Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odysseys treasure hunting ship

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Greg Stemm interview on CNBC...

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-US&brand=&vid=f3a199d4-cca6-47f1-82ef-632b4b8b9a0e

 

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[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Odyssey Free to leave Algeciras Port

gibfocus - 18th October 2007
(2007-10-18 14:30:00 )

The Odyssey Marine Exploration vessel Odyssey Explorer is free to leave the port of Algeciras according to comments made by the company's lawyers to the Spanish media at lunchtime today.

The vessel that was arrested this past Tuesday had the search of the vessel by the Guardia Civil concluded at around 1pm today, leaving it free to sail away.

The arrest of the vessel has already led to a diplomatic row, after the arrest was made in international waters.

The vessel which had been berthed in Gibraltar whilst Spanish patrols monitored the bay for its departure, is now expected to leave as soon as possible and continue its salvage operations.

 

[ivan salis]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

as expected -- it was just a witch hunt for "evidence" to see if they could find something & a petty harrasment if they couldn't -- having lots of press folks onboard didn't hurt odyssey's case either when they claimed they were illegally boarded* in international waters (*forced to return to spain for "inspection" --note this was after odyssey offered spain the chance to inspect the vessel in giabralter BEFORE * they sailed--- THUS THE DRAMA COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED ALTOGETHER-- THE EXTRA SIDE TRIP COST ODYSSEY FUEL AND TIME ---THUS MONEY) ---it was a petty harrassment and evidence search which produced zip ---(the spanish govt games go on and on -- many foreign govts tend to work like that harrassing bussinessmen till you give them what they want--- or "pay-off" the right person in the govt a large sum of cash and then "poof" the "problem" goes away---however if they don't get a "cut" of the action--- then they look for ways to say what your doing is illegal and take it all or at the very least force you out so they can move in on your "gravy train" -its a classic old school corruption tactic -- that I've seen in action way too many times ) Ivan

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Ivan... They haven't left yet, because they need a release order from the judge. Maybe tomorrow?

 

[ivan salis]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

again another spanish stall and delay --- money draining type tactic -- its simply a form of fiscal punishment -- every day spent tied to the dock cost odyssey money ( fuel -- dock fees -- crew salary & food for crew , ect ,ect ) --- its a simple fact that ships tied to a dock cost money and make no "return" on it -- Ivan

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Odyssey PR...

Odyssey Marine Exploration's Ship Inspection Completed
Thursday October 18, 1:21 pm ET

The Research Vessel Odyssey Explorer Will Depart Spanish Port after Judge Issues Relevant Order


TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The inspection of Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:OMEX - News) recovery vessel, the Odyssey Explorer, was completed today. Spanish authorities have notified the Company that it is free to depart after the Master gives a statement and the Judge issues the relevant order.

The ship had been stopped Tuesday morning in international waters by the Spanish Navy and Guardia Civil and compelled under the force of arms to proceed into Algeciras, Spain, reportedly for court-ordered inspection. The Master of the vessel, a U.S. Citizen was temporarily taken into custody for allegedly failing to obey the court’s order, but released the following morning.

Once in port, the Spanish authorities boarded the ship and proceeded with a rigorous inspection of the vessel.

"We were informed this morning that the inspection of the vessel was complete and we understand that we will be free to leave after the Master gives a voluntary statement tomorrow morning and the Judge issues the relevant order," stated Greg Stemm, Odyssey Co-Chairman and Co-Founder. “Our crew was treated courteously and the inspection was handled professionally by the Guardia Civil.”

According to the Spanish media, the inspection was apparently ordered by a judge in the Court of La Linea de la Concepcion (Cadiz) based on the assumption that the "Black Swan" recovery was conducted illegally in Spanish territorial waters, which had been reported erroneously in the media. Odyssey has repeatedly stated that the "Black Swan" recovery was conducted in the Atlantic Ocean outside of any country's territorial waters or contiguous zone.

"We are sure that the Spanish Government is now well aware that the "Black Swan" was not in Spanish waters and that the disposition of the coins is now subject to US Federal court jurisdiction, so we're not sure what the inspection of the Explorer was meant to accomplish," commented Stemm.

Odyssey provided a 109-page legal affidavit to authorities in the Spanish Federal government, the Junta de Andalucia, the United Kingdom, Gibraltar, and the United States detailing Odyssey's activities leading up to, and after, the announcement of the "Black Swan" discovery. This document (which covered nine years of communications and meetings between Odyssey, the Junta of Andalucia and the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain) was provided in order to address questions posed by the Spanish regarding Odyssey's activities and to reassure all concerned governments and officials that Odyssey has always acted legally and with full transparency in relation to the "Black Swan" project and in all other shipwreck exploration activities.

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Gibraltar Chronicle...

Status of waters around the Rock
LONDON AND MADRID IN DIPLOMATIC EXCHANGE OVER ODYSSEY WRANGLE
By Brian Reyes

Spain’s detention of the treasure-hunting ship Odyssey Explorer on Tuesday has prompted a diplomatic exchange between London and Madrid over the status of waters around Gibraltar.


The ship was stopped just over three miles from the Rock in what Madrid claims are Spanish territorial waters. But Britain regards these as international seas under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea and this week sent a note verbale to the Spanish Government saying as much.

"We sent the note to protest that the detention occurred in international waters," said a spokeswoman for the British embassy in Madrid.

The UK did not consider that Spain had jurisdiction over those waters and that therefore it had no right to intercept the vessel or crew.

The Spanish Government replied with its own diplomatic note re-stating its position that the detention occurred in its territorial waters.

The issue of the sovereign status of seas around the Rock is likely to figure prominently at the next round of talks under the Trilateral Forum for Dialogue scheduled for November 6 in Castellar.

The three governments have already stated their desire to seek closer cooperation on maritime matters, but the status of the waters around Gibraltar and the corresponding issues of jurisdiction could prove thorny to resolve.

Odyssey Marine Exploration, the US company that operates the Odyssey Explorer, echoed the British position and said the detention was illegal because as far as the company is concerned, it took place in international waters.

Under the Law of the Sea convention, such a detention can only take place with the consent of the ship’s flag state, which in this case is the Bahamas. No such consent was sought.

Spain’s position is that the Guardia Civil officers who detained the ship were acting on the orders of a Spanish court in full compliance with Spanish law.

The court is investigating an alleged breach by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Spanish heritage laws, something the company vehemently denies.

Following the ship’s detention Spanish Culture Minister Antonio Molina said the Florida-based company was made up of "modern pirates" and warned that "against pirates, there have always been navies, laws and the rule of law."

"We will pursue them wherever they are," he told reporters. "It is a question of national pride and patriotism."

Guardia Civil officers and court officials completed their search of the Odyssey Explorer yesterday afternoon but the vessel remained berthed alongside at the Port of Algeciras.
Company lawyers are due to meet with the investigating judge this morning to establish whether the ship is free to sail from the port.

Sterling Vorus, the ship’s captain, was released from detention but will have to report to the court every 15 days.

He was arrested for disobeying orders after he allegedly refused to let Guardia Civil officers on board his vessel once it docked in Algeciras.

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Odyssey PR...

Odyssey Marine Exploration's Ship Cleared
Friday October 19, 9:25 am ET
Research Vessel Odyssey Explorer Prepares to Depart Spanish Port Today


TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:OMEX - News) recovery vessel, Odyssey Explorer, has been cleared by a Spanish Judge and Harbor authorities to depart from the port of Algeciras, Spain after Spanish authorities conducted a thorough inspection of the ship. The ship will shortly be en route to another port where she will be mobilized and then resume shipwreck search and archaeological recovery operations.

“We’re pleased that the Spanish authorities were able to conduct their inspection so efficiently,” commented Greg Stemm, Odyssey Co-Chairman and Co-Founder. “We hope that the evidence gathered makes it clear to authorities that we did not conduct any unauthorized operations in Spanish territorial waters, as alleged by outlandish claims made in the press. We also look forward to resolving any outstanding issues with the Kingdom of Spain over the `Black Swan' site in U.S. Federal Court in the near future and are prepared to share extensive documentation about the site pursuant to the offer made in our filings before the Judge.

“We have always shown the utmost respect for Spain’s cultural heritage and are prepared to provide Spanish authorities with the archaeological data gathered about shipwreck sites discovered during authorized and legal operations in the deep waters of the Alboran Sea in the Western Mediterranean. This information will be useful in documenting and protecting these valuable sites in the future,” commented Stemm.

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Gibraltar Chronicle...

SPANISH JUDGE RELEASES ODYSSEY
by Brian Reyes

A Spanish judge released the treasure-hunting vessel Odyssey Explorer yesterday, four days after it was detained as it sailed from Gibraltar.


The ship was taking on provisions yesterday evening and was expected to sail from Algeciras this morning.

Spanish authorities spent two days searching through the vessel but all indications were they found nothing of significance.

The ship was detained on a court order issued by the same judge who released the ship yesterday.

The judge is investigating an alleged breach by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Spanish heritage laws, something the company vehemently denies.

The investigation was launched after Odyssey announced it had recovered 17 tonnes of silver coins from a wreck codenamed Black Swan.

Spain believes the ship may be Spanish and that it may have a claim to the treasure.

There is also a suspicion that the treasure may have been recovered from Spanish waters, though Odyssey insists it came from a site in international waters of the Atlantic.

Sterling Vorus, master of the Odyssey Explorer at the time of its detention, gave a voluntary statement to the court yesterday.

He told the judge that he had not been on the ship at the time that it was engaged on work related to the Black Swan project.

Mr Vorus was arrested on Tuesday for disobeying orders after he allegedly refused to let Guardia Civil officers on board his vessel once it docked in Algeciras. He has now been released but will have to report to the court on the 15th of every month.

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

The 'Odyssey Explorer' sails heading to England

ALGECIRAS. The boat Odyssey Marine Exploration Odyssey Explorer, registered last week in the port of Algeciras, addressed the British island of Portland, located in the English Channel. It consists of the information offered by the satellite tracking system AIS Live, one of the sources used to accuse the company of having worked regularly in the Alboran Sea the weeks preceding the discovery of the treasure of the so-called Black Swan.

The Odyssey Explorer, which had been docked in Gibraltar since the announcement of the removal of the spoils-May-and sailed from the port Algeciras last Saturday, issued a final track satellite last Sunday at 20.33 hours without closure this issue had regained its signal. The system loses the registration of the vessel to a thousand miles west of Lisbon. It seems that climbs the Atlantic on a path similar to that already made the Ocean Alert, also Odyssey, which was intercepted by the Civil Guard last July.

AIS Live indicates that the Odyssey Explorer is aimed at the island of Portland and, moreover, notes that arrive there on Friday this week at noon. The Isle of Portland in the English Channel, lies off the coast of the county of Dorset, southern England. Southern Europe already advanced in its Sunday edition that the ship of the company cazatesoros would go to England or France, to undergo a technical review prior to the resumption of its activities, according to sources from the company.

The British island to whom it is the Odyssey Explorer, with landscapes of cliffs and meadows, home to the small town of Portland, with an area of about 18 square kilometers and a population of some 13.000 people. Its main source of income is tourism. Its main source of income is tourism.

Portland is very close to Falmouth, in the county of Cornwall, which is more south-west of England. Portland is very close to Falmouth, in the county of Cornwall, which is more south-west of England. Mooring at the port of Falmouth, the third largest in the natural world, issued its latest satellite signal last Wednesday another boat Odyssey, Ocean Alert. It was at 4.22. This vessel, which was also in Gibraltar since the discovery of the treasure, was intercepted and recorded in July and has remained in the south of England since he left Algeciras.

As anticipated, yesterday was the day that ended deadline for the company Odyssey Marine Exploration surrender to a federal judge in Miami (Florida), which instructs the case of treasure the required information on the recovery of the loot. At the press had not leaked news, which must take into account the time difference that exists with the Atlantic coast of the United States. At the press had not leaked news, which must take into account the time difference that exists with the Atlantic coast of the United States.

Odyssey should clarify data on identification of the wreck that has codified under the name Black Swan and where to be found. Spain considers that the most likely scenario is that the ship is sunk in international waters, but that is Spanish flag, which accuses the signing of plundering. Spain considers that the most likely scenario is that the ship is sunk in international waters, but that is Spanish flag, which accuses the signing of plundering.

 

[rayredditch]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

(Quote)"We will pursue them wherever they are," he told reporters. "It is a question of national pride and patriotism."(End Quote)
Basically means, you give us all the treasure (Spanish, English, or Otherwise), or we will keep harrassing you till you´re bankrupt. Typical Spanish tactics, as used often before. Remember when they borrowed treasure from a Spainish Treasure ship from the finder, to display in their Museum (If anyone owned the treasure it was a South American country, that Spain plundered), and then kept it saying it was Spanish heritage.

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Gibraltar Chronicle...

ODYSSEY LEAVES BUT HOPES TO RETURN TO GIB
by Brian Reyes

Odyssey Marine Exploration hopes to return to Gibraltar despite a row over sunken treasure that has pitched the company against Spain and will make it difficult for its ships to operate in this area.

After months effectively blockaded in Gibraltar, Odyssey’s two ships were detained by Spain on the orders of a Spanish judge and are unlikely to return to this area until the underlying case is resolved.

The court is investigating an alleged breach by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Spanish heritage laws, something the company vehemently denies.

It follows Odyssey’s discovery of 17 tonnes of treasure earlier this summer, a haul that the company flew to the US from Gibraltar.

Despite the ensuing flack, Greg Stemm, the company’s co-founder, said Odyssey wants to come back to the Rock.

“Gibraltar has proven a great base of operations for Odyssey during the last decade and we have made many lifelong friends there,” he told the Chronicle.

“We’re sorry to have to leave temporarily but we do not wish to make the political situation any more complicated than it is for our friends here.”

“We hold out hope that when authorities realise that this ‘witch hunt’ has no basis in fact and has been the result of manipulation of the media by a few unsavory characters, we will be welcome back.”

Prior to the row with Spain over the treasure, Odyssey had voiced plans to set up a centre for underwater archaeology in Gibraltar, where the surrounding seas are littered with wrecks.

“We believe that there is a great opportunity to make Gibraltar a worldwide center for underwater exploration and archaeology, and stand ready to cooperate in the development of a world-class shipwreck tourist destination,” he said.

But if its plans are to progress in the long term, the company will first have to find a way of settling the impasse with Spain.

Issues stemming from the company’s activities in this area have on several occasions created tension at diplomatic level between the governments of Gibraltar, the UK and Spain.

Odyssey has repeatedly stated its desire to find common ground with the Spanish Government. The company believes it is well placed to work with Spain in preserving the country’s underwater heritage.

Odyssey has already struck just such a deal with the British Government over a wreck believed to be that of HMS Sussex, an English warship that sank off Gibraltar carrying a cargo of gold coins.

The Sussex project created a wrangle with Spain that goes back years and was further complicated by disagreements over the sovereignty of waters around the Rock.

A tentative agreement between all sides was finally reached earlier this year after months of delicate negotiations.

But the treasure haul this summer, and the ensuing controversy, once again left the project on hold and with no clear timeline.

ROV STILL TAPED UP
Odyssey’s ships may have now sailed from Gibraltar, but the face-off with Spain continues, this time in a Florida courtroom. It is here that the fate of the 17 tonnes of treasure is being decided. In preliminary rounds between lawyers, Spain filed a holding claim and challenged the court’s decision to grant Odyssey rights over the wreck site in international waters of the Atlantic. Spain also demanded more information on the wreck, which it believes may be a Spanish vessel.

Odyssey, which has provided minimal information on the site so far, said it would add further details but only under certain conditions designed to protect the wreck and the company’s interests. The company has said publicly it will respect sovereign rights once the identity of the wreck is firmly established.

This week Odyssey delivered yet another round of documents to the court countering legal arguments in Spain’s most recent submissions. The latest Odyssey filing includes an interesting reference to events last week after the Odyssey Explorer, the company’s flagship, was stopped at sea and taken to Algeciras.

In a sworn statement, an Odyssey lawyer who was present on board said Guardia Civil officers had taped up the ship’s undersea Remotely Operated Vehicle [ROV] used to search for wrecks and recover items from the seabed. They used Guardia Civil tape normally employed to seal and protect exhibits in a judicial process.

“The Master of the Odyssey Explorer was verbally warned by the Guardia Civil that if the vehicle was touched or any of the seals broken, that this would constitute a criminal offence under Spanish law,” Marie Rogers, the lawyer, said in her statement.

The company sought an explanation but was told by the investigating judge to write to the prosecutor in Cádiz. They were also told the ship was free to leave.

When the ship sailed from Algeciras en route to England at the weekend, the ROV was still taped up.

Company lawyers were this week trying to establish whether the ROV could be used once the Odyssey Explorer, a Bahamian ship, had left Spanish jurisdiction.

 

[rayredditch]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Why doesn´t England or the States send a Warship to escort the Odyssey ? If it´s International waters, we should protect the rights of any of our countrymen. Stuff the Spanish, they still think they rule South America, half of North America, and are using their Armada tactics to get their own way !

 

[Peg Leg]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

I know that it must cost a lot to register a ship in the U.S. BUT it would stop this kind of crap on the open sea. The U.S. would be forced to provide protection for one of its own.
Maybe Odyssey might think about this but that is not the proper thinking in BIG BUSINESS. It is always the bottom line $$$$ THAT CONTROLS RIGHT FROM WRONG.
Peg leg

 

[Voldbjerg]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Protection and escort of a Bahama registered ship is not the job of the US navy. But protecting free access to its waters and ports are the job of the royal navy. I don't understand why the Gibraltar(Britain) is sitting on their hands. Their interests and sovereignty are at stake if Guardia Civil and Spain start controlling access to their ports. Wars have been fought over less and Odyssey is small potato compared to that.

/V

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Rosindell raises question of HMS Sussex before Parliament

gibfocus - 24th October 2007
( 2007-10-24 17:10:00)

Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell has tabled two questions in relation to the sunken treasure onboard the warship HMS Sussex which was part of an agreement between Odyssey Marine Exploration, the UK and Spanish Government.

With Odyssey’s operations effectively blocked by a Spanish court order against its vessel, which led to the arrest of both its ships in recent months concerns over Spanish intentions over the sunken Sussex treasure have already been seen.

In his latest parliamentary intervention, in relation to Gibraltar Andrew Rosindell has asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the Government's objectives are in the negotiations with Spain on the location and subsequent excavation of the sunken British warship Sussex off the coast of #Gibraltar.

Rosindell further asked what steps will be taken to ensure that the gold onboard the sunken warship, the Sussex, is not claimed by the Spanish government.

 

[rayredditch]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

It will be, and the Labour Government will sit back and do nothing (Again) !!!
Maggie Thatcher, would have sent the Navy in!!

 

[jeff k]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

Who owns the treasures of the sea?

Britain and Spain have both laid claim to controversial treasures in the deep seas -- and raised some tricky questions
By Ian Jack
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007


Who owns the wealth that lies at the bottom of the sea? This week, the question arose in southern and northern oceans: in Antarctica, where Britain is planning to claim 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) of seabed in the belief that they may contain exploitable oil, gas and minerals; and in the Bay of Gibraltar, where the Spanish navy forced a US salvage vessel into port at Algeciras.

The outcome of the British claim is opaque. It has still to be submitted to the UN, where it will be contested by environmentalists and by more adjacent countries such as Argentina and Chile. Besides, nobody has ever drilled for oil and gas at such depths in such seas. The Spanish story is complicated, folksier, but no less contentious. It demonstrates the human foresight, ingenuity and greed that marked a man such as Long John Silver.

The salvage vessel, the Odyssey Explorer, was confronted by the Spanish gunboat last Tuesday just as it left Gibraltar's 3-mile (4.8km) limit, which it had been sheltering inside for the past three months. If numismatists are to be believed, each coin might be worth US $500 to US $1,000, which would make the hoard the most valuable ever to have been taken from a wreck.

The Odyssey Explorer's owner, Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, leads the world in the exploration and excavation of deep-sea shipwrecks. In May, the company reported it had completed "the pre-disturbance archeological survey and preliminary excavation of a colonial period shipwreck" at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic. More than 500,000 silver coins weighing 17 tonnes had been recovered, plus hundreds of gold coins and other artifacts. If numismatists are to be believed, each coin might be worth US$500 to US$1,000, which would make the hoard the most valuable ever to have been taken from a wreck.

It was shipped to Gibraltar and then flown to an undisclosed destination in the US. Odyssey Marine said the treasure had been recovered "in conformity with salvage law and the Law of the Sea Convention, beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country." But Spain was not so sure: By legal precedent, a government can lay claim to that government's ships' cargo, whoever found it, wherever it was found.

The Spanish government filed a case in the Tampa court contesting ownership, believing the wreck to be that of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, which sank off Portugal in 1804. On Oct. 16, the Spanish seized the Odyssey Explorer not for its cargo -- that had already flown -- but because they thought it might contain documents and other evidence that would support their case in the Tampa court.

Odyssey Marine says the wreck lies 180 nautical miles (333km) west of Gibraltar but refuses to reveal the exact location. The company called the site Black Swan, after the book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the financial trader and "philosopher of randomness," who is a cult among London and New York brokers and hedge-fund managers. To Taleb, "black swans" are rare but consequential events that lie beyond the range of normal human prediction (Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns: the "portfolio protection strategies" that Taleb devises for hedge funds take these unquantifiables into consideration).

The search for shipwrecked treasure is, in fact, the opposite of a black swan. Success requires years of obsessive research in the archives, followed by years of trawling up and down square kilometers of ocean, all sustained by a stubborn belief in the trueness of old documents, local anecdote and lore about sea currents. But it is interesting that Odyssey Marine implies with this title both that is has stumbled on the world's most valuable wreck and that its business has secure moorings in Wall Street.

At least the latter is true. Treasure from shipwrecks is a thriving little industry. According to the American Mint, the US has 130 million coin collectors. Odyssey Marine is listed on the NASDAQ exchange. The boom is the product of undersea technology. When Robert Louis Stevenson was writing Treasure Island, what did we know of the seabed? Almost nothing beyond a few fathoms.

A few years before, in 1872, Britain had sent the Challenger to chart the depths of the Atlantic with sounding weights, but the deep sea bed remained invisible -- the least known part of the earth -- until the American oceanographer William Beebe got down to 923m off Bermuda in his bathysphere in 1934.

Now, thanks to unmanned submersibles, global positioning systems, powerful lights and remote-controlled movie cameras, all of it is knowable, if not yet intimately known. Its valleys and canyons turn out to be nature's lost property office. Robert Ballard disturbed no wreckage in 1985 when he found the Titanic 3,800m down, but his successors removed thousands of artifacts until an international moratorium was called in 2000: jewelry, crockery, a top hat, bank notes and half a dozen cigarettes incredibly preserved -- all of them came dripping to the surface.

Several thousand years of trade in the world above have deposited underneath an extraordinary, often useless, record of human endeavor. Most of it is ordinary -- the poet John Masefield's cargo of "Tyne coal/Road-rail, pig-lead/Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays" -- but ordinariness is no block to the interest of the historian or the amateur wreck-diver. Last month's issue of the Railway Magazine lists for the first time the 300 steam locomotives known to survive on the floor of the world's oceans, having fallen there when their transporting ships were sunk by bombs, torpedoes and storms.

Locomotives were a European and North American export trade and the undersea ruins of it have nothing more than historical value. It was gold and silver going the other way, particularly in the trade routes of the Spanish empire, that first motivated serious shipwreck exploration.

In 1985, after a 16-year search, the American Mel Fisher at last discovered off Florida Keys the wreck of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon last seen when it sailed, loaded with coins, from Havana in 1622. Fisher brought up 150,000 coins to the surface. Common sense might suggest that such a number would have knocked the bottom out of the market in Spanish doubloons.

But the opposite happened. According to Odyssey Marine, whose marketing strategy seems based on Fisher's experience, a common Spanish piece-of-eight would often fetch less than US $100 before the Atocha's discovery. The rise since, to at least US $500, is inspired, Odyssey Marine said, by "the added collector interest generated by the publicity surrounding the find."

In the matter of Black Swan, however, there is no knowing the will of the Tampa courts. Spain didn't contest Fisher's hoard, but a few years later woke up to the notion that treasure found in international waters did not automatically belong to the salvors or, in the case of national waters, even to the state within whose waters it was found. In 2000, a US federal appeal court in Virginia took away rights to the wrecks of two Spanish frigates from their American discovers and awarded them to Spain.

It was perhaps awareness of this that led Odyssey to approach the British government as a partner in its next big project: Somewhere east of Gibraltar lies the British warship HMS Sussex, which dropped 1,000m to the bottom in 1694.

Odyssey believes that the wreck contains the world's largest sunken treasure -- gold coins alleged to be worth US $4 billion at today's prices, money sent by the English to buy the Duke of Savoy's loyalty in the nine years' war. Five years ago, Britain struck a deal that dismayed marine archeologists. In return for Odyssey's rights to explore and excavate, Britain would retain 20 percent of the proceeds up to $45 million, 50 percent of those between $45 million and $500 million, and 60 percent of the rest.

According to reports this week, the Spanish government suspects that the Black Swan hoard was got out of Gibraltar with British complicity. Who knows? The Gibraltar question and Britain's historic reputation as los piratos make Britain a popular target. On the other hand, there is no question that Britain has been dealing and will continue to deal with the enemy, without whose expertise and ambition the Duke of Savoy's bribe will continue to sink imperceptibly into the earth that first gave it up. Unbribed, he joined the king of France.

 

[rayredditch]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

If I was the Salvor, I´de put a very large explosive charge on the treasure, and then if Spain decided to try to take it by force, or coniving, blow the whole lot, so that it was spread and buried where they couldn´t recover it either. Yo can´t trust the Spanish government (Or a lot of others for that matter).

 

[Cablava]

Re: Spanish Coast Guard arrests Odyssey's treasure hunting ship

If I was the Salvor, I'd put a very large explosive charge on the treasure, and then if Spain decided to try to take it by force, or conniving, blow the whole lot, so that it was spread and buried where they couldn't recover it either. Yo can't trust the Spanish government (Or a lot of others for that matter).


That's exactly why there is a problem.

Conniving" is the operative word and why Odyssey have this major problem. "the way they took this treasure", if they had left it on the sea bed and then made their case it would have been a lot less expensive to this PLC and a lot safer than where it is now.

Odyssey obviously cannot categorically claim the ship is not Spanish or they would have and would not be in this particular court. (more will follow after this one is sorted)

The information that the Spanish have is not enough to discount it being one of their ships or their cargo, so like a terrier they will continue with their course of action. ( there will be a lot more terriers after this one, maybe not as powerful but probably more likely to make a deal)

So until dickheads stop making stupid remarks like yours nothing will be solved.

The moon will come and go many times before this is sorted out. This is not the wild west as some of you seem to think, there is LAW in the World regardless if you agree or not. Odyssey did not make these laws but have tried to influence them with their PR (every article finishes with the salvor getting 90%). I wish, and I would be a much richer man than I am if that were true. But the facts remain the same, neither party owns the cargo right now, and when this battle is sorted then the next battle will follow. Make sure you have plenty of popcorn and coke (the drink that is) as this will take forever to sort out.

The only thing that makes sense in your post is "Yo can't trust the Spanish government (Or a lot of others for that matter)".