HOT NEWS !

By Becky Vargo - Grand Haven Tribune

Low lake levels this fall resulted in the exposure of at least five shipwreck hulks along the edges of Harbor Island. Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates was called in to survey and identify the vessels, in particular, the largest located just east of the public launch ramp on the island.

On Friday, MSRA  director and historian Valerie Van Heest, teamed up with Kenneth Pott, a maritime archaeologist and director of the Tri-Cities historical  Museum to survey the larger wreck.

Study of the hull construction, exposed propeller shaft cradle at the stern and exposed sides of the vessel led them to initially conclude that the vessel was a large steamer 40 feet wide and at least 165 feet in length, though an additional amount forward toward the bow end appeared buried. 

Van Heest and Pott worked with historian William Lafferty, of Lafferty van Heest and Associates, who narrowed it down to two possibilities: the 185-foot L. L. Barth abandoned at Grand Haven in 1927 or a significantly larger vessel, the 290-foot Aurora, burned in 1932.

A survey east of the visible portions of the wreck conducted by Valerie and Jack Van Heest, Craig Rich and Larry Hatcher of MSRA on Sunday, revealed a structure well over 200 feet long, and led Van Heest to conclude that the vessel is the Aurora.

“The Aurora was a very significant ship when built in 1887,” Van Heest indicated, “and it’s thrilling to be able to study its remains now.”

When launched by the Murphy and Miller of Cleveland in late-July that year, the 290-foot, steam-driven propeller was the largest and most powerfully built wooden vessel on the Great Lakes.

The 3,000-ton vessel was initially owned by John Corrigan of the Aurora Mining Company of Milwaukee which paid $150,000 for its construction. It was used to ship iron ore from the Gogebic Range Ironwood, Michigan, to Cleveland and coal from Cleveland on the return trip.

“Not only did the length lead to our likely identification of the vessel, but the visible portions of the hull framing supported that notion as well.” Pott said.

According to records detailing its build, the Aurora was constructed with Kentucky oak. Frames were spaced on 21” centers 18 inches wide.

Iron straps 5” wide by ¼” thick were hot riveted into the hull and bent around the turn of the bilge. The firm Bassett & Presley, of Cleveland, supplied the iron.

At the time of the Aurora’s build, ironed-hull ships were still in their infancy. The technology of using iron straps allowed the builders to fabricate this immense ship with wood.

Full article...

By Mike Schuler - gCaptain
 

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on Tuesday unveiled its newest addition to the fleet, the SSS (as in Sea Shepherd Ship) Sam Simon.

Named after the man who gave Sea Shepherd the money to purchase it – Sam Simon is co-creator of The "Simpsons" - the SSS Sam Simon was unveiled today in the port of Hobart, Tasmania where it is preparing to depart on Sea Shepherd’s newest campaign, “Operation Zero Tolerance.

The all white, 56- meter vessel is registered in Melbourne, Australia, and will carry a crew of 24 international volunteers who are ready to brave the Southern Ocean – and the infamous Sea Shepherd antics – in order to seek out and shut down the illegal Japanese whaling fleet.

The vessel itself was built in 1993 by IHI shipyard in Tokyo and was formerly used as a research ship by the Japanese Government – go figure !

The Sam Simon features an ice-strengthened hull and was operated by the Maizuru Meteorogical Observatory, a department of the Japan Meteorological Agency, up until 2010.

Full article...

By Adam Linhardt - Keys News

The final chapter in the emeralds trial will be heard in Miami two weeks from today, a federal judge said Wednesday night to the surprise of the Key West courthouse.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King cited scheduling conflicts. King is trying to determine if Jay Miscovich, who found about 154 pounds of emeralds on the seafloor, should pay the legal fees of a Mel Fisher-related company that sued him, then withdrew its claim.

King also wanted to delve into the Fishers' claim of fraud.

Attorneys were still questioning Duval Street-based Emeralds International owner Manuel Marcial at 6 p.m. Thursday, and expected to call more witnesses today. But closing arguments were scheduled to be heard Dec. 21 in Miami.

Marcial testified that the 60,000 or so gems were not worth the millions that Miscovich claims.

"With very few exceptions, they are of very poor quality," Marcial said on the stand, adding that he assessed them at $50,000 total.

"No respected retailer would ever be interested in even looking at these. They are more suitable for collectors or tourists. My assessment ... is generous and perhaps excessive."

Miscovich testified earlier in the week that experts at the Smithsonian and auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's had said some of the emeralds were priceless and museum quality.

Marcial told the judge that most of the emeralds probably came from Brazil, not Colombia, and thus were worth nowhere near the purported millions.

Marcial worked for the late Mel Fisher upon his discovery of the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita in the 1980s.

The most heated exchange of the day, though, came from Bruce Silverstein, an investor in Miscovich's company. He dueled with the attorneys for Kim Fisher, son of Mel.

The Fishers company originally sued Miscovich, alleging the emeralds came from the family's Atocha and Santa Margarita treasure sites.

They claimed Miscovich committed fraud by concocting an elaborate scheme to swindle investors' money.

The Fishers dropped their claim to the gems in August after Marcial's assessment.

Full article...

By Monique Washington

Lemuel Pemberton recently returned to Nevis having completed a Capacity Building workshop for Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Caribbean.

Pemberton was nominated by the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society to represent Nevis and St. Kitts at the underwater archaeology workshop held in Jamaica.

The Workshop was sponsored by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in conjunction with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust and was held at Morgan’s Harbor hotel in Port Royal Jamaica from November 5-30.

Other participating islands were host island Jamaica, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curaçao, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Pemberton informed The Observer that the workshop involved the first training of its kind in the region regarding people excavating or studying under water wrecks or any kind of artifact that might be under water in the Caribbean.

“The underwater heritage of the Caribbean has not been studied in great detail. There is a whole lot out there, apart from the treasure hunting you might hear about; there are still a lot of ships and buildings or parts of buildings under the sea.

UNESCO is trying to build a core of persons in the Caribbean so that this kind of thing can properly happen a little more in terms of underwater archaeology,” he said.

Pemberton will collaborate with persons from Texas A&M College who have a wealth of experience in archaeology so that when they visit Nevis to study these wrecks he will be the local person to make sure certain excavating protocols are followed.

Pemberton said that there are a number of sunken ships in the waters of St. Kitts and Nevis that persons have shown interest in studying.

He revealed that there is currently a PH.D candidate from Texas A&M studying the underwater ship, HMS Soul Bay.

From International Science Times
 

Right off Key Largo, Florida, is a well-known underwater shipwreck known as "Mike's Wreck."

Discovered and popularized by Mike Butler during the 1980's, the site still attracts numerous tourists seeking a one-of-a-kind diving adventure.

However, despite the popularity of the location, the actual identity and the history behind the sunken ship has remained a mystery - until now.

The race to uncover the truth of "Mike's Wreck" was sparked in 2009 when Matthew Lawrence taught divers from the National Association of Black Scuba Divers on underwater archaeology.

There was absolutely no history attached to "Mike's Wreck" whatsoever.

During an interview with ABCNews.com, Lawrence expressed, "I couldn't believe that, with such a large, well-preserved steel steamship, we weren't able to connect the history to the wreck site."

Identified as an old steamship, researchers have only called the site "Mike's Wreck" for ages before finally digging through a century of documents including shipping records, newspapers, to learn more.

After three years of research through extensive archives, the mystery has finally been solved.

The steamship that met its tragic end is a 315-foot steel-hulled vessel named the Hannah M. Bell, which sank off Key Largo on April 4, 1911.

A tedious process, Lawrence returned to Massachusetts to learn as much as he could about shipwrecks have have accured just six miles off Key Largo.

Of the numerous incidents, Lawrence was finally able to narrow down the possibilities to just a handfull of possible ships.

Full article...

From Hydro International

A Swedish research foundation has granted MARIS at Södertörn University, Sweden, funds to develop non-intrusive methods for deep water archaeology together with MMT.

The project focuses on developing new technologies and methods for documentation and identification of complex and inaccessible archaeological remains beneath the surface.

For the project, a Blue View high-frequency scanner is to be placed on the sea floor. The scanner is particularly useful on wrecks in deep water where diving is difficult and complicated.

These are the conditions in the newly discovered and spectacular wrecks, such as Mars (from 1564) and the Sword (from 1676). These two wrecks lays on the bottom of the sea by the island of Öland, Sweden.

By putting the transmitter in a wreck for example, a detailed documentation of the hull of a wreck can be done in short time and with very high accuracy, explains Joakim Holmlund, PhD physicists, project manager at MMT and works at MARIS.

There is often one problem with the archaeological remains in the Baltic Sea.

The remains are covered with thick layers of sediment. This may explain why so few really old prehistoric archaeological remains have been found so far.

To remedy this, new methods is needed to access the buried objects with higher resolution than normal sub-bottom profilers.

One type of equipment that could be used for this purpose is a synthetic aperture sub-bottom profiler and it is called "Buried Object Sonar System" (BOSS). By using the BOSS method, the marine archaeologists can to see three-dimensional images of objects under the surface.

This technique might even make Baltic boats from both the Bronze Age and Stone Age to be found in the future.

Full article...

From Belfast Telegraph
 

They were whacked into a lake in 1891 as part of an exhibition by sporting legend Old Tom Morris but now they are worth far more than their weight in gold, if only they can be recovered amid thousands of other balls at the bottom of a Donegal lake.

The golfer's own 'gutta percha' balls were worth just a shilling as he practiced his swing on the banks of Lough Salt in Co Donegal.

More than a century later the little pieces of sporting history are worth €20,000 each, or up to €400,000 if all 20 are found.

Divers are now searching for the sunken treasure that has been hidden for 121 years. At the end of the 19th century, four-times Open champion Old Tom was in the county to design the Rosapenna golf course. Local historians record an incident where the Scottish golfer stopped off at nearby Lough Salt to practise his swing.

Now diver Gus O'Driscoll and four members of the Delta Specialist Diving Club are hoping they can find the rare old golf balls.

"There are literally thousands of balls at the bottom of Lough Salt because stopping off to hit golf balls there has been a tradition going back to Morris's time," he said.

"We have recovered some golf balls from the early 1900s but we haven't located Morris's golf balls as yet." Morris's son 'Young Tom', golf's first progidy, won four consecutive British Opens, a feat which has never been equalled.

Full article...

By Ben James - The Argus

A new documentary reveals how a Sussex treasure hunter reportedly found and then lost a £40 million bounty of one of history’s most infamous pirates.

The incredible story of Richard Knight’s journey across the globe to find Captain Kidd’s bounty is told in The Hunt for Pirate Treasure.

The documentary on digital channel Yesterday explains how the Lancing man gave up his job as an actor after becoming convinced of the whereabouts of the 17th century pirate’s treasure.

While other hunters were fixated on the Caribbean, Mr Knight’s research led him to think that the treasure was instead somewhere in the South China Sea.

After studying maps and charts drawn by the pirate, he became convinced that the bounty was buried on the small Vietnamese island of Hon Tre Lon.

When he later learned that the island’s name translated as Grand Pirate’s Island in Vietnamese, he set off, trawling the bars of Australia and Hong Kong in search of companions.

Full article...