Tag Archives: wreck

What Price the “Holy Grail” of Shipwrecks?

Posted on: January 8, 2024 by Paul Stevenson

Readers will doubtless recall fictional archaeologist explorer Indiana Jones’ quest to find the holy grail, a cup providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance and, by analogy, an elusive object or goal of great significance. Readers may also recall that some time ago on this blog (2018 indeed) I noted that UNESCO had weighed […]

A feat of Endurance: lost vessel of explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton found 107 years after sinking

Posted on: March 24, 2022 by Paul Stevenson

Media outlets last week revealed that scientists had found the wreck of Endurance more than a century after she sank in the Weddell Sea, a find many had claimed to be impossible. The find has been hailed by marine archaeologists around the world. The BBC reports that Mensun Bound, a member of the expedition team, […]

Iconic Titanic Marconi telegraph subject of key judgment

Posted on: May 28, 2020 by Paul Stevenson

Readers will recall the lore surrounding Titanic’s Marconi wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, who, it is said, famously stayed at their post sending distress messages whilst the Atlantic Ocean lapped at their feet. There has been conflicting and contradictory information about the demise of Phillips and Bride. Bride survived but it is almost […]

Is the Titanic struggle over?

Posted on: January 28, 2020 by Paul Stevenson

Everyone knows that the wreck of RMS Titanic is special. Media reports have confirmed as much over the past week, which has seen reports about the wreck site and a bespoke international compact relating to the ill-fated vessel make headlines. As media reports have confirmed, a treaty negotiated in 2003 (Agreement Concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel […]

Judicial review undertaken for HMS Victory salvage

Posted on: April 10, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds

Treasure, bounty, pirates – these words conjure up romantic adventures in peoples’ minds, none the more so than when they relate to historically important wrecks. An example of this is the HMS Victory which sank in 1744 in the Channel on its way back from a mission to relieve British ships blocked in the River […]

500-year old wreck discovered off the coast of Oman

Posted on: March 17, 2016 by Paul Stevenson

West Sussex-based marine consulting and operations company, Blue Water Recoveries, has announced the find of (probably) the Portuguese East Indiaman, the Esmeralda. Although not certain, it is thought to be very likely that the wreck, which lies off the coast of Oman, is the 500 year-old wreck of the vessel believed to have been commanded […]

Terror in the Arctic? Ownership of Franklin’s “lost expedition”

Posted on: September 22, 2014 by Paul Stevenson

Reports this month of an important maritime discovery as news outlets announce the likely find of a Devon-built explorer ship which it is thought was lost under the Arctic sea 160 years ago. The expedition of British Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin holds near mythic status in Canada, mystique underscored by reference to his expedition […]