HOT NEWS !

By James Gorman - Sydney Central

The Australian National Maritime Museum is preparing for its latest expedition to a shipwreck off the Great Barrier Reef.

Over the past four years, the museum has uncovered evidence of the strong colonial trade links Australia once held with India.

Early next year, Dr Nigel Erskine and his team will be heading out in search of the Indian-built Fergus(son) which was bound from Sydney carrying 170 troops when it wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef.

"The reef is known as a bit of a ship trap and so there are several wrecks up there with fairly sketchy information about them that we plan to work on," Dr Erskine said.

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By John Gonzalez - MLive

Today, at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald will be remembered in a memorial.

It was 37 years ago the ship sank in Lake Superior as a result of a massive winter storm, near hurricane-force winds and waves more than 30 feet. All 29 men on board lost their lives.

The story of the shipwreck lives on in the poetic words of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," a song written and recorded by Gordon Lightfoot a year after the tragedy.

I included today's memorial event in my Top 5 things to do this weekend in Michigan.

And my posting on MLive.com generated an e-mail from someone who remembers that day well.

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From Hydro International

UK-headquartered Swathe Services has supported the ‘Recherche de l’Oiseau Blanc’ project for the second year.

The survey works were conducted close to St Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland with the primary goal being to locate two important wrecks: the first being an aircraft which disappeared in 1927 and the second a French trawler which was lost at sea in 1962.

The survey equipment chosen for this exploration included a Klein 3900 side-scan sonar interfaced with SonarPro and a towed Marine Magnetics Seaspy magnetometer interfaced with Hypack Max.

Swathe Services was involved in the equipment selection and supplied a highly competent French hydrographic surveyor for mobilisation/demobilisation and operation of the side-scan sonar system.  

Three weeks of operations identified a number of targets which were subsequently checked using the higher frequency side-scan mode and/or divers for shallow depth locations.

Two of the targets were ships that had previously sunk around the area in the late 70’s but without any original known position. Side-scan sonar images and accurate positions were later given to the local authorities.

Unfortunately, the two desired wrecks were not located this year and further plans are being made to extend the survey area further in future years.

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From RT

Search and rescue divers have recovered a body from the cargo ship “Amurskaya” that sank in the Sea of Okhotsk at the end of October.

The search continues for 8 crewmen who were on board the freighter carrying 700 tonnes of gold ore.

The ship went down in heavy seas on her way from Kiran to Okhotsk in Russia’s Far East carrying a cargo of gold ore worth an estimated quarter of a million dollars.

It was more than a week before rescuers spotted an oil slick ten miles off shore marking where the vessel went down. The ship was discovered by dive teams from the Emergencies Ministry lying on her port side in 25 metres of water.

An air and sea search was launched looking for the nine man crew despite the extreme weather conditions.

Some experts say the chances of the crew being found alive is now very remote.

“The vessel, quite possibly, sank immediately, which means all crew members remained on board.

The speed with which it sank is attributed to the structure – initially it was a drag-boat which was remade into a cargo vessel,” said Deputy Chairman of the Russian Sailors’ Trade Union, Nikolay Sukhanov.

However others are not giving up hope.

“The storm ladder, absence of people on the bridge, an open door below deck, absence of life rafts all point to the high possibility of the crew attempting to evacuate the sinking vessel,” say representatives of the Federal Agency for River and Marine Transport (Rosmorrechflot).

Russian daily “Komsomolskaya Pravda” quoted one of the relatives of the missing crew, the daughter of Aleksander Stukalov, saying she believes her father is alive: “we believe our father, he’s an experienced sailor, a strong man, he’ll survive.”

A battered life raft was spotted on the coast of an island in the vicinity of the wreck which investigators believe it did come from the freighter.

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By Mark Staniforth -  The Conservation

Vietnam has thousands of kilometres of coastline, and may have thousands of shipwrecks. Many of these wrecks would be loaded with archaeologically fascinating and significant items.

But the country has struggled to preserve its underwater cultural heritage.

To date the protection and preservation of Vietnam’s underwater cultural heritage, such as shipwrecks, has had a low priority.

Vietnam has a very long coastline (more than 2,000km) and seafaring activity has been extensive for at least 2,000 years.

Vietnam is centrally located in South East Asia and was on the “Maritime Silk route” that ran from China to the west via the South China Sea.

Very little is known about how many shipwrecks, or other underwater cultural heritage sites, might exist in Vietnam.

Almost no maritime archaeology survey work has been done, but I think it is likely that there will be thousands of sites.

Unfortunately, the little work that has been done in Vietnam in the past has often been done by, or in association with, treasure hunters.

Large quantities of underwater cultural heritage have been sold. For example, thousands of ceramic artifacts from shipwrecks located at Vũng Tàu, Ca Mau, Binh Thuan and Hoi An have been sold at auction.

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From RT
 

Rescue teams are continuing to sweep the area where a cargo ship carrying around 700 tons of gold ore sank last month. The ship was found by scuba divers in the Okhotsk Sea in Russia’s Far East.

Scuba divers discovered the wreck of the Amurskaya freighter lying on its port side on the seabed some 25 meters deep.

The rescuers did not find lifeboats or the bodies of crewmembers, indicating that the ship’s crew may have escaped before

From UPI

Bad weather Friday hindered the search for a cargo ship that disappeared in the seas off far eastern Russia while carrying hundreds of tons of gold ore.

The emergency beacon of the vessel Amurskaya was activated shortly after it left the port of Kiran in the Khabarovsk Territory Wednesday, ITAR-Tass reported.

The ship, destined for the port of Okhotsk, was carrying 772 to 823 tons of gold ore. Its carrying capacity was rated at 673 tons.

The ship has a crew of nine.

Aircraft and marine vessels were prevented from continuing the search Friday because of rough seas.

The Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Maritime Rescue Coordination Sub-center said winds in the search area of the Sea of Okhotsk were 38-44 mph, with 6 1/2-foot seas. Wet snow was falling, creating zero visibility.

A search plane Thursday flew over the area for 2 1/2 hours.

From Paul Fraser Collectibles

A set of revealing documents that raise concerns about safety equipment aboard the Titanic have been consigned to a November 24 auction in the UK.

The documents originate from the collection of Captain Maurice Clarke, who served as the Board of Trade's emigration officer in the early 1900s. Clarke's duties concerned the safety of emigrant passengers and he made several inspections of the Titanic before its doomed voyage.

The documents have not been seen for more than a century and are now being offered for £20,000-30,000 ($32,000-48,000).

The most damning of the documents relate to Captain Clarke's inspections of the Titanic on April 4, 9 and 10 1912, the day it set sail from Southampton.

Providing a detailed catalogue of all safety equipment onboard, the papers include a number of shocking revelations, including the fact that there were only six life buoys to cater for 3,000 passengers.

Among accounts of the lifeboat drills, safety tests and distress signals, Clarke makes a suggestion that the ship should be equipped with 50% more lifeboats before departure.

These suggestions were ignored by the White Star Line and, as Clarke's notes suggest, it is likely that the company pressured the Board of Trade into allowing Titanic to sail with fewer lifeboats.

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