Notre Dame de la Deliverance? Anyone know the Latest?

[mariner]

Jeff,

I am not sure what the Odyssey filing has to do with this thread about the Deliverance. While it is true that you do not need to name the ship, it appears that SubSea did in their approach to the court in West Palm Beach because isn't that how the news came it, when a local reporter came across the filing ? Are you suggesting that SubSea made no mention of the Deliverance in their hearing ?

Mariner

 

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[jeff k]

"Are you suggesting that SubSea made no mention of the Deliverance in their hearing ?"

BINGO!

 

[jeff k]

Worldnet (AT&T) is an IP. When I used them 5 years ago, I had a similar email address.

 

[Darren in NC]

Right Darren,
Still pretty strange that he has this email TR = {tridentresearch@worldnet.att.net} and doesn't know anything about Trident Research.

Your words have changed, Doc. Read my email again. I never said he didn't know anything about Trident Research. In fact I said he started Trident Research and Recovery in 1995, thus his email that he chose. But you originally asked him about "tridentresearch.net" (per his reply to you). Though the names are similar, the domain has nothing to do with the the company he started. He simply chose to tell you he didn't know anything about the domain name and didn't refer to his company. No big deal. I doubt he would get very far as a key researcher for SSR if he was an unscrupulous character. Of course, you have to be a little unscrupulous to be a pirate

 

[mariner]

Jeff,

I do not seem able to find a transcript or summary of SubSea's application to the US District Court in West Palm Beach. I wonder if you know the case or docket number ?

Thanks,

Mariner

 

[jeff k]

Mariner... I don't have that info. Try the US District Court in Tallahassee.

"Lead attorney Guy E. “Sandy” Burnette Jr., a Tallahassee solo practitioner, says he’s brought aboard Fisher attorneys David Paul Horan of Key West and William VanDercreek, professor emeritus of Florida State University’s law school."

 

[mariner]

Jeff,

Thanks for the note. The action took place in the West Palm Beach District Court, which is part of the Florida South District, HQd in Miami, but all of my enquiries in that district and that specific court came up blank.

I think I can get a listing of actions by attorney, so will try from that angle using the extra names you provided. Pretty good team there, though I hate to praise attorneys too much. In general I tend to side with Shakespeare.

Mariner

 

[rgecy]

Mariner,

I have the complete admiralty filing in PDF format. SSR did note this wreck as being the Deliverance in their Admiralty! The action wasn't filed in West Palm or Tallhassee.

I tried to PM you but your inbox was full, send me an email or PM me.

Robert in SC

 

[mariner]

Thanks Robert,

I have PM'd you my e-mail address.

Still hoping we can resolve the question of why my PM capacity was suddenly reduced, before I start deleting past messages.

Mariner

 

[Darren in NC]

As I mentioned on another thread, your Charter Membership may have expired, thus reducing your PM capacity. You have to re-up to get it back

 

[mariner]

Jeff,

Thanks to the prompt from Robert, I now have the transcript of the action Sub Sea took in the Key West US district court on 11/24/2004. Although their action is still against "Unidentified wreck" they did indicate to the court that they thought it was the Deliverance. I have not, as yet, managed to get a transcript of their earlier action in West Palm Beach, though I deduce from the resulting newspaper reports that they DID declare that they thought the wreck was the Deliverance. You say you don't have a transcript of that action, so I wonder how you were able to be so sure that they did not tell the court then that the wreck might be the Deliverance? Are you just guessing from ther fact that the order refers to an UNIDENTIFIED vessel, or did you have a real basis for your comment?

I think it very unlikely that they kept it from the Court only to blab it to the first reporter who rang to ask them about the order they had obtained from the court.


Mariner

 

[jeff k]

Mariner,

I didn't think their attorney would be that stupid. He should have said that they thought it was an 18th century merchant ship, and left it at that until they we're awarded full ownership. Less problems that way. Did the Court award them ownership?

 

[rgecy]

Jeff,
They have not proven that there is anything there. The court arrested the wreck, but thats the kicker, they really didn't find the wreck. They found some lead sheeting that they attribute to the wreck. They did find an 18th century English ship in the admiralty area but not the ship they were looking for.

They were going through the NOAA process of Survey and Inventory, which is the first step before they can proceed to recovery, they surveyed the area and found some 90+ good targets. But they didn't find the wreck. So how can you award admiralty on a wreck that you can't even prove is there. It doesn't make sense!

This admiralty has been messed up from the beginning. The wreck they are looking for is there, but it is not the Deliverance. I will say it again, I think naming it the Deliverance was a ploy to get investors and added a twist on Spains claim to the ship and its cargo. They were trying to get around the Juno and La Galga ruling and it backfired.

Robert in SC

 

[mariner]

Robert,

Having read the proceedings, I think you might well be right. I will watch developments with great interest, and may justice prevail.

Mariner

 

[mariner]

After reading the information that SSR actually presented to the courts, I am back with Doc on this. All of the information about the Deliverance presented by SSR was based on documents found aboard the Deliverance when she was captured by the British in 1745, or earlier documents from the French archives.

They presented nothing at all to suggest what TR says about it being bought back at auction by her original owners and put back into the same service as before. Even after the British Government intervened, SSR did not present this kind of information, which would have taken care of any potential British claim. This leads me to believe that there is no such documentation to confirm this supposed re-acquisition by the French company.

Also, despite many months of further survey work, SSR was not able to produce anything to show they had actually found a wreck, just debris, much of which they actually acknowledged as being of a later vintage than the wreck.

Hand me that salt. I need to take a big pinch of it.

Mariner

 

[jeff k]

Mariner... Either I missed something, or you're getting the Deliverance mixed up with the HMS Fantome in Nova Scotia. As far as I know it was Spain that made a claim, not the Brits. Where did you read the artifacts are of a later period?

 

[mariner]

Jeff,

I guess you need to make sure you have heard all the numbers before you call BINGO!
(only kidding, but you did set yourself up for it with that BINGO!)

The statements about the debris come from SSR's Third Interim Salvage Report, submitted to the Court in May 2004, and the British Government intervened with a letter dated 14th February 2004, stating that they may have an interest and asking the US Government to ensure that no action was taken to prejudice that interest. This was in addition to the indications Spain gave that she might have an interest.

Incidentally, the last search permit that was registered with the Court expired on January 6th, 2005, so I would repeat Robert Gecy's original question: Anybody know if there is anything still happening with this project?

Mariner

 

[jeff k]

Mariner,

"SSR's initial complaint asks for the arrest of an unidentified wreck in a given area, which includes part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. SSR say that they have "engaged in extensive, costly and at some times dangerous search, exploration and salvage activities in order to find and possess the defendant vessel etc.", and that they are now "in possession and exclusive control of the wrecked and abandoned vessel." They also indicate that they have served notice of the discovery on the Sanctuary management, so that the wreck might be protected from protection of the discovery. A week later, they amend their complaint to say that the ship was "an armed merchant ship of French origin, sailing under a Spanish flag on a merchant voyage", and that the "vessel is not a sovereign warship of Spain or any other country"."

So I was right. SSR did not name the Deliverance in the original complaint. They only did so after the Spanish filed a claim.

 

[ScubaDude]

This is turning out to be an interesting story to follow.

In the 17th through 19th centuries what merchant (or other) ship wasn't armed? Other than some fishing vessel on a local voyage who wasn't packing?

 

[mariner]

Jeff,

You want to read your own posts:

Mariner... Don't be so sure. I read the court papers of the arrest that Odyssey recently filed. There was no mention of the name of the shipwreck in the documents. All that's necessary is an artifact from the shipwreck, and a location. Read the bold print of the last article that I posted.

You did not claim that the original complaint did not mention the name of the wreck, you said that there was no mention of the name of the ship in the court documents. At the time, you were trying to suggest that SSR had not publicly identified the Deliverance, and therefore could not be accused of fraud etc. As you say, SSR modified their original complaint, stating that it was a French ship sailing under the Spanish flag, just a week after their original filing, before any other action had been taken, and long before the French intervened. Even though they did not mention the Deliverance by name until later, the newspaper story that appeared in December 2002 (a copy of which you posted earlier) did mention the ship by name. They can only have got this information from SSR, because nobody else was party to it at that time. Again, this was well before Spain intervened. In fact Jim Goold intervened for Spain only after reading about the case in the Miami newspapers.

I have posted a summary of the court proceeding on Doc's History Hunters website. I know that many TreasureNet members follow that site as well, but if anybody is interested, I could re-post it here.

TR,

I appreciate your input, and realise that you are in quite a difficult position. However, the limited amount of research shared with the court is detailed in Exhibit A of their second survey status report. Though it mentions the Canadian archives, and says that shows not only that the goods were insured when the ship was seized in 1745 but that the ship was subsequently sold back to its previous French owners. However, no specific documents were filed to show this, and that is one of the points that Doc and I find very difficult to believe. Furthermore, I can find no indication that the British Government has withdrawn its statement of potential interest. SSR merely told the Court, in its third status report, that neither Britain nor Spain had come forward with anything to establish an interest. As I understand it, Spain is happy to let SSR go ahead and establish the identity of the wreck, at which time it will decide whether or not to intervene. The court left the way clear for Spain to do so, and has not dismissed any potential British claim, in the event that SSR is not able to show that Britain sold the ship after capturing it.

Can you clarify anything about Britains supposed auction of the ship sometime after 1748, when a complaint was raised about the slowness of proceedings following the 1745 capture, and 1755 when the ship was supposedly back in action as a French ship?

If you feel constrained, perhaps you can ask SSR if they will give you permission to divulge the information to this forum. After all, they were very quick to provide the supposed identity of the wreck to the Press back in 2002.

Mariner