are so high.

But Tucker also points out that the potential to make vast profits has led some companies to explore wrecks that modern day governments still claim ownership over without permission.

From Paul Fraser Collectibles

A lot of buzz surrounds rare manuscripts from RMS Titanic at the moment. Recent sales have included the auctioning of two important letters in Oceanside, New York, US, on March 2.

Now a UK auction house is following suit.

Included in its April 4 auction is a letter written by Charles Morgan. Mr Morgan was from Birkenhead, UK, and worked aboard Titanic. But, like 1,157 of his fellow passengers, Charles didn't survive the sinking.

His letter did, however. The note was among a cache of letters sent from RMS Titanic as she passed Queenstown in Ireland, today known as Cobh.

As with the two letters mentioned above, Morgan's note is scribed on Titanic-headed paper.

The note, written by 41-year-old Charles to his mother, is headed "April 11 near Queenstown". He writes: "We have had a nice run so far but have been terribly busy but it will be easier when we settle down."

"There are about 1000 passengers 1st 2nd 3rd which is not too many for a ship like this she is simply magnificent."
Tragically, Charles ends the letter with the words "Best love to everybody, Charlie ... Due back in Southampton 27th April."

By Nestor P. Burgos Jr - Inquirer Visayas

The National Museum has asked the Roxas City government to declare a shipwreck area off the coast of Capiz’s capital a cultural and heritage site to help prevent the looting of artifacts, some dating to the 14th century.

Edwin dela Rosa, senior researcher of the museum’s cultural properties division, said his office had requested the city council through Mayor Alan Celino to pass a resolution or ordinance declaring the area in Barangay (village) Culasi a heritage site.

“This would ensure that the area will be protected because we have already received reports of continued lootings by divers in the area,” Dela Rosa told the Inquirer in a telephone interview yesterday.

Celino said the city government was willing to pass the ordinance to ensure that the area will be protected and to convert it into a tourist site.

A two-member team from the underwater section of the National Museum’s archaeology division inspected the shipwreck and gathered samples last week after receiving reports that centuries-old porcelain materials had already been recovered and sold to collectors.

The porcelain materials were most likely from the Ming (1368-1644) and Ching (1644-1911) dynasties, Dela Rosa said.

The ship that sank to a depth of 130 feet is believed to be a Chinese trade vessel or a Spanish galleon.

The National Museum learned of the shipwreck three weeks ago and that at least 70 pieces of porcelain materials believed to have been stashed from the wreckage were being sold to collectors.

Full story...

From The Raleigh Telegram

Recovered artifacts from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the sunken ship of famous pirate Blackbeard’s sunken ship, will be on display and open to the public next month.

Items that will be part of the open house will include a 12 foot anchor and a ship’s cannon that is over eight feet long.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab at East Carolina University in Greenville will host an open house on Saturday, April 21st, from 11am to 3pm as underwater archaeologists will demonstrate the process of taking artifacts from ocean floor to museum door.

Queen Anne’s Revenge is Blackbeard’s flagship that ran aground near Beaufort, North Carolina in 1718 and was abandoned by the pirate. Some have speculated that the fearsome and cunning pirate intentionally beached his ship to divide up the crew, giving him a larger share of any treasure.

The discovery of the ship has been a major find in North Carolina and is viewed by many as one of the most intriguing under water archaeology discoveries on the eastern seaboard.

Since 1997, the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources’ Underwater Archaeology Branch has led research at the shipwreck site and plans full recovery of the artifacts at the site by 2013. According to the branch, to date more than 280,000 artifacts have been recovered.

At the open house, cannons, anchors, ballast stones, and other recovered artifacts housed at the lab will be presented in various stages of conservation.

“Through hands-on demonstrations, archaeologists, conservators and other scientists will explain their work,” says the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

“Visitors will be able to learn first-hand as they look down a microscope at some of the smallest artifacts, determine how much a ballast stone weighs, guess the weight of the largest artifact, see x-rays of objects encased in a cement-like shell during the early stages of conservation, and much more.”

Full story...

From Midland Daily News

There have been only six expedition teams that have explored the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

A local man, Ric Mixter, who describes himself as a wreck-diving adventurer, was part of one of those expeditions back in 1994 and has produced a documentary that he promises will shed new light on the famous shipwreck.

Mixter's 60-minute program, "The Edmund Fitzgerald Investigations," will air on Sunday night, March 11, at 7 p.m. to culminate the final evening of Delta College Q-TV's annual Spring Fest pledge drive. Mixter, a documentary filmmaker who has been studying shipwrecks since 1991, has a basic philosophy when it comes to writing and producing the historical shows he's noted for.

"If you can't add something new to the topic, don't do it," he said.

"This program delves into a lot of the misconceptions and half-truths surrounding the Edmund Fitzgerald. Even the most informed shipwreck expert will discover something new by watching the program."

The Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot freighter, sank in Lake Superior 17 miles northeast of Whitefish Bay in Michigan, on November 10, 1975, after its captain made the ill-fated decision to ride out a storm that at its apex produced 70 mile per hour winds-which aren't all that unusual for the big lake, Mixter noted.

"We've had far worse storms," Mixter said.

"The Fitzgerald had a reputation for coming through big storms. It's clear the captain was a rough-weather skipper and instead of laying up at port or taking safe haven at Isle Royal, when he got to the top of the lake he made a bad call."

All 29 crew members perished.

"No one is alive to say what happened," Mixter said. "The Fitzgerald, though, had been through so many violent storms that the ship can only flex and bend so many times before it tears."

In July of 1994, a Mt. Morris businessman rented a submarine and wanted a camera guy and media coordinator (Mixter, who was working at TV-5 at the time) to be part of the fourth expedition of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Mixter spent an hour in the shipwreck and found a good portion of it still intact in its final resting place some 530-feet deep in icy Canadian waters.

"The name is still readable and the first 180 feet of the ship is in pretty good shape," Mixter said. "The most dramatic damage occurred on the side of the ship where the deck was ripped away from the hull. I've got a lot of glamour shots, which is a terrible term for a wreck that claimed lives."

Mixter's documentary will feature footage of the wreck and interviews with leaders of each expedition, including the first, the 1976 Coast Guard investigation, and the 1980 exploration by the famed Jacques Cousteau team.

Full story...