A silver lining.

September 27, 2011 5:50 AM

Gairsoppa SS was a British Cargo Steamer of 5,237 tons built by Palmers, Hebburn, England for MOWT as the WAR ROEBUCK SS but completed as the GAIRSOPPA SS for the British India SN Co. On the 16th February 1941 she was torpedoed by German submarine U-101 and sunk. A lifeboat carrying the survivors travelled 13 days from the wreck off S. Ireland and came ashore in a battered condition at Caethillian Cove at The Lizard which is the most southerly point of England. Only one survivor, 2nd. Officer Robert Ayres, was to survive this final assault although 4 persons had been alive at the approach to the cove.

In 2010, the UK Government awarded exclusive salvage rights to Odyssey Marine Exploration.

"Odyssey will assume the risk, expense, and responsibility for the search, cargo recovery, documentation, and marketing of the cargo. If the salvage is successful, Odyssey will be compensated with a salvage award which consists of a majority of the net value of the recovered cargo after deduction of expenses of search and salvage."

Odyssey Marine now confirms discovery of the SS Gairsoppa and "7 Million total ounces of silver, including over 3 Million ounces of private silver bullion insured by the UK government which would make it the largest known precious metal cargo ever recovered from the sea" worth about £150m.

Under the 2010 salvage agreement with the British government, Odyssey will be able to keep 80% of the cargo.

posted by three blind mice (10 comments total)

I had seen this elsewhere and they mentioned that Ayres was the sole survivor but implied that he was alone in the lifeboat. Funny how the real story got overlooked.
posted by tommasz at 6:06 AM on September 27, 2011

I hope no MeFites went long on silver last week.
posted by spitbull at 6:08 AM on September 27, 2011

Odyssey Marine has problems with Spain;
There are still some questions about all this.
Seems like a good way to keep the market price up.
posted by adamvasco at 6:09 AM on September 27, 2011

There are still some questions about all this.

That link is from a week ago, and speculates that they may be on the verge of finding the wreck since a second boat entered the search area and the stock price was beginning to rise, perhaps on rumors or speculation of imminent news of discovery. And, hey, here we are a week later and it turns out that news of discovery was indeed imminent. So the real question is why are you trying to make it sound las though the discovery is in question in some way?
posted by dersins at 6:18 AM on September 27, 2011

21 sept stock dropped 33% so they needed something to pull it up. Nothing like an unverified press release to help. Note that they have located a wreck, not that they have yet located the cargo.
posted by adamvasco at 7:29 AM on September 27, 2011

Just for the record, the "largest known precious metal cargo ever recovered from the sea" bit is total horseshit. The Atocha, off the Florida Keys, has netted somewhere between $300 and $400 million (and they're still pulling stuff off it). And the discovery and recovery of the SS Central America earned somewhere around a billion dollars worth of gold.
Odyssey is well known for being dishonest. Their MO has mostly been to manipulate their stock to make their money. They have found a few things, but no one in the industry would take their claims at face value.
They may very well have found this vessel. They did make the agreement with the British government. And I know they've been looking for the Gairsoppa. But there always seems to be some twists and turns when it comes to Odyssey.
posted by Kaigiron at 11:43 AM on September 27, 2011

And the discovery and recovery of the SS Central America earned somewhere around a billion dollars worth of gold.

Wikipedia disagrees.
posted by wilful at 8:25 PM on September 27, 2011

Not that it probably matters at this point, but if you are interested, that Wikipedia article is way off. It claims that the ship was found with an ROV, which is nonsense. ROVs are used to verify a target (because they have cameras on them) after it has been located by sonar. I work for the company that located the Central America with sonar. The ROV came later to look at the targets and verify the find, and then to do the recovery.
There is a good book about the search and recovery called Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea. It’s well written and accurate (for the most part). The book estimates the worth of gold recovered to be around US$1,000,000,000. The thing is, it’s impossible to know just how much money’s worth was recovered because Tommy Thompson was so secretive about everything. Estimates range up to 2billion. Thompson still owes money to my company, as well as to numerous lawyers and investors. There is still an ongoing court case over it. And gold coins from that wreck are still available for purchase. It’s an interesting and complicated story. I don’t know where that 100-150 million figure came from, but it’s certainly way too low.
You can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia.
posted by Kaigiron at 11:28 AM on September 28, 2011

You can't trust everything you read on Wikipedia.

It actually is your responsibility to correct misinformation on Wikipedia.
posted by wilful at 6:29 PM on September 28, 2011

It actually is your responsibility to correct misinformation on Wikipedia.

Fair enough. But I thought it was frowned upon to make edits about topics which your employer is involved in. And I had never looked up the SS Central America on Wikipedia before.
I wasn't trying to bag on Wikipedia. It's a great first resource to learn more about a topic. But quoting it as Gospel truth is misguided, in my estimation.
In any event, it's not terribly important exactly which discovery at sea has netted the most money. But I obviously don't have a lot of love for Odyssey, and I wanted to point out that their claim was bunk. They always make these lofty claims when they have a shipwreck to show off to people. But that's for the media attention and for the stock value, not in the interest of informing the public about some historic find. This is often the case with shipwreck hunters. And Odyssey has one of the worst track records as regards forthrightness.
posted by Kaigiron at 7:24 PM on September 28, 2011