Like a "modern-day pirate," 75-year-old Ray Ives has been diving for sunken treasure for decades. Wearing an ancient, bronze-helmeted diving suit, he searches the ocean floor and keeps a huge collection of marine salvage (including antique cannon balls, 'bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear') in a shipping container "museum" at a British marina.
Ray: A Life Underwater:
Vimeo /
YouTube. (A short film documentary.)
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 23, 2011 -
5 comments
Swamp Ghosts.
Of all the wrecks on Papua New Guinea (PNG), none is as fabled as the "Swamp Ghost," a B-17E Flying Fortress that ran out of fuel on an ill-fated bombing mission in early 1942 and was ditched in the Agaiambo Swamp about eight miles inland on the northern coast. There the plane rested, intact and more or less unmolested, in soggy splendor for 64 years—that is, until May 2006, when an American salvager took it apart and removed it. This caused such a controversy that the plane was stopped from leaving the country. The story of the Swamp Ghost illustrates the international debate over ownership of salvaged wrecks and war surplus, told from a personal perspective by a journalist whose war-correspondent father died in PNG during WWII.
posted by amyms
on Oct 7, 2007 -
13 comments
Last winter, Sweden was blasted by the first storm in recorded history to ever deliver hurricane force winds, devastating the country's forests. Logging crews came from all over the world. This massive collection of wood is now stored at a former air strip.
via Inhabitat
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 31, 2006 -
42 comments
The Tricolor, a 50,000-ton cargo vessel carrying 3000 automobiles worth more than $40 million, is being raised. Cost to raise the
Tricolor: $40 million. It sunk, then was
hit three times, once by the Nicola, then by the
Vicky (an oil tanker which spilled some, and killed
marine life), then by a salvage tug. Good
summary of the collisions in Dutch and English, with photos (similarly in
French). Official
press briefings offer good outline of all stages since the beginning. The automobile manufacturers
tried to prevent pictures being taken of the destroyed automobiles, but
there they are and
even more and better. The
official Tricolor salvage site offers a PDF file on
how the salvage is being done: in part, with a huge cutting wire.
posted by Mo Nickels
on Aug 8, 2003 -
20 comments
Need a pair of Nikes? Fifteen or so thousand pairs of Nikes were lost overboard December 12th while
on their way to Tacoma and are making their way north. Some of those shoes started to show up on the
Washington coast late last month. The bulk of these shoes will find their way to
the Alaskan coast and the Aleutian shores. You may have a problem finding a good
pair; the shoes were not bound to their mates.
This isn't the first time Nike has
lost a load of
shoes (
and
here). In fact, in just a little poking around, it seems that there is all
sorts of
flotsam drifting along the ocean currents.
posted by YohonTheLarge
on Feb 26, 2003 -
13 comments
The
Spiegel Grove was supposed to be sunk upright, creating the largest and most accessible artificial reef ever. Cool!
Unfortunately, the ship had other ideas and now appears to be impersonating a
giant turtle. One of the nation's top
marine salvage outfits has been called to the rescue. Looks like a potential Discovery Channel show in the making. (Check out the pictures on the Spiegel Grove site, they're pretty cool.)
posted by groundhog
on May 27, 2002 -
4 comments
Remember the Kursk? It was discussed in length here last year. Now the Russians are going to haul it up, because they don't want US salvage divers to see what their best technology looks like. But the people involved in the rescue attempt last year charge that the haste is risky, and could lead to serious consequences if those reactors were to rupture.
posted by Ezrael
on Jul 17, 2001 -
15 comments
