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By Donna Goodison - Boston Herald
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Underwater explorer Barry Clifford, discoverer of the Whydah pirate ship that sank off Cape Cod in 1717, has his sights on another shipwreck.
The Provincetown treasure hunter is petitioning state and federal authorities to lay claim to the Semiramis - an estimated 120-foot, three-masted ship armed with 14 cannons that sank between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in 1804.
Built in the mid-1790s, the Semiramis is important from a historical standpoint because she was one of the first China traders, according to Clifford. The ship was headed to Newport, R.I., after a three-year voyage to China with a cargo - estimated to be worth $500,000 at the time - of silk, porcelain, tea and an undetermined amount of hard currency in the form of silver and possibly gold, according to research by Clifford’s historian, Ken Kinkor.
“I have no idea what that would be worth today,” said Clifford, who’s putting together an expedition to survey the shipwreck with Falmouth-based Teledyne Benthos. “There was only supposed to be minor salvage done to the shipwreck at the time. I would suspect that much of the ship is buried under the sand and would be in very good condition.”
That was Clifford’s experience with the Whydah, which he located in 1984 - said to be the first pirate ship ever discovered and authenticated. His team has removed more than 100,000 artifacts from the ship, some of which are on display at the Whydah Sea Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown.
On Monday, Clifford’s Vast Explorer Inc. filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston to gain exclusive salvage rights to the Semiramis. Clifford plans to keep any recovered artifacts as a collection for his museum, which he hopes to relocate to Newport.
Clifford first dove on the shipwreck in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he and the late John F. Kennedy Jr. used to investigate the shoals around Martha’s Vineyard. “Before the heyday of people looking for shipwrecks, we would see sections of ships sticking out of the bottoms of the sandbars,” he said.
The Semiramis was returning from its second trip to China under Capt. Jacob Smith when it sank. “It was a very controversial shipwreck of the period, because a very large bank was involved in the funding of the project,” Clifford said.
The London banking firm of Bird, Savage & Bird had chartered and bankrolled the Semiramis’ voyage. It later filed for bankruptcy without paying off a loan written against its cargo, sparking a U.S. Supreme Court case filed by U.S. creditors.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Underwater explorer Barry Clifford, discoverer of the Whydah pirate ship that sank off Cape Cod in 1717, has his sights on another shipwreck.
The Provincetown treasure hunter is petitioning state and federal authorities to lay claim to the Semiramis - an estimated 120-foot, three-masted ship armed with 14 cannons that sank between Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in 1804.
Built in the mid-1790s, the Semiramis is important from a historical standpoint because she was one of the first China traders, according to Clifford. The ship was headed to Newport, R.I., after a three-year voyage to China with a cargo - estimated to be worth $500,000 at the time - of silk, porcelain, tea and an undetermined amount of hard currency in the form of silver and possibly gold, according to research by Clifford’s historian, Ken Kinkor.
“I have no idea what that would be worth today,” said Clifford, who’s putting together an expedition to survey the shipwreck with Falmouth-based Teledyne Benthos. “There was only supposed to be minor salvage done to the shipwreck at the time. I would suspect that much of the ship is buried under the sand and would be in very good condition.”
That was Clifford’s experience with the Whydah, which he located in 1984 - said to be the first pirate ship ever discovered and authenticated. His team has removed more than 100,000 artifacts from the ship, some of which are on display at the Whydah Sea Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown.
On Monday, Clifford’s Vast Explorer Inc. filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston to gain exclusive salvage rights to the Semiramis. Clifford plans to keep any recovered artifacts as a collection for his museum, which he hopes to relocate to Newport.
Clifford first dove on the shipwreck in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he and the late John F. Kennedy Jr. used to investigate the shoals around Martha’s Vineyard. “Before the heyday of people looking for shipwrecks, we would see sections of ships sticking out of the bottoms of the sandbars,” he said.
The Semiramis was returning from its second trip to China under Capt. Jacob Smith when it sank. “It was a very controversial shipwreck of the period, because a very large bank was involved in the funding of the project,” Clifford said.
The London banking firm of Bird, Savage & Bird had chartered and bankrolled the Semiramis’ voyage. It later filed for bankruptcy without paying off a loan written against its cargo, sparking a U.S. Supreme Court case filed by U.S. creditors.
