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By Valerie Milano - Hollywood Today

“That’s what that shipwreck really does.

It allows us to kind of have this glimpse of not just Morgan but what was the atmosphere, what was the environment he operated in.”

– Fritz Hanselmann, Lead Archaeologist on the found shipwreck that was the subject of new documentary, The Unsinkable Henry Morgan.

This past Tuesday, January 15^th, Downtown Independent hosted a special screening of the film chronicling eight women and men on their journey to discover evidence of the infamous Captain Morgan along the coast of Panama.

Hanselmann is currently the Chief Underwater Archaeologist for Texas State University and was led to seek out the ship by his passion for uncovering the mysteries of history, especially those having to do with vessels lost at sea “It’s really fascinating – we’ve literally just scratched the surface.”

Fritz Hanselmann on potentially linking items found on the expedition to Captain Morgan.

Now, most of us have probably had a taste of Captain Morgan rum and noticed the distinguished figure on the label, unknowing of the origins behind it.

Such was the case for Director Michael Haussman (The Last Serious Thing), who admittedly didn’t realize the spiced rum mascot was an actual person.

Despite this or perhaps because of it, he was intrigued enough to take the project.

After further research and assembling a team consisting of photographers, period costume designer and a Captain Morgan expert to name a few, Haussman helped weave a story together out of Hanselmann’s work.

Full article...

By June Williams - Court House News Service
 

Two companies sued each other over rights and technology used in an effort to recover "hundreds of pounds of gold" lost in a 1901 shipwreck.

The SS Islander sank near Juneau, Alaska in 1901, killing 40 passengers, according to the two federal complaints.

The ship was believed to be transporting "hundreds of pounds of gold" from the Klondike to Seattle and San Francisco.

Salvagers say that if there were gold on board, it would likely be "single gold bars and boxes of gold bars" buried under as much as 8 feet of silt.

MK Salvage Venture LLC, of Seattle, sued Tetra Tech EC, a New Jersey corporation with offices in Seattle, in one complaint.

Tetra Tech returned the favor in its complaint against MK Salvage. MK Salvage Venture, preparing to recover artifacts and treasure from the Islander, hired Tetra Tech to do technical work for the operation.

Tetra Tech claims MK Salvage refused to pay it $630,200 for data analysis and survey work.

Tetra Tech sued for breach of contract, claiming it "fully completed the scope of work and otherwise fully performed all services." Tetra Tech claims it also is entitled to $175,000 if it documents and recovers at least 137 pounds of gold.

Full article...

From Emirates 247
 

Shipwreck stories like the famous ‘Titanic’ accentuated by a moving love affair between a young man and woman are so pulse-stirring that they have gone into film scripts and relived on the big screen.

It is in this vein that we hear of the oldest shipwreck in the Indian Ocean discovered recently five miles from the ancient site of Godavaya at a depth of 30m; so much so is the interest the discovery has evoked that it has brought together a team of researchers both Sri Lankan, American, German, French and Turkish in that desire to assess the archeological potential it carries.

This voyage formally announced at a press confab last Friday largely attended by this entourage of researchers comes in the wake of invaluable archeological discoveries such as Black and Red Ware (BRW) and two purified glass ingots, the tests of which done from December 2010-11 by an international team of divers and archeologists led to an agreement being signed between Sri Lanka’s Department of Archeology and the Institute of Nautical Archeology, Texas A&M University, USA to undertake collaborative research activities to excavate the Godavaya shipwreck discovered by two local fishermen in 2003 named RP Sunil and BG Preminda who spoke to The Nation.

The research team was drawn from the local Department of Archeology, Institute of Nautical Archeology, USA, University Texas A&M and University of California at Berkley and France (French National Centre for Scientific Research).

The shipwreck, close to the Walawe Ganga, could provide significant details of the cargo it was carrying.

Incidentally, the Walawe Ganga was one of five navigable rivers on the island listed by the Classical Author Pallaudis, according to the Director-General of Archeology, Dr Senarath Dissanayake who was on Friday joined by Prof. Osmund Bopearachchi now serving with the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, Prof. Deborah Carlson, INA President and faculty member of Texas A&M University and Sanjyot Mehendate of the University of California, Berkley.

Full article...

By Tom Meersman - Star Tribune

Move over, Lake Minnetonka.

The largest lake in the Twin Cities metro area isn't the only one with shipwrecks strewn across its depths.

A pair of archaeologists have found the remains of several sunken vessels on the bottoms of White Bear Lake in Ramsey County and Lake Waconia in Carver County.

Ann Merriman and her husband, Chris Olson, reported the findings recently of surveys they took last August.

They used high-quality sonar equipment to scan the bottom of lakes and rivers methodically, searching for possible archaeological sites.

In White Bear Lake, they found three new shipwrecks "for sure," said Merriman, along with three probable and 14 possible wrecks. In Lake Waconia, Merriman and Olson found 10 probable wrecks and 22 possible wrecks.

The couple founded the nonprofit Maritime Heritage Minnesota in 2005, and studied all of Minnetonka's lake bottoms in 2011 and 2012.

Most of the findings are valuable as history rather than sunken treasure, since the steamboats, barges, sailboats and other objects they've identified were usually stripped of anything valuable and intentionally sunk when they became damaged or obsolete.

1880s tourism was different

"They're reminding us that there is a history underneath those lakes, and that history is related to times quite different than today as far as recreation and industry," said Scott Anfinson, Minnesota state archaeologist, referring to the researchers.

Like Minnetonka, White Bear Lake and Waconia have a long history of boating, including ferries and steamboats that carried tourists to lakefront hotels and amusements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"If you look at a picture of Excelsior or Wayzata from 1880, you'd think you're looking at St. Louis," Anfinson said. "You'll see 10 big steamboats docked, some of them large enough to carry 1,000 passengers."

Early boat traffic brought supplies to the pioneers who settled on White Bear Lake, Waconia and Minnetonka before there were many roads and bridges, Anfinson said.

They also brought tourists from Minneapolis and St. Paul who took the railroad or trolley lines to the lakes and continued by ferries, steamers and smaller launches.

Full story...

By Douglas Main - NBC News
 

On Jan. 11, 1863, a Union warship was sunk in a skirmish with a Confederate vessel in the Gulf of Mexico.

Exactly 150 years later, a new 3-D map of the USS Hatteras has been released that shows what the remains of the warship look like.

The Hatteras rests on the ocean floor about 20 miles (32 kilometers) off Galveston, Texas, according to a release from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which helped to sponsor the expedition to map the shipwreck.

The Hatteras was sunk in a battle with the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, and was the only Union warship sunk in combat in the Gulf of Mexico during the Civil War.

"Most shipwreck survey maps are two-dimensional and based on observations made by sight, photographs or by feeling around in murky water while stretching a measuring tape," said James Delgado, with NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, in the statement.

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From In Cumbria

On a January night in 1945 a Royal Navy Grumman Avenger crashed into a scree slope, known as Great Gully, high above Wastwater which lies at the foot of Scafell.

Now divers from the Keighley branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) are trying to find out more information about the crash.

In particular they would like to know more about the three airmen who died instantly when their plane flew directly into the scree slope while they were participating in a night-time navigational exercise.

IT manager and Keighley Sub Aqua Club member, Graham Clay, says the hunt for information about the crash, and in particular the three airmen who lost their lives, has become an obsession so far as club members are concerned.

He said: “As a club we were diving in Wastwater earlier this year and came across the Grumman Avenger’s engine block in only about six metres of water. We also believe the tail section is in one piece and is also in Wastwater, although we are yet to locate it.

“Apparently you can still find small pieces of aluminum and other debris from the crash on the scree slope above Wastwater, although Great Gully is difficult and very dangerous to access.

I think the engine block and tail section, being heavy, slid down the scree and basically dropped into the lake. However, we suspect much more of the wreckage lies in Wastwater and is just waiting to be found.”

But Mr Clay says what club members really want to find out is more information on the three crew members who died.

He said: “There seems to be very little known about them. We have trawled the internet and what records we can but there is scant information out there.

Full article...

From RT

The USS Jacksonville, a large nuclear submarine, has broken its periscope after colliding with a vessel which escaped unscathed. This is the latest collision to involve a US vessel in the busy and tense oil chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz.

The American sub was performing a routine pre-dawn patrol when seamen heard a “thump”, according to a Navy source who spoke to several news agencies.

The crew tried to ascertain the damage by looking into its periscope, only to realize it was no longer working. The other periscope on the submarine revealed that the first one had been“sheared off”.

It appears the ‘fishing trawler’ that collided with the 7,000-tonne submarine was not only undamaged, but barely noticed the accident.

“The vessel continued on a consistent course and speed, offering no indication of distress or acknowledgement of a collision,” says an official statement published on the US Navy website.

Authorities insist that USS Jacksonville is in no immediate danger.

“The reactor remains in a safe condition, there was no damage to the propulsion plant systems and there is no concern regarding watertight integrity,” they said.

The cost of repairing the damaged periscope are as yet unclear, but the discontinued Los Angeles-class submarines, to which USS Jacksonville belongs, would cost over $1 billion to build in today’s money (the sub was launched in 1978).

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From Hydro International

Underwater survey company Phoenix International, based in the USA, has successfully completed an underwater search and recovery of a U.S. Air Force F-16 aircraft from over 16,400 feet of sea water (fsw).

Underwater search operations commenced using the Navy’s 20,000fsw depth search system, ORION.

After searching the initial planned search area spanning a 2 x 4 nautical mile (nm) area, search operations shifted to another high-probability area and the suspected F-16 debris field was quickly identified.

In early August 2012, at the direction of the Naval Sea Systems Command’s Director of Ocean Engineering, Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV), Phoenix mobilised the Navy’s ORION deepwater side scan sonar system, the CURV 21 remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and the Navy’s motion compensated, 30,000 pound Fly-Away Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS).

All equipment was transported over land from Phoenix’s facility in Largo, Maryland, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. From there, military transport aircraft moved the equipment to Hawaii, where the gear was loaded aboard USNS Navajo (T-ATF 169).

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