Word: odysseys
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...sinks beneath the waves. For more than two centuries, Peter Monamy's dramatic painting was one of the few images available of the tragic end of HMS Victory, which mysteriously disappeared, along with its crew of 1,100 men, one stormy night in 1744. Now, however, shipwreck salvage company Odyssey promises to fill out the picture. On Feb. 2, the Florida-based company announced it had recovered the Victory's remains...
...This is the most significant shipwreck discovery in history," says Odyssey president Greg Stemm. "It's the solution to one of the most intriguing naval mysteries in history, it went down with the most famous admiral of his time, it has the largest collection of bronze cannon in the world onboard and research suggests that it has one of the largest shipments of gold and silver that will likely ever be found on a shipwreck."(Read an interview with two Titanic wreck divers...
There's the rub. As Odyssey has discovered before, where there is gold and silver, there is likely to be controversy as well. The publicly traded firm has repeatedly provoked the ire of archaeologists who complain that Odyssey is more interested in profit than in protecting historically valuable artifacts. Currently, the company is locked in a court battle with the country of Spain over ownership of the remains of a ship that experts believe to be the 17th-century Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes...
After years of exploration, Odyssey located the wreckage about 62 miles (100 km) from the site where public opinion has long held that the Victory went down. That location, according to Stemm, helps clarify why the ship sank. "If it had run aground on the Casquets [an outcropping of rocks in the Channel], as historians have believed for over 250 years," he says, "it would have been because of a navigation error because the Casquets were far south of where the ship should have been. Since it obviously foundered in deep water, with a very experienced crew - it was almost...
...everyone is so enthusiastic, however. Dr. Jon Adams, director of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton worries that site preservation and scientific knowledge will be sacrificed in Odyssey's quest to unearth valuables. "I don't think they're the best people to be conducting this retrieval," he says. "They're in business to make money from what they find beneath the sea. They're basically treasure hunters...