So once you find your ship, what is to stop you claiming ?Salvor in Possession? as the James Cameron with the Titanic.
The U.S. district court which has jurisdiction over this affair has that rule. As Salvor-In-Possesion, RMSTI is permitted to recover artifacts from the debris field but is legally prohibited from molesting the wreck itself. While James Cameron may well look for a lot of things, he won't be making an attempt at recovery. Even if it were legal for him to attempt it...and it's not...his attitude and approach has been "Look But Don't Touch."
The Titanic is in international waters as well!!!!
So you can recover things from the debris field but not the wreck itself (most of our wrecks are debris fields). That could be very interesting.
According to Kendal Macdonald in the UK it stood like this in 2003
There has always been confusion among divers about the law of Salvor in Possession. So I asked Mike Williams, senior lecturer in law at Wolverhampton University, who specialises in marine law and is an archaeological diver himself.
Does "salvor in possession" really exist? He says it does. In 1798 the Aquila, a Swedish brig on her way from Cadiz to Hamburg, was abandoned by her crew and found by fishermen as a derelict. Those men are the first recorded SIPs.
The Dutch liner Tubantia, sunk in 1916, was the first wreck on which divers claimed to be salvors in possession
The first case concerning divers is of the Dutch liner Tubantia, torpedoed by a U-boat in 1916. Salvage operations "by salvors in possession" in the 1920s were spurred on by tales of ?2m-worth of smuggled gold hidden in the Dutch cheeses that formed most of her cargo. A lot of hard cheese was found, but no gold.
Must you register your claim to be salvor in possession? No, just declare it to the world in general. If challenged, you need evidence of possession, such as a continuous presence shown by a diving log, and formal records of a proper salvage operation done with the intention of benefiting the owner.
It is not essential for the SIP to buoy the wreck all the time, and the Receiver, having no record of a SIP, will be unable to inform divers when they declare items.
Mike Williams has told the Stevens group that the choice is theirs - carry on diving and wait for the SIP to take them to court with evidence of his salvage work, or give up diving the Schiller.
I asked Richard Larn if he intended to stop all divers on the Schiller.
"The claim of salvor in possession of the Schiller, which has been widely publicised, is in the joint names of David McBride and myself," he said.
"Mr Stevens was advised in writing that we were legally joint salvors of the Schiller as of January 2002, and a letter dated August 2002 "respectfully requested that he cease
The U.S. district court which has jurisdiction over this affair has that rule. As Salvor-In-Possesion, RMSTI is permitted to recover artifacts from the debris field but is legally prohibited from molesting the wreck itself. While James Cameron may well look for a lot of things, he won't be making an attempt at recovery. Even if it were legal for him to attempt it...and it's not...his attitude and approach has been "Look But Don't Touch."
The Titanic is in international waters as well!!!!
So you can recover things from the debris field but not the wreck itself (most of our wrecks are debris fields). That could be very interesting.
According to Kendal Macdonald in the UK it stood like this in 2003
There has always been confusion among divers about the law of Salvor in Possession. So I asked Mike Williams, senior lecturer in law at Wolverhampton University, who specialises in marine law and is an archaeological diver himself.
Does "salvor in possession" really exist? He says it does. In 1798 the Aquila, a Swedish brig on her way from Cadiz to Hamburg, was abandoned by her crew and found by fishermen as a derelict. Those men are the first recorded SIPs.
The Dutch liner Tubantia, sunk in 1916, was the first wreck on which divers claimed to be salvors in possession
The first case concerning divers is of the Dutch liner Tubantia, torpedoed by a U-boat in 1916. Salvage operations "by salvors in possession" in the 1920s were spurred on by tales of ?2m-worth of smuggled gold hidden in the Dutch cheeses that formed most of her cargo. A lot of hard cheese was found, but no gold.
Must you register your claim to be salvor in possession? No, just declare it to the world in general. If challenged, you need evidence of possession, such as a continuous presence shown by a diving log, and formal records of a proper salvage operation done with the intention of benefiting the owner.
It is not essential for the SIP to buoy the wreck all the time, and the Receiver, having no record of a SIP, will be unable to inform divers when they declare items.
Mike Williams has told the Stevens group that the choice is theirs - carry on diving and wait for the SIP to take them to court with evidence of his salvage work, or give up diving the Schiller.
I asked Richard Larn if he intended to stop all divers on the Schiller.
"The claim of salvor in possession of the Schiller, which has been widely publicised, is in the joint names of David McBride and myself," he said.
"Mr Stevens was advised in writing that we were legally joint salvors of the Schiller as of January 2002, and a letter dated August 2002 "respectfully requested that he cease
