Panfilo said:
CP:
I will tell you what REALISTIC is: the exploration and technical recovery with the highest archeological standards of an important wreck like the San Jose can cost something in the order of twenty million dollars or so and the conservation and preservation will add another similar amount. Those are the real numbers. If you want to recover that kind of investment with the “film rights” for a documentary, as one of the previous Ministers of Culture proposed in a senate hearing we were invited to, well, you might have 1% of the costs there but the other 99% is still missing. Discovery or National Geographic might pay you $50,000, no more. You say, from a museum or an exhibit, OK, but it’s very hard or nearly impossible to get investors to finance such an uncertain project. The senate? Unlikely.
I see you are a supporter of the UNESCO Convention and there is clearly nothing wrong with that except that it can not be implemented in a country like Colombia for several reasons (unconstitutionality mainly), creating a situation that has put its intellectual supporters in a dilemma: don’t give up, never give in, death first, and don’t let any other viable formula prosper thereby achieving the much revered “in situ preservation”. Meanwhile many, many historically important wrecks are disappearing.
I’m not going to get into a UNESCO discussion with you, your view is respectable. History, I think, will be the judge as to who was right here….in a few decades when technology has advanced and there are no more wrecks left to recover…somebody will realize that this Convention singlehandedly caused the destruction of most of the wrecks on the ocean floor.
Panfilo
No, the UNESCO convention is not the subject of this discussion and I am not a supporter of it. You could call me "Darwinian". I believe in evolution. I know I have been a monkey before, but I have evolved into a thinking being. I can read the writing on the wall, as Alexander says.
You are bringing up some very good points above.
How to finance the enterprise.
If you look at the business world, at entrepreneurship, you will see that time and time again over the time of history, as far back as you go, there were always the impossible things. But somebody found a way. Somebody was the pioneer that showed that there was a way to do the impossible.
Since we are on a shipwreck forum, I will use a shipping example.
For many hundreds or even thousands of years there was trade between the far east and Europe. But the trade route was very long and very dangerous, so by the time the trade goods arrived in Europe, they were very expensive. But there seemed no other way. for hundreds of years. Until....
Until some king, I think he was Portuguese, (was it the Infante? Alexander could write books about that) sent his people out to find a navigation route, so that the goods could travel by ship instead of camel back. It was not easy, but once it worked, it made the small country of Portugal into an Empire.
Other pioneers looked for other routes. Cristobal Columbus was one of them.
What I mean to say, every great business went through a time where it seemed impossible to finance it..... Until somebody found a way.
Film rights and documentary. Right, only a drop on a hot stone.
Hmmm, I just watched a tourism publicity on CNN. About Colombia. I wonder how much they pay per second of publicity aired?
Museums. Many look at it like this boring place where the teacher took them in 6th grade. But what about the "VASA" museum. Check out the numbers. The "VASA" museum has made a few hundred % profit. But these few hundred % are only a drop on a hot stone, when compared with how much money this museum has made for all the hotels, restaurants, Airlines and all the other businesses connected in some way with tourism, have made because of the tourists that came to look at the museum.
Have you seen Bob Ballard's business? He seems to be doing well. His recipe works.
look at Disney Land in Orlando Florida. Theme Parks. How much money do they bring to the State of Florida? How much money flows through Orlando because of the Theme Parks? Big Business eh?
Ok, then small business. Key West. Mel Fisher and his Treasure Exhibit. How much money has it brought to Key West over the past 25 years?
Investors?
There is an infallible recipe to get investment. INFALLIBLE. There is not one investor that can resist.
Now, why do I talk about all this on this forum?
The funny thing is that Florida was the cradle of shipwreck treasure hunting. Over the past 50 years a large amount of experience has been accumulated. A lot of experience that could be applied.
For the recipients of this experience the time has come to chose between extinction like the dinosaurs or adapting to a new environment.
The world of the treasure galleons has changed, it will never be the same anymore.
Who wants to adapt?
