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By Daniel Nasaw

A ghostly length of timber protruding from the bottom of one of the Great Lakes has become the subject of a legal battle between France, the state of Michigan, and a private team of American explorers who say it is the remains of a French ship that sank more than 300 years ago.

US divers who found the wreck believe it is the Griffin, a ship laden with furs, cannon, muskets and supplies that sank in 1679 in Lake Michigan, on a mission for famed French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle.

They are working with French officials to establish its identity and prove it was on a mission for King Louis XIV. But Michigan says the wreck's location means it belongs to the state.

"An early French ship goes down operating with the permission of the French king. There's a good chance there's skeletal remains inside the vessel," said Steve Libert, who found the timber he believes to be the Griffin's bowsprit. "Do you really think the people of Michigan own those skeletons of early French explorers?"

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By Matt Rilkoff

Taranaki sea dog Dave Chadfield thought he had stumbled across a human skull among the seaweed on New Plymouth's Ngamotu Beach yesterday.

But once he stuck his fingers in the "eyes" to pick the object up he discovered it was a triple deadeye, a piece of equipment used on sailing ships until the end of the 19th century.

Mr Chadfield's example is believed to come from either the sailing ship Australind, wrecked in Port Taranaki in 1882, or the Star of the Mersey which suffered the same fate in 1886.

"This is as good as finding a porthole. It is the last thing to go when the mast comes crashing to the deck and the waves are washing over and all the men are jumping off aghh, aghhh," he says, lost in a past he can only wish he belonged to.

"I'm an old sea dog and every man who works on the sea has a great respect for anyone who used sails to power their vessel."

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From Banner Online

There are 102 pirates buried somewhere in Eastham.

The audience at the Salt Pond Visitor Center on Wednesday had that astonishing fact and more to ponder when underwater explorer Barry Clifford gave a talk about the history and discovery of the pirate ship Whydah.

Clifford regaled the crowd of tour guides with stories of how he first heard of the pirate Black Sam Bellamy, how he came to unearth Bellamy’s lost vessel from the sandy sea bottom off Marconi Beach in 1984 and the many revelations that have accompanied his crew’s retrieval of the rare artifacts buried with the wreck.

The tour guides had come to learn more about the Whydah Museum on MacMillan Pier.

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By Dr. Martin Rundkvist

Bohuslän province on the west coast of Sweden is known internationally for its many and varied Bronze Age rock art sites.

But its archaeology is rich regardless of what period you look at. My maternal great-granddad's people came from Tanum and Kville parishes, so I'm sort of a Bohuslän aborigine.

The discovery of a Medieval shipwreck off the Bohuslän coast was recently announced. Or rather, the wreck has been known for centuries, and local tradition held it to date from the grim early-18th century reign of warrior king Carolus XII.

Now maritime archaeologist Staffan von Arbin from the County Museum has secured samples dating the vessel's construction to between 1310 and 1350. The samples also indicate England as the timber's most probable country of origin.

This may be a historically documented shipwreck: on 20 February 1361, King Edward III of England wrote to King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and Norway with a complaint regarding the latter's seizure of goods from an English ship that had foundered right about the place where the newly dated wreck is.

From Sail the World

A shipwreck missing off Victoria’s Ninety Mile Beach for 127 years has re-appeared at Loch Sport, with remnants of its frames and boiler now visible to beachgoers.

Heritage Victoria archaeologists believe the wreck is the Scottish-built, iron steamer Pretty Jane, which sunk in 1882 following a collision with the Magnolia.

There had been no reported sightings of the wreck since its demise, until Parks Victoria rangers reported the visible remnants on the Gippsland beach last month.

Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden said the location, dimensions and construction of the remnants all pointed to the reappearance of the ill-fated coastal trader Pretty Jane.

“The Pretty Jane was travelling from Bairnsdale to Melbourne when it collided with the Magnolia and struck the sand bar at Lakes Entrance,” Mr Madden said.

“It continued to Melbourne for repairs but began to sink just off the Ninety Mile Beach. All on board were saved but the Pretty Jane broke up and was never seen again. The natural sand movement of the beach has revealed this missing link in our maritime heritage.”

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By Rory Carroll

By tradition English pirates plundered the Caribbean for gold and silver with raids which instilled dread in coastal settlements and Spanish fleets.

Their purpose was not to stash treasure on the ocean floor to bail out, centuries later, a cash-strapped municipality which risks losing a coveted sporting event.

But more than 400 years after it sank a galleon thought to have belonged to John Hawkins, a legendary English privateer, they may rescue a Puerto Rican city's budget and pride.

Local politicians and salvage experts have unveiled a quixotic plan to salvage a wreck which, they say, contains up to $2bn (£1.35bn) in treasure.

The bounty would be used to save Puerto Rico's hosting of the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez, a city on the west coast, and avert a humiliating fiasco.

"We want you to know this is a well-grounded project," Evelyn Vazquez, a ruling party senator, told a press conference last week. "This has been done in other places, like Miami."

She displayed ancient bottles and jugs which have already been salvaged and said the wreck contained an estimated $1bn to $2bn in coins, ingots, jewellery and artefacts such as cannons.

Along with another senator, Lucy Arce, Vazquez planned to seek funding for the project from the island's national assembly.

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From the Maritime Journal

The wreck of the 19th century British steamship Newcastle City has been located in the Atlantic Ocean and positively identified by an exploration team from Quest Marine Services led by Captain Eric Takakjian.

The Massachusetts USA based company located the remains of the shipwreck south of Nantucket Island.

The Newcastle City was lost on a voyage from South Shields in England to New York with a general cargo that included several tons of antimony ingots. During the early morning hours of December 23rd 1887, the ship struck an uncharted shoal south of Nantucket Island, severely damaging the hull. The ship slowly filled with water and sank several hours later.

After an arduous row of over six hours, the entire crew of 26 and one lone passenger reached safety aboard the Nantucket Lightship, where they remained for two weeks until being brought ashore by the lighthouse tender Verbena.

The Newcastle City was a transitional type passenger/cargo steamship built in Newcastle in 1882. Although powered by a compound steam engine, the iron hulled ship was also rigged as a brigantine. This was a common practice during the time when steam was replacing sail as the primary means of motive power for ships in the late 1800s.

The wreck was located after several years of historical research followed by field investigations during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

Several interesting sonar targets were identified late in 2007, one of which appeared to be a likely target for the Newcastle City.

Dives conducted on the suspected sonar target on August 24th of last year confirmed the target to be that of the wreck of an iron hulled steamship slightly less than 300’ in length.

From dompost

Dunedin maritime writer Bruce Collins is delighted Wellington City Council has responded to his request for a plaque to mark one of New Zealand's worst shipping disasters.

The SS Penguin sank off the south coast of Wellington on February 12, 1909 with 102 people on board.

While everybody got off the ship in the stormy conditions, there were only 30 survivors, including just one woman. All children on board died.

Collins, a maritime writer who already had two books to his credit, was casting around New Zealand for other shipwreck stories and was surprised to find that one of the country's worst shipping disasters had never been documented. He wrote The Wreck of the Penguin.

Collins wrote to Wellington mayor Kerry Prendergast five years ago, pointing out that there are several memorials of the Wahine disaster, but none for the Penguin. Tonight Prendergast will unveil a plaque on a prominent rock at Tongue Point, close to where it is thought the Penguin hit rocks and foundered.

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