Sunken ship, though not the treasure ship in question. Photo credit: The Gearys, http://www.flickr.com/photos/gearys/122852408/
A delight for any would-be Indiana Jones, Greg Brooks, a treasure seeker from Maine, has announced the discovery of a WW2-era shipwreck said to be filled with a cargo of platinum, gold and industrial diamonds reportedly worth $3 billion (£1.9 billion).
Brooks, of research firm Sub Sea Research, claimed that the wreck sitting 50 miles off the Atlantic coast is the SS Port Nicholson, a British merchant ship sunk by the Nazis in 1942, in a torpedo attack that killed six people. It is reported that the wreck was first discovered in 2008, using sonar technology and remotely operated vehicles, but was kept secret while Brooks tried to secure salvage rights. The UK’s Daily Telegraph reports that the rich cargo was reportedly accompanied by two Soviet envoys who survived the German attack, only to suffer a mysterious fate on US soil. It is also said that the USSR reimbursed the US Government for the lost payment.
Doubts have, however, been expressed whether the wreck actually holds platinum ingots. Brooks’s claim appears to be based on a US Treasury Department ledger which shows that platinum bars were on board as part payment from the USSR to the US for war supplies under Roosevelt’s “Lend Lease” programme. Sub Sea Research has indicated that underwater video footage revealed the existence of a platinum bar on board but no treasure has yet been raised to verify the claim. A US attorney, Anthony Shusta, reportedly acting for the UK government, is also on record as saying that it is not clear that the ship ever carried platinum and that initial research has indicated that the vessel carried machinery and military stores.
Although ownership rights are as yet unsettled, Brooks has announced his desire to claim any treasure and promising, “I’m going to get it, one way or another, even if I have to lift the ship out of the water.” If confirmed, this haul would be one of the biggest treasure troves found on the sea bed.
The vessel is (probably) not a military vessel and the UK government does not automatically have title to the wreck or its contents. Given its relative youth as a wreck and its situation off the US coast the Port Nicholson, its contents will not be covered by UNESCO’s Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention. If and when its treasure is raised, the already murky legal position of the Port Nicholson will become even less clear. It must be assumed that the UK government would challenge any claim to a $3 billion dollar haul if there are any grounds on which it may do so.
It might be open to the UK government to broker a deal with Sub Sea Research on the lines of its two-year contract with marine recovery firm Odyssey Marine, salvor of the SS Gairsoppa, a vessel located in September 2011, on the basis of which Brooks could have the lion’s share of the spoils. Brooks has, however, few reasons to compromise at present.
In any salvage operation a delicate balance must be struck between the need to reward, on one hand, the risks and costs incurred by a salvor and the requirement, on the other, to safeguard cultural heritage for future generations, particularly where, as here, a wreck is also a gravesite. It has to be hoped that the actors in this chapter of the Port Nicholson’s story won’t be blinded by the lure of a £3 billion haul alone.
