Tampa firm recovers 48 tons of silver from sunken ship

[Baitball Blogger]

TAMPA — Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. says it has recovered approximately 48 tons of silver bullion from a British cargo ship sunk during WWII off Ireland's coast.

The Tampa-based company said Wednesday that the silver was recovered from the SS Gairsoppa, a British cargo ship torpedoed by a German U-boat in February 1941. The ship sits nearly 15,420 feet (4,700 meters) below the surface of the North Atlantic, about 300 miles (500 kilometers) off Ireland's coast. Records say it was carrying silver valued in 1941 at approximately 600,000 British pounds.

The find totals 1,203 silver bars, or about 1.4 million troy ounces of silver. It's been transported to a secure facility in the United Kingdom.

Odyssey says the operation has produced the heaviest and deepest recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck.



http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-07-18/news/os-tampa-finds-tons-silver-wwii-ireland-20120718_1_ss-gairsoppa-silver-bars-tons-of-silver-bullion

[julian09]

1. Forty eight tons, no wonder it sunk..

[HooptieWagon]

3. 48 tons is probably a fraction of the ships cargo capacity.

I dont know if it was carrying other cargo.

Edit for additional info: Ship was 399' long, and a bit over 5K tons gross. I guess could carry about 2000 tons cargo? Was enroute from India to Britain, joined an 8 knot convoy in Sierra Leone. Was running low on coal, left convoy to head for Galway, Ireland. Sunk by UBoat. The 48 tons of silver ingots recovered is only about 20% of the total on board. Ship was also carrying pig-iron and tea.

[sarisataka]

16. She was carrying quite a bit of cargo

2600 tons of pig iron, 1765 tons of tea, 2369 tons of general cargo and 200 tons of silver ingots and coins (£600,000)

Story here http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/765.html

[hifiguy]

2. That is one hell of a piece of deep-sea salvage.

Wonder what it's worth today?

[sarisataka]

5. Current price

call it $27 to allow for spot change

1.4 mil oz * 27, Um carry the holy crap, =
$37,800,000 give or take.
Nice days fishing.

[William Seger]

10. That's Rush Limbaugh's salary for one year

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I always wonder with all the submarines we have in the ocean why our government isn't behind

some of these discoveries?

[former9thward]

11. Naval submarines have specific orders and missions.

They are not just wandering around looking at random things.

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Sounds like a missed opportunity not to mark a point of interest as you go by.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. ROFL

[Ikonoklast]

4. I wonder what their net will be. $38 million, more or less, at current prices.

I am certain that venture was fairly expensive to finance.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-1342622247000/turbine/os-photo-tons-silver

[Baitball Blogger]

7. I did a search for Odyssey.

They seem to have a pretty high success rate.

[HooptieWagon]

19. Not so successful in court against Spain.

But they and several other salvage companies have some pretty high-tech magnetometers and side-scan sonar. If they know where a wreck is within a few miles, they'll find it.

[gregoire]

8. Imagine how many people this could feed

Instead the government is hoarding it in a "secure" facility.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. What government?

The silver was recovered and is being held by a private company.

Follow the thread there, bud.

[HooptieWagon]

17. Company cut a deal, govt gets 10%.

That seems to be the going rate. Mel Fisher gave 10% to US govt of Atocha treasure.
Interestingly, Odyssey found and recovered a huge amount of treasure from a Spanish Galleon sunk in international waters off Gibralter. Spain successfully sued to collect the entire treasure. Odyssey never cut a deal with govt... They alleged it was a merchant ship free for the taking. Spain's successful arguement was that the galleon was a govt naval vessel, and they still owned it. Big battle in US courts.

[aquart]

9. Treasure!

[HooptieWagon]

12. Profits made off their colonial empire in India.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. Mitt's lost spoon?