HOT NEWS !

By Ed Carty - Belfast Telegraph

The owner of the RMS Lusitania has accused the Irish government of abandoning the shipwreck to pirates and treasure hunters after stringent rules on diving scuppered his plans for recovery.

Gregg Bemis, an 87-year-old US entrepreneur, said tough conditions imposed on his lifelong quest to save valuable and historically important artefacts from the sinking ground 11 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale were "spiteful".

The Cunard vessel was torpedoed on May 7, 1915 by a German U-boat en route from New York to Liverpool and sank with the loss of 1,201 lives.

Mr Bemis has spent decades trying to confirm a theory that the sinking - 18 minutes compared to two hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic - was hastened by a second explosion caused by a secret cache of munitions destined for Britain's war effort.

"The Government officials are so glib and innocent sounding like they walk on water, but they add all these restrictions on and throw them at me so they interfere and impede," he said.

One of the conditions ordered Mr Bemis to indemnify the Irish state against any incidents or injury if he organises a dive on the veritable Aladdin's Cave.

Full article...

From Associated Press

A treasure hunter’s effort to salvage what he calls $3 billion in platinum from a World War II shipwreck off Cape Cod has been ended by a federal judge.

Greg Brooks’ company Sea Hunters LP is no longer allowed to salvage additional items from the S.S. Port Nicholson, which was sunk by a Nazi U-boat in 1942, U.S. District Judge George Singal ruled on Wednesday.

Brooks said he believed the Port Nicholson carried platinum bars from the Soviet Union that were payment to the U.S. for war supplies. His treasure hunt had led to a criminal investigation and legal action by investors who paid him millions of dollars.

The judge also denied an attempt by a group of investors to win recovery rights, claims to what’s on the ship if anything is found. The judge wrote that evidence suggests there’s nothing valuable to salvage.

The record, the judge wrote, suggests that all that remains is “70-year-old truck tires, fenders and miscellaneous other parts and military supplies.”

The judge essentially ended Sea Hunters’ rights to any claim to potential treasure. He cited Sea Hunters’ actions “including the filing of falsified documents on this court’s docket and its inability to salvage any items of substantial value.”

He issued the ruling with prejudice, meaning it’s permanent.

By Yoshitaka Tsujimoto and Yomiuri Shimbun - The Japan News

A private team of Japanese and Turkish researchers has conducted its first underwater survey in five years of the Ottoman Navy frigate that sank off the coast here in 1890.

The Ertugrul visited Japan in 1890 to express thanks for a decoration Emperor Meiji had sent to the Ottoman sultan. Shortly after the ship left Yokohama Port to return home, it encountered a storm and sank off Wakayama Prefecture on Sept. 16. More than 500 sailors were killed, while 69 were rescued by local residents.

On the morning of Feb. 10, I boarded a ship at Kashino fishing port on Kii-Oshima island in Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture. About 10 minutes later, we arrived at an area called Funagora. The Ertugrul is said to have struck a reef there, about 100 meters off the coast.

The currents are strong near Shionomisaki cape, the southernmost cape of Honshu. Only around this time of year are the currents said to be calm enough to conduct an underwater survey. I put on a dry suit and headed to the ocean bed 13 meters below the surface.

Research team members, including Turkish marine archaeologist Tufan Turanli and Japanese divers, began measuring ballast that has become fixed to the seafloor. Reflecting the fact that it was a navy ship that sank, a cannonball could also be seen.

After the measurement, we moved to “the cave,” an area of about 10 square meters that resembles a cave. Entering an about 80-centimeter-high space, we found a square metal plate about 13 centimeters on each side that already seemed to be part of the seafloor. There was also a metal piece that may have been part of the ship’s keel.

I shone my flashlight and wiped sand away with a brush the research members gave me. When mud flew up, the team members sucked it away with a dredge.

Full article...

By Julian Ryall and Nectar Gan - South China Morning Post

Unidentified divers have shown a lack of respect for the dead by attaching a large Chinese flag to the wreck of a Japanese warship that was sunk off the Pacific island of Palau in 1944, according to a Japanese historian.

Hiromichi Moteki - a retired teacher who is today secretary general of the right-wing Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact - said the "provocative and thoughtless actions" of Chinese such as those he presumed were behind the act "no longer surprise" him.

The flag was discovered on Saturday, tied to the railings of the Iro, an oil tanker for the Imperial Japanese Navy that was sunk in March 1944.

According to local dive operators in Palau, the vessel is one of the most popular in local waters because it is a mere 15-minute boat ride from the main harbour.

The Iro had been damaged by a torpedo from the submarine the USS Tunny as she sailed from the Philippines to Palau, but was able to make the anchorage at Urukthapel. The Iro and her sister ship, the Sata, were attacked again by US dive bombers and sunk at anchorage on March 31, 1944.

The Iro sits upright on the seabed in 40 metres of water, with a large gun still in position atop the ship's superstructure.

Divers descending on the wreck on March 21 found and photographed the flag.

"Of course I am angry, but I am not at all surprised," said Moteki, whose nationalist organisation argues that Japanese war crimes have been exaggerated.

Full article...

By Amber Lee - KTVU

It was an unusual sight at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay on Tuesday as scientists prepared to use state of the art technology to survey a shipwreck.

A bright yellow underwater drone called the Echo Ranger made by Boeing is there being prepared for a special mission.

Scientists and a historian from across the country have gathered to use state of the art technology to survey a shipwreck.

Crews are preparing for the launch of the Echo Ranger. It will be unmanned, depending solely on a computer program to survey the USS Independence, an aircraft carrier scuttled by the U.S. Navy in 1951.

"To get as detailed sense as we can in doing three dimensional sonar mapping the wreck of the biggest deepest shipwreck we have in the National Marine Sanctuary," said James Delgado, NOAA's chief scientist for the USS Independence Mission.

Researchers have already pinpointed the ship's location 30 miles off Pillar Point Harbor and 3,000 feet underwater. NOAA is partnering with Boeing in this mission.

For the past week and as recently as Monday afternoon, the research team conducted multiple test launches. On Tuesday afternoon, there was more preparation work including testing different components to ensure that even if the computer program fails, the Echo Ranger will surface

It is an expensive piece of equipment worth millions of dollars. Scientists say the Echo Ranger will help them figure out what's left of the 600-hundred foot aircraft carrier.

Full article...

By Flora Drury - Mail Online

Microsoft's co-founder has used his own submarine to find the wreck of the Japanese Navy's biggest warship - which has lain undiscovered at the bottom of the ocean for the past 70 years.

Paul Allen revealed his amazing discovery to the world on Tuesday, by posting a photo to Twitter of the World War II battleship Musashi's rusty bow, which bore the Japanese empire's Chrysanthemum seal.

The Musashi - which, along with its sister ship Yamato, was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleship ever constructed - was sunk by the U.S. Navy in 1944, taking with it more than 1,000 crew members.

But despite numerous eyewitness accounts, its exact location had remained a mystery - until now.


Full article...

By Sarah Taillier - ABC News

A new grave has been discovered almost four centuries after the Batavia was wrecked on Morning Reef, within the Abrolhos Islands.

The Dutch East India vessel was on its maiden voyage when it wrecked with more than 300 people on board.

The survivors managed to swim to the nearby Beacon Island, but about 40 people drowned.

What then played out on the tiny coral outcrop was a 17th-century tale of mutiny and systematic murders of those aboard that inspired movies, books and plays and remained one of the darkest chapters of Australia's maritime history.

Some of the evidence of the bloodthirsty episode has only now been uncovered, with experts revealing on Tuesday they have found another skeleton, the 11th found on Beacon Island since the 60s.

Two musket balls were found near the body, which was about 1.5 metres underground.

A forensic team was examining the remains and said they were believed to be that of an adolescent.

The WA Museum's head of maritime archaeology, Jeremy Green, said the find was a major step forward in better understanding what was an internationally significant chapter in history.

"This was the first time that Europeans lived in Australia — albeit it wasn't in the mainland but it was here — so it's the oldest known European habitation in Australia," he said.

"So it's got to be important."

Full story...

From Seeking Alpha

Odyssey Marine Exploration, Thursday reached a new level that few penny stocks have ever managed to attain. The U.K. Parliament - House of Commons held an adjournment debate regarding the HMS Victory led by MP and Shadow Minister of Defence Kevan Jones. Given OMEX's business is heavily dependent on favorable relationships with governments, and is heavily regulated, this is important for investors to understand.

Though the attendance on a Thursday afternoon in parliament is not particularly high, importantly, the Minister called for 3 different government departments to investigate Odyssey's potential misdeeds. To quote a more politically astute U.K. local reporter who covered the action:

1) Allegations that the Maritime Heritage Foundation is nothing more than a front for Odyssey with no experience no money and a shared consultancy and PR operation: Charity Commission to be asked to investigate.

2) Allegations HMS Victory gifted without a Departmental Minute even though her contents were worth much more than the limit of £300k: National Audit Office asked to investigate. Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence also asked to investigate.

3) Allegation that former Secretary of State at the DCMS and current Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, held a meeting with Lord Lingfield where Victory was discussed in breach of the Ministerial code: The Cabinet Secretary asked to investigate.

Full article...