HOT NEWS !

By Megan Gannon - Live Science
 

Divers have recovered the main telegraph machine from the Lusitania, the wreck at the center of one of the most infamous maritime disasters of the 20th century.

Irish heritage officials confirmed that the telegraph was recovered and brought to the surface Tuesday (July 25) and is now undergoing conservation on land.

The bronze artifact was "undamaged and in excellent condition," Heather Humphreys, Ireland's minister for culture, heritage and the Gaeltacht (areas where Irish is still spoken), said in a statement.

The Lusitania was the largest ship in the world when it made its maiden voyage in 1907.

The British ship was bound for Liverpool after a transatlantic crossing in 1915, when it was struck by a torpedo from a German submarine off the southeast coast of Ireland during World War I.

It sank in just 18 minutes. Of the 1,962 passengers and crew aboard at the time, 1,198 died, most of them from drowning and hypothermia. The attack on civilians prompted diplomatic outrage (though there is still debate over whether the ship's cargo secretly included war supplies and munitions).

As 128 Americans were killed in the disaster, the event helped push the United States into World War I.

The 787-foot-long (240 meters) shipwreck now lies on its starboard side, at a depth of about 300 feet (91 m) off the coast of County Cork. Retired American venture capitalist Gregg Bemis has been the sole owner of the wreck since 1982 and has occasionally clashed with the Irish government over his plans to explore the wreck and recover artifacts, according to a profile in Fortune.

Bemis is particularly interested in investigating the cause of the second explosion that rocked the Lusitania after the initial torpedo strike, which could help to explain what made the ship sink so quickly.

Full story...

From Sputnik News

A group of divers from UK-based Advanced Marine Services discovered a chest inside a WWII shipwreck where it laid untouched for almost 78 years.

According to Metro, the chest could contain up to four tons of valuable metal, believed to be gold from South American banks. It could be worth up to £100 million (US $130.8 million). 

The SS Minden, a German cargo ship, headed to Germany when it was allegedly noticed by the British Navy; therefore Nazi officials ordered in September 1939 to sink the SS Minden some 190 kilometers southeast of Iceland.

Advanced Marine Services applied to Iceland's government for permission to open the chest. The Icelandic officials will decide on who owns the shipwreck in the Atlantic.

Treasure hunters and researchers have been chasing missing Nazi gold for decades. There is a widespread legend about three Nazi German-era gold-laden trains, which were buried in secret underground tunnels built by the Nazis in early 1945.

The trains have never been found, but according to rumors, they contain 300 tons of gold, weapons, artwork and jewelry.

Full story...

By Nick Wilson - The Tribune

During World War II, a British warplane flying off the coast of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea had engine trouble and made an emergency ocean landing.

Its pilot and co-pilot were rescued by two Englishmen on leave who happened to be sailing that day, but the plane sank. Seventy-four years later, in June, Cal Poly students who are part of an underwater search and mapping project helped find the missing plane.

Their 6-foot robot, an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), used sonar, photography and video technology in its search.

“We’re confident that we found a plane that was documented to have crashed three miles off the coast of Malta,” said Zoe Wood, a Cal Poly computer science professor who has been co-leading the expedition with Harvey Mudd College engineering professor Christopher Clark.

“It matches up with the record of the same type of plane going down about three miles off the coast near the city of Sliema.” They found the Fairey Swordfish at a depth of about 60 meters.

The biplane torpedo bomber was used by England’s Royal Navy in World War II, as well as the 1930s.

Nearly 2,400 Fairey Swordfish aircraft were built between 1936 and 1944 and sank more tonnage of enemy warcraft than any other Allied plane during World War II.

Malta, a picturesque island located 50 miles south of Sicily, is a graveyard of ancient sunken vessels. There are nine surviving Swordfish. Just a handful can be flown.

“We had a feeling of joy to have helped discover a site of a historically significant plane,” Wood said. Divers with the University of Malta marine archeology department have examined the historic aircraft, which has decayed to a skeleton and is now part of an ecosystem for baby fish and crustaceans.

Given that, the plane will be left where it is.

Full story...

From The Canadian Press

When the Canadian Museum of History began planning a new exhibition on the Franklin expedition, neither of the voyage's two doomed ships had been found.

But after HMS Erebus was located in 2014 and HMS Terror was found in 2016, curators for the exhibit were given the opportunity to include some of the newly recovered artifacts. The exhibition, now on in the United Kingdom, also highlights the role that Inuit oral history played in finding the shipwrecks.

"We really wanted to give credit where credit was due in the exhibition," said curator Karen Ryan. "The Inuit were in the Arctic long before Europeans went looking for the Northwest Passage.

"What we know up until now about what happened to the Franklin expedition comes largely from Inuit oral history that has been passed down for 170 years."

Ryan noted that Parks Canada and researchers started looking in areas where the Inuit had indicated they had seen ships still inhabited and then later deserted. The expedition led by Sir John Franklin left England in 1845 with 129 men to search for a northern sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

No one ever returned, and search missions determined that both ships became icebound and were abandoned. Remains of some of the sailors have been found.

Some theories about the ill-fated voyage include lead poisoning and spoiled tinned preserves. Interest in the mystery has remained strong in the U.K., where some people trace family trees back to Franklin's men.

Full story...

By Keith Rossiter - Plymouth Herald
 

A Plymouth shipwreck may be even older than first thought.

The Cattewater wreck in Plymouth was discovered in 1973 during dredging close to Sutton Harbour, and was deemed so important it became the first to be given official protection. The ship was thought to be from the early 16th century, right in the middle of the Tudor period of British history.

Now detailed analysis of finds, which are in the collection of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, suggest it could date from  as early as 1500. 

Martin Read, lecturer in maritime archaeology at the University of Plymouth, wants to raise awareness of the vessel – and is asking local children to come up with a name for a dog whose skeleton was found in the wreckage. The ship is thought to have been a three-masted armed merchantman, probably built in southern Europe but based locally.

For 10 years Mr Read – who holds an official government licence to study the wreck – has worked with students and local divers on the site. 

He said: “Tudor wrecks are incredibly rare and the Cattewater wreck is one of the world’s most important 16th Century discoveries.

“As a merchant ship, it provided the trade and taxes which allowed military leaders to build great naval vessels, such as Henry VIII’s Mary Rose, which sank in 1545.

Full story...

By Jim Wyss - Stripes.com

Colombia is pushing ahead with plans to salvage one of the hemisphere’s richest and most legendary shipwrecks — even as a U.S. company insists that it deserves a share of the treasure that went down with the San Jose galleon three centuries ago.

In a news conference Wednesday, President Juan Manuel Santos said an unnamed investor will finance the rescue of the Spanish galleon, which was sunk by the British Navy in 1708 off Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Santos said he couldn’t reveal the name of the investor until July 14, but said it’s someone, or an institution, “that will guarantee a process that’s respectful of the historical and cultural value of the galleon,” which the government first acknowledged discovering in December 2015.

Santos said the investor had agreed to a public-private partnership that will bring together a “dream team” of archaeologists and engineers to salvage the wreck and put it on display in the tourist port city of Cartagena.

Those plans put the government at odds with Sea Search Armada, a salvage company based in Bellevue, Wash., that claims it identified the site of the San Jose in the 1980s.

After years of legal battles, SSA won a 2007 ruling in Colombia’s Supreme Court granting it rights to half of the riches not considered “national patrimony.”

The government, however, insists it found the wreck independently of previous research efforts.

How much the wreck might be worth is a matter of fevered speculation, but when the San Jose went down, it was thought to be carrying six years’ worth of accumulated gold, silver and emeralds destined for Spain.

Full story...

By Brendan Mcdaid - Derry Journal

The council was told that a recent exhibition and series of projects to mark the 100th anniversary of the Laurentic tragedy had generated major interest and resulted in a surge in visitor numbers to the Tower Museum.

The Laurentic exhibition tells the story of the famous White Star Line ship, commandeered by the Royal Navy to transport gold to Canada to buy ammunition for the war effort in 1917.

The ship sank off Lough Swilly on January 25, 1917 after striking two German mines, with 354 sailors perishing in the disaster. The 121 survivors were cared for in Inishowen and eventually brought to the Guildhall in Derry for a meal by the then mayor, Alderman R.N. Anderson and donations collected for them from across Derry and Donegal.

For the 100th anniversary, The Laurentic Bell, a prized artefact was loaned from the shipwreck centre in the Isle of Wight.

The Council Committee was told that the bell will be auctioned for sale in the coming months. Officers proposed that they “consider the purchase of the Laurentic Bell as a key permanent display in the new maritime museum,” with a fuller report on this expected at a later date.

Full story..

Par Thierry Peigné - France Info

Une ou des épaves, afin d'en remonter des objets historiques ou de l'or ou de l'argent, c'est sans aucun doute ce que recherchaient les occupants d'un voilier britannique dans la chaussée de Sein en début de semaine.

Une pratique interdite sans autorisation préalable du département de recherches archéologiques subaquatiques et sous-marines (DRASSM), et à laquelle la marine nationale et les douanes ont mis fin mardi 20 juin.

L'interpellation a été réalisée alors que le voilier britannique se trouve à une vingtaine de milles nautiques (37 kilomètres) dans l’ouest de la chaussée de Sein.

C'est dans cette même zone que l'Egypt, un paquebot anglais, a fait naufrage le 20 mai 1922. C'est alors qu'il effectuait une liaison entre Londres et Marseille, avant de rejoindre Bombay, que le vapeur est entré en collision avec un navire français.

A son bord, 340 passagers et membres d'équipage mais aussi des tonnes d'or et d'argent (4500 kilos d'or en lingots, quarante trois tonnes d'argent et trente sept caisses contenant 165000 souverains anglais). L'épave gisant à 120 mètres de profondeur, il faudra attendre une dizaine d'année avant que sa précieuse cargaison ne soit récupérée à 90%.

10% pourraient donc encore se trouver dans les entrailles du navire, attisant ainsi la convoitise de chercheurs de trésors.

C'est ce lundi 19 juin 2017 après-midi, lors d’un vol de surveillance maritime effectué par un avion des douanes, que l’attention de l’équipage a été attirée par le comportement inhabituel du voilier, le Ice Maiden.

Le lendemain, mardi 20 juin, en vol de surveillance maritime, le Falcon 50 de la Marine nationale relocalise le voilier dans la même zone. L’équipage interroge le navire sur ses activités et effectue des prises de vues attestant du remorquage par le voilier d’un engin immergé dans l’eau.

Toute l'histoire...