Odyssey Marine Article...

[Vox veritas]

Vox, when you ask for the source or the link, it's because you don't believe what you read? This was a public press conference of the Consejera in 2007. It was recorded by, at least, five different communication media (press, radio, Tv´s). Curiously, nothing of this was released or, at least, I don't remember it was. I personally heard the statements and fix exactly with the transcription. Any comment?

Trinidad, I am anxious to get to a trial of the case "Operation Bahia 2" to hear all the garbage Sussex-Odyssey-Mercedes. The official documents speak for themselves. Cheers VV

 

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[trinidad]

Pánfilo, you got it. Those are the points. Anyway, I don't believe Spain will sell anything from La Mercedes or any other spanish historical shipwreck. And if does, we will never know about it. I think this is just a press information and all of us know how this goes about the Black Swan case on almost all the the spanish media. Vox Veritas, you didn't answer my question. Why did you ask for the source or the link after reading the Consejera statements?

 

[Vox veritas]

Pánfilo, you got it. Those are the points. Anyway, I don't believe Spain will sell anything from La Mercedes or any other spanish historical shipwreck. And if does, we will never know about it. I think this is just a press information and all of us know how this goes about the Black Swan case on almost all the the spanish media. Vox Veritas, you didn't answer my question. Why did you ask for the source or the link after reading the Consejera statements?

Because it's all explained in the official records of the case "Operation Bahia 2". You just have to read them.

 

[trinidad]

Vox, I don't want to sound rude or something, but your answer and nothing it's the same. Tell me why you ask for the source of the statement, does it sounds strange to you? Does it corroborates your point of view? Is it the opposite of what you are soustaining since a long time? Not so difficult to be clear about a question that has to do with your public image and credibility.

 

[Darren in NC]

Trinidad,

It is common on this board to ask for source statements. It has nothing to do with Vox Verita's credibility. It has more to do with accurate research, which I'm sure you can understand. No one wants to base their research on undocumented sources.

 

[trinidad]

Yes Darren, I noticed that and it's more than OK to me. But I have to be a little pushy in this case because I really want to know what is the Vox´s opinion about an spanish politician public statement that doesn't fix with a predominant opinion stream here in Spain about the behaviour of Odyssey on the Sussex case. It's just that. And to this statement Vox answer with a question but not with an argument to refuse it or accept it, that was what I was looking for. Sorry, I knew it would sound rude. Excuse me all of you and, first, excuse me Vox.

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Ossy:
The central point of disagreement between the pro-UNESCO Convention supporters (Spain amongst others) and its detractors is precisely that the coins can not be sold, commercialized in any way, as this is the main pillar in this Convention that has produced the current chaos in the protection of underwater cultural patrimony. Eight years after it was approved in Paris, only 24 counties have ratified it and serious problems have arisen in the ones that have, 66 countries that voted in favor have not yet ratified it at this late point.
No, Spain will have to pay the services of its attorneys with tax payers’ money, which is also the only source available to fund any exploration and recovery projects in its territorial waters or in the waters of the other co-adherents of this nefarious excuse of a protection policy. Good lawyers are very expensive and one would guess that Odyssey has also had to spend a handsome penny in its defense, which brings to mind this thought: in the future how many companies will follow this path…how many fortuitous finds in Spanish waters will never be known, disappearing in the night? If Spain were to win this lawsuit (the opera ain’t over…) the pertinent question is, has Spain and its cultural patrimony benefited from this judgment? I have serious doubts
.

Hola Panfilo, By sale of some of the coins, I meant sale to other museum's. Spain unlike Odyssey doesn't sell it's cultural
Patrimony on eBay.
My point was It will cost every Spaniard 9 euro in Tax about the price of a packet of cigarettes, Well worth every cent to have the
goods return to Spain.
All the people that died on the Mercedes died trying to keep the goods from the English, need I say more !!!
Ossy

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

" The pertinent question is, has Spain and it's cultural patrimony benefited from this judgment? I have serious doubts" Panfilo.
I disagree Panfilo, sure nothing is perfect but it has given Spain a kick in the back side and has brought it to the attention of
the Spanish people.
If the judgment goes Odyssey way, how is this going to benefit Spain They would be there digging up the straights the
very next day. Greg would buy his new penthouse and Ferrari, Bigger recovery ship How will this help Spain?
unless he buys his penthouse in Spain ( one with bar's )
Ossy

 

[Panfilo]

The coins can not be sold Ossy to anybody, to museums nor to the Vatican nor to his Majesty himself, the Convention is very clear here, Cultural patrimony can not be commercialized, (see Rule 2 “Underwater cultural heritage shall not be traded, sold bought or bartered as commercial goods”) Mas claro no canta un gallo!

Sure the Black Swann case has brought the subject to the Spanish public attention but at what price and with which results? I am willing to make a friendly wager Ossy that Odyssey will win this case in the appellate Court or at best in the Supreme Court, then what will happen in Spain? There is a false sense of confidence in Spain that the press has made prevalent, and I might add that the general coverage of the news has been very biased and lacking in objectivity. The cardinal point that will be defined by the US courts Ossy is if the Mercedes was a military ship on a military non-commercial mission at the time of its sinking. The evidence is overwhelming, alpaca wool, cascarilla wood, discarded cannons, women and children, 76% of the registered coins were privately owned, do you think Ossy that the Spanish ships on their way to Trafalgar a few months later had this kind of cargo? Not likely! The appellate judges will see the light and will rule in Odysseys favor, have no doubts on this and by all means don’t be surprised when it happens.

The coins were not returning to Spain Ossy, they were never there and never ever got there in the first place, they belonged to private merchants, doing business and if you believe in private property, these coins were never expropriated so Spain can hardly say it owned them or now owns them. With the exception of course of the ones owned by the crown, the 24% remaining, those they can and should claim.

Lastly Ossy, when you speak of Spain “benefitting” the true and bottom issue is exactly that, how should Spain benefit in preserving its very valuable submerged cultural patrimony? And the answer is certainly not doing what it is doing for many reasons: nobody who finds a valuable wreck in Spanish waters will in his right mind denounce it, sad case for the history involved. The Spanish press has made Odyssey and Greg Stemm look like pirates and villains unjustly, saying that the coins were taken from Spanish territorial waters and we now all know that it is not the case, a classical case of disinformation. Now if the Mercedes is ruled to be a military ship on a commercial mission (it certainly was!) and Odyssey is awarded a salvage fee, according to accepted international law and Spain ended up paying five million Euros to its lawyers…there will be heads rolling. Not a distant or unrealistic scenario my friend.

 

[jeff k]

Paniflo... I might add that Spain never paid the merchants one penny in compensation, although they introduced evidence to the court as if they did. Odyssey will also be able to show that before the ships sailed from Peru, they (Navy?) advertised for merchants to ship their goods and specie. How anybody can claim this was a non-commercial voyage is beyond me.

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Panfilo, Si muy Claro. The coins being sold to museums or not is not my issue, they can be shared with museums in Peru and Spain, my issue is Odyssey
selling them for their personal gain, how is that going to benefit Spain in any way or it's people or the people of Peru ?
I regards to it being a military mission, they were under orders from naval comand and on a Royal naval vessel under the control of naval officers !
and under the Spanish flag, they could have being transporting anything does not matter ( under royal naval command orders ) The English thought
as much or they would not have attacked, they thought the crown was going to use this silver to fund the french war effort against them.
As Spain instructed Odyssey leave the Mercedes alone ! I would prefer for the coins, as some have mentioned here to put them back where they
came from, in respect for all the people that died.
As you mentioned, they latter headed for Trafalgar with gun power, why ? cause of the deadly attack on the Mercedes. Spain never wanted another
war with the English.
The Mercedes has a very important meaning to me, and who cares about the coins, it's the people who died trying to stop the English from taking
them forcefully, it should be about their memory.
The US government and two judges have agreed it's a sovereign vessel ! so i am happy to have a bet Panfilo.
Panfilo, how is Odyssey selling the coins on Ebay going to benefit anybody apart from Odyssey
Ossy

 

[Panfilo]

First things first Ossy, we cleared the point that bothered me because I have never believed that the no commercialization clause of this Convention is applicable or pertinent in a poor country like ours and in 90% of the rest of the world (In Europe and the US perhaps, not sure the way the economy is going there now!)You inadvertedly thought “let’s sell some coins so we can recover the 5 million Euros we had to pay the lawyers to get those coins”, what I would believe to be a reasonable idea. Can’t be done so lets move ahead:

You’re missing the point regarding the sovereign immunity Ossy. If you read the Law of the Sea Convention you will see that it states that for a ship to be categorized as such it must be in an “exclusively military non commercial mission” and if you read the dreadful UNESCO Convention it states the same concept. You are either in a military or in a commercial mission, not both and it doesn’t matter if the ship is the Royal Spanish Navy flagship if it was sent to buy some slaves and it sinks on its way back, it is not a sovereign vessel, its that simple. It has been calculated that over 80% of all commerce between Spain and its then colonies was performed aboard state vessels. Here is the delicate issue Ossy, if what you and Spain are saying is true (and judge Pizzo) then all the wrecks in American waters belong to Spain…not a very easy idea to swallow for many of us whose families died in the emancipation process and wars. This is a very touchy subject here in “Indias” Ossy and it really doesn’t seam very fair because we can surely differentiate between a military mission from a commercial mission even if the ship was a military one flying the Spanish flag.

The “respect for the people that died” is another smoke screen used very cleverly by Spain’s lawyers because we all know the Mercedes exploded and broke into millions of pieces. Odyssey perhaps found only a part that drifted away, its too far from the coast (read Claudios comments and his finds near the coast). The fact that the descendants are claiming the family artifacts and the coins does not mean they are disrespectful for their ancestors. I’m sure it has a deeper meaning to all the descendants who believe that the family objects still belong to them. Some Alvear family claimants believe that a silver tea set that was seen in a video might belong to dona Maria Josefa Balbastro, the wife of don Diego who died with her seven children aboard the Mercedes. If they don’t have a right to claim this, who does Ossy? Nobody wants to disrespect the memory of those who died aboard the Mercedes, much less the descendants who are claiming their ancestor’s property. If you father dies in an automobile crash there is nothing wrong in retrieving his watch and wallet and personal effects. The scatter pattern of the Mercedes found is so large that it is very improbable to find any human remains, none were seen in the videos and we all know that 200 years under the sea will destroy the bones and remains that managed to survive the explosion. Supposing the remains are there, can’t you recover the artifacts and leave the remains still at the sea bottom?

You’re right in that the lower court has given Spain a favorable judgment Ossy, chapeau for you but this is only the beginning of this legal battle, two more mayor appeals are forthcoming and we shall see…”the opera ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings”

 

[Philvis]

Panfilo, that was a very well stated argument.

 

[Darren in NC]

...how is that going to benefit Spain in any way...

Recovering abandoned wrecks never is supposed to benefit the previous owner, but the salvor. The entire point of salvage law (that has been steadfast for centuries) was to put lost cargo back into circulation. The law was generous with salvors to motivate them to do so. Now after centuries of precedence, the law "must be" reinterpreted to benefit lawgivers rather than stay true to its original intent.

 

[Alexandre]

Are you all familiar with the "General Armstrong" story?

http://bobrowen.com/warof1812/


It was captained by a guy, Samuel Reid, that not only prevented the fall of Washington at British hands in 1814, but also later designed the Star and Stripes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chester_Reid

(The US Navy has had four "destroyers named in honor of Sailing Master Samuel Chester Reid, U.S. Navy (1783-1861), hero of the War of 1812 and designer of the United States flag in its present form. He received the thanks of the New York State Legislature for gallantry in command of the New York privateer brig GENERAL ARMSTRONG which inflicted such casualties and damage to a powerful British squadron at Fayal, Azores, that it delayed the arrival of the British invasion fleet off New Orleans sufficiently to aid General Andrew Jackson's defense preparations for victory.")

There's a lot of documentation regarding this wreck, namely 19th century photographs of the "Long Tom" gun being lifted from it's watery grave in order to be sent to the USA as a gift from the then Portuguese Government.

Now, I know where it is. The wreck. It's in Portuguese waters. And it's not a former, formal, US Navy vessel - it was just a corsair ship.

Now what would the US Navy and the majority of the Americans say if I went there and ripped it to pieces, just for the fun of it (or God permit, to sell some artifacts from the wreck)?

 

[aquanut]

Alexandre,
What does that have to do with Treasure?
Aquanut

 

[Alexandre]

Nothing. We are talking about vessels that States consider to be flagships. That's all.

 

[aquanut]

Personally, I think the reason the Governments big deal about Flagships etc. began when treasure hunters found gold and silver aboard. The ships that had none were ignored and the state had nothing to do with them. It is still the case. Spain doesn't care one bit about any wreck that doesn't contain treasure, period! This case has all been presented to the ignorant public that thinks it's a good idea to conserve historical culture. There is none when you are talking about thousands of coins scattered over the ocean bottom with no other tie to historical culture. Again I say, It's all about the money! Show me where it's not!
Aquanut

 

[mariner]

Well said, Darren.

And by the way, the legal owner of the ship/cargo also benefits by receiving a percentage of the lost cargo. It may not be a high percentage in some cases but it is higher than the zero they would receive if the wreck was not recovered. The owner often gets more by reaching an agreement with the salvor than he would have been awarded by a court. Look at the agreement that Odyssey reached with Britain on the Sussex, even though I personally doubt that Odyssey actually found that particular wreck.

I believe in the application of law, and of proper archaeological methods, but the law of salvage has existed for a long time, and I don't think its underlying principles should be undermined for political purposes, as has been the case with some of the recent cases, such as the Black Swan project.

Mariner

 

[mariner]

Aquanut,

Were the Juno and LaGalga supposed to be carrying treasure? I can't remember, though I suspect that it must have been the case for SeaHunt to have spent so much money trying to find them.

Mariner