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The General Butler was a sailing canal boat, a cargo vessel built in eighteen sixty two in Essex, New York. Eighty-eight feet long, fourteen and a half feet wide, she was designed to both sail on the lake, and travel through the Champlain Canal system.

She was the tractor trailer of the nineteenth century.  

On December ninth, eighteen seventy six, Captain William Montgomery had loaded her up with approximately thirty tons of marble form Fisk Quarry in Isle LaMotte.

In addition to carrying a few passengers including his daughter bound for Burlington, he had one able-bodied crew member on board. A powerful winter gale hit as he approached Burlington.

Eric Tichonuk, Archaeological Diver and Replica Coordinator for the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum describes the series of events that lead to one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the lake's history in the final part of our series, "History Under the Waves."

By Danny Wood - DW. World

Spain and a deep-sea exploration company are battling over an 18th century treasure ship discovered off the Portuguese coast, which holds thousands of precious coins.

In 2007, the shipwreck of a two hundred-year-old Spanish treasure ship was re-discovered off the coast of Portugal by the American company, Odyssey Marine Exploration.

The galleon "Mercedes" was returning from the Spanish colony of Peru in 1804 when it was sunk by the British navy.

Completely intact, its treasure of 600,000 gold and silver coins has an estimated worth of 350 million euros ($495 million).

After its discovery, Odyssey took the ship back to the United States, causing the Spanish government to accuse the company of plundering Spain's heritage. It is now demanding the return of the Mercedes and its treasure.

Jose Maria de Alvear is a descendant of Diego de Alvear, the second in command of the Spanish treasure ship. He is among more than a hundred descendants of the crew of the Mercedes who are supporting the Spanish government's legal bid to have the treasure returned to Spain.

"De Alvear was my great, great, great Grandfather who saw the tragedy of the Mercedes from the other boat because he was the second in command of the fleet," de Alvear explained while pointing out a portrait in Madrid's Naval Museum of a dashing looking Diego de Alvear wearing his red and dark navy blue uniform.

"He saw the Mercedes sink into the deep of the ocean with his wife and seven of his eight children dying in the tragedy," de Alvear said.

De Alvear firmly believes the ship should be returned to Spain. "We want to keep not just the treasure but also the memories of Spain and our memories."

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By Chung Ah-young - The Korea Times

In May 2007, a fisherman caught a bay octopus tightly grabbing a celadon dish in his fish trap. The discovery near Taean's Daeseom Island in South Chungcheong Province led to a historic excavation of valuable underwater heritage carried out by the National Research Institute of Maritime Cultural Heritage in 2007 and 2008.

The excavation uncovered a cargo boat carrying several thousand celadon articles, wooden tags inscribed with information about the articles, general goods used by the seamen, and a skeleton of a Goryeo man who was trapped under his cargo during the wreck. The items had been submerged for about 900 years.

The institute, along with the Administration of Gangjin County, is holding a special exhibition titled "Goryeo Celadon Shipwreck" at the National Palace Museum of Korea in Gyeonggbok Palace, Seoul.

The exhibition is part of the institute's efforts to seek restoration of the sea routes used by Goryeo cargo boats carrying celadon works.

A total of 740 pieces of the relics found are on display, including other ceramics found in Gangjin, South Jeolla Province.

From The Local

A Dresden real estate investor and his partner have raised €7 million worth of gold, silver and other artefacts from a sunken pirate ship off the coast of Borneo.

The pirate ship Forbes sank off the coast of Borneo in 1806. Dresden resident Martin Wenzel and his partner Klaus Keppler spent €3 million of their own money over the past two years trawling the tropical waters for loot from the Forbes and other vessels, the newspaper reported.

“Up until now, we’ve searched 35 wrecks, two had valuable cargo. Now the costs for our three salvage ships, 50 man crew, the licences and all that, are covered,” Wenzel told Bild.

The haul from the Forbes turned up 1.5 tonnes of silver coins, gold jewellery, cannons, crystal and Ming porcelain. The newspaper reported that the coins alone are worth at least €7 million.

“At first, everything on the ocean floor looks encrusted and worthless. But when you hold the treasure in your hands, it’s an indescribable rush of adrenaline. You’re witness to times past,” Wenzel told Bild.

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By Lisa Demer - Anchorage Daily News

If not for the adventurers who went looking for it, the old ghost plane would still be lost in the dark muck at the bottom of an isolated Alaska lake.

Nearly 16 years ago, a sightseeing pilot crashed his 1946 two-seater into the unnamed lake -- and lived.

But that's just the start of the tale.

This month a group of deep sea divers and pilots with a passion for finding lost wrecks descended on the lake to resurrect this one little plane.

It's not especially valuable or historic. No one was sure it would ever fly again. So why did 11 people, some of them not even Alaskans, spend time and muscle on a risky salvage operation ?

"For the adventure. For the fun of it. For the challenge," said Steve Lloyd, an Anchorage diver who helped organize the expedition.

From Russia Today

The Russian navy has declassified its records of encounters with unidentified objects technologically surpassing anything humanity ever built, reports Svobodnaya Pressa news website.

The records dating back to soviet times were compiled by a special navy group collecting reports of unexplained incidents delivered by submarines and military ships.

The group was headed by deputy Navy commander Admiral Nikolay Smirnov, and the documents reveal numerous cases of possible UFO encounters, the website says.

Vladimir Azhazha, former navy officer and a famous Russian UFO researcher, says the materials are of great value.

“Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more – with lakes. So UFOs tend to stick to the water,” he said.

More to read...

By Amy Callaghan - Cosmos Online

Climate change has led to a decline in severe storms along Australia's notorious Shipwreck Coast – a graveyard for hundreds of ships during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Australian National Shipwrecks Database has a record of more than 700 vessels that have been sunk along the Shipwreck Coast, along the southwest of the state of Victoria, over the past 200 years.

These were often caused by fierce storms rolling in from the Southern Ocean, says a new study.

According to the research, published in the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, these storm-related shipwrecks have declined over the past century.

While this is in part due to improved ship construction, forecasting and navigation, researchers wondered if it is also less stormy along the Victorian coastline today than in the 19th century.

A team from Monash University and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, both in Melbourne, used historic data to look at storm conditions along the Victorian coastline from 1865 to 2006.

From James Bone - Times Online

The Queen is skipping today’s celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Britain’s oldest colony after a row with the island’s pro-independence leader.

Bermuda is commemorating the shipwreck on July 28, 1609, of the Sea Venture, the flagship of a fleet sent to resupply the Jamestown colony in America.

Sailors, including the crew of the visiting Royal Navy destroyer HMS Manchester, will re-enact the 150 settlers rowing ashore on what is now St Catherine’s Beach to start four centuries of continuous settlement of the mid-Atlantic island.

Neither Queen Elizabeth II, the island’s sovereign, nor Ewart Brown, the elected pro-independence Premier, however, will be present for the celebrations.