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| Odyssey Marine Exploration Photo of Stern Compass from Gairsoppa |
Odyssey Marine Exploration, headquartered in Tampa, FL, announced Monday that it has found the Gairsoppa, a British cargo ship torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1941, approximately 300 miles off the coast of Galway, Ireland. The ship had been sailing from India back to Britain carrying a cargo of silver, pig iron and tea. Running low on fuel, the Gairsoppa slowed its pace and fell behind the convoy of ships with which it was traveling.and headed for Galway, Ireland. A lone survivor told the tale of the torpedo attack.
When asked what would happen next, Andrew Craig, Odyssey senior project manager, responded, "Now we're hard at work planning for the recovery phase. Given the orientation and condition of the shipwreck, we are extremely confident that our planned salvage operation will be well suited for the recovery of this silver cargo." The Gairsoppa was carrying 7 million ounces of silver, the largest known precious metal cargo recovery from a vessel lost at sea. Valued at 600,000 pounds when it began the voyage, the silver today is worth about $210 million.
The British government has awarded Odyssey an exclusive salvage contract for the cargo, allowing Odyssey to retain 80 percent of the silver bullion salvaged from the wreck. Odyssey's president Mark Gordon noted, "We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the deepest parts of the oceans. It's exciting to be working at depths like these and to be among the pioneers of deep ocean exploration in this unexplored frontier." It sounds as though this watery frontier has benefits far beyond the pioneering aspect. With billions of dollars lying beneath the sea worldwide, this kind of salvage is the stuff of which dreams are realized.
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