Forums

Posted: 02-02-2009 23:54 Post subject:

and its been confirmed...let the battle for ownership commence...

Posted: 05-02-2009 02:42 Post subject:

Interesting legal problams are begining to rear their heads:-

HMS Victory: why the sinking feeling?
The loss of the Victory is one of the world's greatest shipwreck mysteries, but its discovery has sparked a furore.

By Gordon Rayner

Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory is best known for her role in the Battle of Trafalgar Photo: PA

On October 4, 1744, HMS Victory, the flagship of George II's fleet, was returning to England when it was caught in a ferocious storm off the Channel Islands and sank with the loss of all 1,150 of its crew.

The loss of the Victory – the immediate predecessor of Admiral Lord Nelson's ship of the same name – was little short of a disaster for the Crown. After winning a battle with the French off the coast of Lisbon, it had been carrying a cargo of four tons of Portuguese gold, and in desperation, search vessels were despatched to the area as soon as word of the tragedy reached the mainland.

The task was hopeless. None of the 10 Royal Navy ships sailing with it had seen how, why or where it went down, and, apart from a few shattered timbers washed up on the shores of Guernsey and Alderney, the sea refused to yield any clues.

For centuries, Victory seemed destined to remain part of maritime legend as one of the great lost treasure ships – until last Monday, when a US underwater salvage firm announced that it had found Victory and had been secretly working on the wreck since May 2008.

The revelation by Odyssey Marine Exploration that it had solved what it modestly described as "one of the greatest shipwreck mysteries in history" should surely have been greeted by marine archaeologists with unbridled excitement. But instead Odyssey, and its swashbuckling chief executive Greg Stemm, have sailed into what can only be described as a storm of controversy over the methods, motives and legality of underwater treasure-hunting.

Stemm, a former advertising executive who claims to have become obsessed with shipwrecks as a boy after seeing his grandfather drown in a shark-fishing accident, is hailed by his supporters and financial backers as a responsible archaeologist, whose company is able to locate and recover important artefacts that would otherwise be lost for ever.

Critics, however, claim that he is driven solely by profit, and that Odyssey, and dozens of similar companies around the world, risk damaging or destroying unique underwater sites in their haste to extract and sell treasure.

Mike Williams, an expert on maritime law at the University of Wolverhampton and secretary of the Nautical Archaeology Society, is among those who have deep concerns about an unregulated industry trawling the oceans for hidden riches.

"There are some horrendous examples of commercial archaeological salvage companies destroying valuable finds because they are driven by a commercial imperative," he said. "Perhaps the most notorious involved a Chinese wreck with a cargo of Ming pottery in south-east Asia. The salvage company discovered a complete packing case full of china, which was covered with Chinese symbols and would have been invaluable to any historian studying the period. But the diver who found it simply jemmied it open with a crowbar to get to the pottery inside, and the crate was fragmented and disappeared on the current."

Complaints of vandalism are unlikely to trouble some of the more unscrupulous companies, particularly those operating in the Far East, for whom marine archaeology is little more than a race to find lost booty worth billions, if not trillions of pounds. For them, treasure-hunting comes down to cold, hard economics, and even their harshest critics accept that governments and heritage organisations simply don't have the capital, or the political will, to go hunting for the wrecks themselves.

Odyssey is a case in point. Since it became a public company in 1998, it has reportedly turned a profit only twice, and in the remaining years returned an average annual loss of nearly $20 million. The company can only keep going by selling the artefacts it finds, either to private collectors or museums, and relies heavily on the input of shareholders who can't resist chancing their arm on the lure of buried treasure chests.

The industry has boomed in the past 20 years because many wrecks are within reach for the first time thanks to ever more sophisticated remote-controlled submarines. Unlike Britain's most celebrated shipwreck, the Mary Rose, which lay in shallow water where it was discovered by enthusiasts, many of the most valuable wrecks lie in deep water where they can only be located after months of enormously costly – and largely speculative – sonar surveys, putting them beyond the financial reach of public bodies.

But international laws governing the rights of ownership of wrecks are murky waters indeed, as Odyssey has found to its cost. The Florida-based firm is mired in a long-running legal dispute with the Spanish government over the ownership of 500,000 gold and silver coins it has recovered from a wreck which Odyssey code-named Black Swan. The Spanish insist the wreck in the Atlantic is the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate sunk in 1804, but Odyssey claims that it has not yet determined the identity or nationality of the ship.

The International Convention on Salvage 1989 ruled that shipwrecks found in international waters were, effectively, a free-for-all, as the ownership of treasure would be determined by whichever country it was taken to (and many countries operate a "finders keepers" policy).

But a crucial exception to this rule is the case of so-called sovereign immune vessels – in other words, state-owned ships such as naval vessels (including the Mercedes). These remain the property of their home nation. In those cases, salvage crews must offer their loot to its original owner, which is obliged to pay them a handsome salvage fee of 50 to 80 per cent of its value.

It is this law which has caused controversy in the case of Victory, which remains the property of the Royal Navy. The Ministry of Defence is understood to have struck a deal with Odyssey, which will reward the company with a sliding scale of payments for the finds, including 40 bronze cannon, said to be worth £30,000 each (there has been no mention so far of the fate of the Portuguese gold, worth up to £700 million at today's prices).

Stemm said: "Odyssey, not the taxpayer, spends its own money on the archaeological side of things. Once the entire collection is properly accounted for, it is handed over to the UK government. At that point, it is up to the Government to decide how to compensate us."

All of which might sound entirely shipshape, if it weren't for the small matter of the Unesco Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage, which the Government agreed to abide by in 2005. The Convention states that sites should be left undisturbed wherever possible, and that any artefacts recovered should not be offered for sale.

Williams claims the Government, which has warned members of diving clubs not to remove anything from wrecks in British waters, will be guilty of hypocrisy if it allows Odyssey to treat the wreck of the Victory as a commercial venture. He also points out that unless wrecks are in danger (Odyssey claims Victory is being destroyed by trawlers) they should be left intact for future generations.

But one man who has little time for such esoteric arguments is Sir Robert Balchin, a direct descendant of Sir John Balchin, the admiral of the fleet who went down with Victory.

"The idea that at some point in the future a university or government might come up with the money needed to carry out its own salvage operation on Victory is just pie in the sky," he said. "Marine archaeology is hugely expensive and no government, let alone one in the middle of recession, is going to put up the money needed to study a wreck in deep waters. Had it not been for the work of Odyssey and their expertise, the Victory would not have been found in any circumstances.

"I have looked very carefully at what they're doing and it seems to me that they're being hugely careful to preserve the integrity of the site. In the meantime, they have brought up two bronze cannon which will add enormously to our knowledge of the 18th-century Navy."

And with three million shipwrecks lying undiscovered in the world's oceans, according to the United Nations, the wreck hunters' work has only just begun.

Source:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4449933/HMS-Victory-why-the-sinking-feeling.html

Posted: 08-02-2009 19:38 Post subject:

Looks like the MOD are keeping an eye on the goings on...

Here is a Quote from the MOD website...

Posted: 09-02-2009 15:34 Post subject:

It's all very fascinating!
I imagine in the end they will be allowed to salvage it, probably with Tony Robinson and Time Team assisting Very Happy

I know I just recently got a metal detector to hunt for artifacts...now if only the ground would defrost and it would stop snowing I might get a chance to use it...

Posted: 11-02-2009 11:30 Post subject:

You don't necessarily need an expensive research ship - but the lawyers get involved anyway... Rolling Eyes

Google Earth 'helps man find buried Spanish treasure ship'
A treasure hunter who claims to have found a buried ship filled with treasure using Google Earth, the popular satellite imaging service, is fighting a legal battle to excavate the site.

By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 8:52PM GMT 10 Feb 2009

Nathan Smith claims the lost gold and silver cargo of a Spanish barquentine that reportedly ran ashore south of Refugio, Texas, in 1822, could be worth $3 billion (£2 billion).

Mr Smith, a musician from Los Angeles, said he used Google Earth, an internet site normally used by people wanting to find their own rooftop, to zoom in to a spot north of the Aransas Pass.

There, he saw an outline shaped like a shoeprint near an area known as Barkentine Creek, where the vessel was said to have run aground, he said.

After consulting experts and visiting the area with a metal detector, he is convinced he has found the ship, now buried under mud.

However, the ranch's owners have refused to allow him on to the land and the dispute has gone to federal court in Houston.

Documents and photographs of the area have been sealed by order of the court to hide the exact site. However, Mr Smith told an earlier hearing that it is even possible to make out an X marking the spot, which he believes is part of the ship's capstan.

His lawyers say the case, known as Smith vs Abandoned Ship in order further to preserve the secrecy, hinges on whether the spot - a wetlands area - counts as land or as a navigable waterway.

If it is the latter, US law allows the first person to find abandoned treasure to ask the federal courts and the US Army Corps of Engineers for permission to retrieve it. If it is deemed to be land, then it belongs to the family of the ranch's late owner, Morgan Dunn O'Connor.

However, other legal experts claim the creek is clearly outside any commercial waterway and so, if it is deemed to be in the water, any wreck belongs to the state of Texas. A judge is due to rule on the case next month.

Ron Walker, a lawyer for the ranch's owners, told ABC News: "It was offensive that somebody could go on Google Earth, look down and see what they think under the ground...and come in and say I want to dig up your property. They have no proof anything is there and no experience."

Mr Smith, who was inspired to become a treasure hunter by the Hollywood thriller National Treasure, said he has been looking for three years without any luck. He estimates the treasure near Barkentine Creek to be worth $3 billion.

The Texas coast is believed to be littered with wrecked ships, but the notoriously muddy waters of the Gulf of Mexico has made treasure hunting particularly difficult there.

Mr Smith's site is not far from Matagorda Bay, where an archaeological team discovered a ship belonging to the 17th century French explorer La Salle in 1995, following an on-off search that had lasted 17 years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/google/4583454/Google-Earth-helps-man-find-buried-Spanish-treasure-ship.html

Posted: 26-05-2009 09:11 Post subject:

Not sure there's much treasure involved, but this seems historically important:

Shipwreck's 'Prince Charlie' link

Divers say they have found the wreck of a vessel which may have been sent to relieve Bonnie Prince Charlie after his 1746 defeat at the battle of Culloden.

The team says artefacts recovered from the ship, found off the Anglesey coast, suggest it may have been bringing supplies from the King of France.

The Prince - Charles Edward Stuart - was at the time in hiding after the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion.

Divers will fully excavate the wreck to determine its historical significance.

Over the centuries, hundreds of ships have been wrecked off the rugged north Wales coast.

But divers who explored this 18th Century vessel found items including a rare ring seal of Mary Queen of Scots.

They think this may have been carried as proof of the intentions of the crew and led them to believe it might have been a supply ship.

However, the BBC's Wyre Davies said: "The name of the ship is not known and, thus far, comparatively few items have been recovered.

"If this really is as historically significant a find as its backers suggest - there are still many questions to be answered."

The Battle of Culloden - the last to be fought on British soil - took place on 16 April, 1746.

Defeat marked the end of the "Young Pretender" Prince Charlie's bid to return the Stuart dynasty to the British throne.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8067584.stm

Posted: 20-06-2009 11:00 Post subject:

A modern-day treasure ship mystery...

Argentine golden shipwreck found
By Candace Piette
BBC News, Buenos Aires

A vessel which sank carrying $18m (£11m) in gold and silver ingots has been found in the Magellan Straits off the coast of Argentina.

The cargo belonged to Argentine mining companies Cerro Vanguardia and Minera Triton and was on its way from mines in southern Argentina to Europe.

The boat sank in heavy seas in mysterious circumstances in January.

Although the vessel has been found, it is unclear if the nine and a half tons of cargo remain on board.

The Chilean fishing boat, the Polar Mist, set sail from Santa Cruz in southern Argentina for the port of Punta Arenas in Chile.

The bullion was heading first to Santiago in Chile, and then on to Switzerland for sale.

But a day after setting sail, the crew abandoned ship in a heavy storm.

The ship was found 24 hours later by a Chilean tug which tried - and failed - to bring it into port.

It went down in deep waters 40km (25 miles) off the coast.

Now in an operation to find the gold, a specialist boat carrying sonar equipment sailing under the orders of the Argentine mining companies and the international insurer Lloyds has found the wreck.

But the million-dollar question is, will they find gold on board?

Many questions have been asked about why a fishing boat was used to transport bullion and about the circumstances under which the boat was abandoned.

Because of high winds, a new attempt to investigate the wreck further is expected only when the heavy weather subsides.

Argentina has become an important gold producer.

In the last decade, former President Nestor Kirschner and the present one, his wife, Cristina Fernandez have done much to attract foreign investment in this area.

Five mines are now active, and two more are opening this year, most of them in their home province of Santa Cruz.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8110483.stm

..or is it a Strange Crime?

Posted: 24-07-2009 14:55 Post subject:

Archaeologists discover five Roman shipwrecks untouched since they sank nearly 2,000 years ago
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:41 PM on 23rd July 2009

A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a 'graveyard' of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene.
The trading vessels, dating from between the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 metres underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said today.

Part of an archipelago situated halfway between Rome and Naples on Italy's west coast, Ventotene historically served as a place of shelter during rough weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
'The ships appear to have been heading for safe anchorage, but they never made it,' said Timmy Gambin, head of archaeology for the Aurora Trust (www.auroratrust.com).

'So in a relatively small area we have five wrecks...a graveyard of ships.'
The vessels were transporting wine from Italy, prized fish sauce from Spain and north Africa, and a mysterious cargo of metal ingots from Italy, possibly to be used in the construction of statues or weaponry.
Gambin said the wrecks revealed a pattern of trade in the empire: at first Rome exported its produce to its expanding provinces, but gradually it began to import from them more and more of the things it once produced.

In Roman times Ventotene, known as Pandataria, was used to exile disgraced Roman noblewomen.
The Emperor Augustus sent his daughter Julia there because of her adultery. During the 20th century, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini used the remote island as a prison for political opponents.
Images of the wrecks show their crustacean-clad cargoes spilling onto the seafloor, after marine worms ate away the wooden hull of the vessels.
Due to their depth, the ships have lain untouched for hundreds of years but Gambin said the increasing popularity of deep water diving posed a threat to the Mediterranean's archaeological treasures.

'There is a race against time,' he said.
'In the next 10 years, there will be an explosion in mixed-gas diving and these sites will be accessible to ordinary treasure hunters.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1201694/Archaeologists-discover-Roman-shipwrecks-untouched-sank-nearly-2-000-years-ago.html

Posted: 31-07-2009 01:42 Post subject:

German treasure hunters strike gold with English shipwreck
The wreck of a 19th century English ship loaded with gold and silver worth millions of pounds has been found by German adventurers in seas off Indonesia.
By David Wroe in Berlin
Published: 6:00AM BST 30 Jul 2009

More than 1.5 tonnes of silver coins, gold jewellery, crystal, Chinese porcelain, cannon, muskets and 400 bottles of wine were recovered by the treasure hunters from the Forbes, a ship that ran aground between Borneo and Sumatra in 1806.

The team believes the value of the find to be at least 7 million euros (£6m).

Martin Wenzel, one of the hunters, told The Daily Telegraph that the discovery had come like "a shot of adrenalin in the blood".

"I found the first things during a survey and everything just looked encrusted but when I saw there was treasure like this I just couldn't believe my eyes," he said.

The Forbes was a prolific trading and buccaneering ship that had King George III's approval to attack and plunder foreign vessels.

It had raided at least one Chinese ship, as there was Ming dynasty porcelain on board, Mr Wenzel said.

The Forbes had carried opium and iron from Calcutta to the far east and was, according to the Asiatic Annual Register, on its way home with a "considerable amount" of loot and cargo.

But shortly after it raided a Dutch brig, both ships were driven onto a rock reef at five knots, the register writes.

The crew survived and piled into three lifeboats. Then, after "undergoing the greatest distresses from want of water and provisions under a scorching sun without an awning or anything to cover them" they were picked up by another English ship.

The Forbes' captain, a Scotsman named Frazer Sinclair, went on to skipper other English ships and was decorated by George III for his bold raids on foreign vessels.

National Archives records suggest Captain Sinclair died in 1816 and describe him as "Mariner of Calcutta".

Half the value of the treasure must be given to the Indonesian government under the salvage licence agreement but the German team plan to sell its share at auction, and use the money to finance future operations, Mr Wenzel said.

The adventurers are already eyeing another wreck that they believe may hold two tonnes of gold.

"This is an exciting hobby but an expensive one," Mr Wenzel said. "This is the biggest thing we've found." The Forbes salvage operation cost about 400,000 euros.

The wreck of the Forbes lay off Belitung Island, between Malaysian Borneo and Indonesian Sumatra, near the Strait of Malacca. The strait remains an important shipping route and has historically been a lucrative passage for pirates.

Mr Wenzel and his partner Klaus Keppler have spent up to 3 million euros searching Indonesian waters for wrecks. They have also found a 10th century wreck with ancient Chinese coins.

He said they scoured archives and libraries for documentary clues and also spoke to local fisherman to help pinpoint wrecks worth exploring.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/5932729/German-treasure-hunters-strike-gold-with-English-shipwreck.html

Posted: 02-10-2009 11:31 Post subject:

Austria to ban diving for 'Nazi diamonds' in Toplitz Lake
Austrian authorities are seeking a 99-year ban on searching for Nazi diamonds worth millions at the bottom of Toplitz Lake in order to protect wildlife.
Published: 11:16PM BST 01 Oct 2009

Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the last chief of the Reich Main Security Office, is said to have sunk the secret loot in the remote lake high in the Alps, 60 miles from Salzburg in western Austria, as Allied forces swept through Europe at the end of the Second World War.

Previous dives have dredged up hundreds of thousands of pounds of forged British currency and boxes of top secret SS documents. Hans Fricke, a German scientist, even discovered a new bacteria, called the "worm of Toplitz Lake".

But now Austrian nature experts are demanding a 99-year ban on all future dives because the constant hunt for treasure is disturbing local wildlife.

The Bundesforste authority, which oversees Austria's forests, and Austria's water authority, have warned the government that the frequent dives are so disruptive that they risk losing species from the lake, in the province of Styria.

"These Indiana Jones types are very bad news for the animals that make their home around the lake," said one expert.

Austrian-born General Kaltenbrunner was the final general in charge of SS stormtroopers as the German army fell apart and the highest ranking SS officer to be executed for war crimes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/6251537/Austria-to-ban-diving-for-Nazi-diamonds-in-Toplitz-Lake.html

Posted: 23-10-2009 11:30 Post subject:

This one is a bit of a mystery... Story in full:

Durham Cathedral divers discover gold and silver treasure trove in riverbed
• Amateur divers discover hoard of gold and silver
• Cathedral baffled by items owned by former leader
Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 October 2009 19.52 BST

After almost 30 years, the riverbed below Durham Cathedral has given up a bewildering secret: a hoard of ecclesiastical gold and silver, including medals, goblets, and crucifixes once owned by the Queen, the pope and other state and church leaders.

A total of 32 objects given as gifts to the late Michael Ramsey – a former archbishop of Canterbury who was bishop of Durham for four years in the 1950s and spent some of his retirement in the city – have been recovered from deep in the bed of the river Wear by two amateur divers, brothers Gary and Trevor Bankhead.

Their finds include gold, silver and bronze medals struck to commemorate the second Vatican council, which must have been presented when Ramsey – archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974 – met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1966.

The Bankhead brothers, who made some 200 dives over two years under licence from the cathedral, also discovered a solid gold Japanese medal probably presented when Ramsey met Nikkyo Niwano, president of the Japanese Buddhist movement, in 1973.

The first finds were made in April 2007. Gary, watch manager on Green Watch at Durham fire brigade, said he was sitting with his wife Angela in a coffee shop on the corner of the Framwellgate bridge, when she suggested he should dive some day in the river 10 minutes from his home.

He brought along Trevor, a former soldier, and on their first dive they found an ornate silver trowel buried in the shingle. To their amazement, its inscription said it was presented to the archbishop on 9 December 1961 by the Bengal Coal Company, when he laid the foundation stone of a church in India.

On their next dive they found another piece clearly linked to Ramsey and approached the initially suspicious cathedral authorities, who eventually granted them a licence to search for more.

The brothers – who wore out three drysuits, cut to shreds by rubbish and sharp stones in the river – also found a silver medal commemorating the Queen's coronation in 1952, which Ramsey attended as archbishop of York, and others presented by the patriarchs of the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches.

The cathedral authorities, which own both banks of the picturesque stretch of the river where it flows beneath its walls, are baffled by the strange collection of gleaming gold and corroded silver. The last find was on Sunday this week and the cathedral authorities are certain all Ramsey objects – which are in a cathedral safe – have now been recovered from the river.

One theory at the cathedral is that there may have been a burglary at the retirement home Ramsey moved to in 1974 when he left Lambeth Palace. Ramsey and wife Joan lived in a tall, handsome Georgian house on the edge of the Durham cathedral precinct, just 150 yards uphill from Prebends bridge where most of the finds were made.

However others believe that Ramsey – a brilliant but eccentric and unworldly man – quietly dropped them into the river himself, at a loss to know what else to do with them. As his friend the Very Rev Victor Stock, dean of Guildford, who stayed with him every year in Durham, said: "That is so Michael Ramsey."

Stock says Ramsey was embarrassed when he sold some pieces he was given after retirement, and gave every penny to Christian Aid. Some items reappeared on the market, upsetting the donors.

"When he and Joan were packing up that house, both quite elderly and not very well, he would have wondered what on earth to do with the rest of the stuff: he didn't want it, they had no children, he couldn't sell it, he wouldn't have wanted to cause further embarrassment by giving it away," said Stock.

"He used to go for a walk by the river every day, whatever the weather. I think it's entirely plausible to imagine him making up a little packet, and quietly dropping it into the water. He would have thought that would be the end of it, nobody would ever see them again."

Gary Bankhead also believes the archbishop himself put the pieces in the river, but as a votive offering to the city he loved. "They weren't just chucked by a burglar – they had clearly gone into the water at different times and in different places."

Recovering the objects was quite a task. Metal detectors proved useless because there was so much junk in the river, so the brothers located many pieces by throwing handfuls of shiny steel washers off Prebends bridge, and watching where they fell.

Usually the brothers were working in minimal visibility, sometimes in water so cold their air lines iced up, shifting tonnes of shingle by hand to get down to the bedrock where pieces – including hundreds of unrelated medieval and later objects – were lodged in crevices, all the while worried about being run down by passing tourist boats. Their only reward so far has been a £100 contribution from the cathedral towards their air tanks, and finding enough modern coins to pay their parking charges.

Precise legal ownership of the pieces, and their value, has still to be established. By coincidence the cathedral is already planning to unveil a stained-glass window commemorating Ramsey next year, and is collecting oral histories for an exhibition on his life. The story of the treasure in the river, and some of the objects, may now become part of it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/oct/22/durham-cathedral-divers-sunken-treasure

Posted: 04-11-2009 15:51 Post subject:

Salvagers want to raise Victory

An American salvage company hopes it will be allowed to raise the wreck of the original HMS Victory, which lies off Alderney in the English Channel.

Greg Stemm, Odyssey Marine Exploration chief executive officer, said there is currently a consultation with the UK government and other stakeholders.

He said: "Hopefully we'll come up with a way forward that includes the excavation of that site."

Two cannon were raised by the company which confirmed the ship's identity.

More than 1,000 sailors drowned when the British warship, the predecessor to Admiral Lord Nelson's Victory, sank in a storm in 1744.

The wreck, which could contain more than $1bn (£605m) of gold, was discovered at the bottom of the English Channel by Odyssey in May.

Mr Stemm said: "We've got a proposal that would have the entire site excavated, the entire collection conserved, educational materials developed and Odyssey would take the entire risk of putting that project together and funding that project."

But further salvage work is likely to only take place if the site can be shown to be under risk because the UK government has endorsed an annex of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Heritage which bans salvage, unless a site is under threat.

Mr Stemm said his company has surveyed a "large chunk" of the English Channel and are disappointed to have found shipwrecks in a "much, much worse condition than we ever anticipated".

He said his company normally operates at depths of 1,000 to 1,500 metres and often worked in depths of just 100 to 150 metres in the channel, but "nevertheless we were still surprised by the really bad shape that most of the shipwrecks are in" which he said is "a result of trawling".

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it will be discussing the issue with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

A spokesperson added: "We will be encouraging all those with an interest in UK naval heritage and underwater archaeology to contribute.

"There are a number of options open to us, ranging from preservation in situ to a full archaeological excavation, though it is fair to say that the latter would be very costly."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/guernsey/8299835.stm