Odyssey Marine Exploration
| Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | US6761181022 |
| founding | 1994 |
| Seat | Tampa , United States |
| management | Mark D. Gordon, CEO |
| Number of employees | 43 (2013) |
| sales | 23,910,000 US dollars (2013) |
| Branch | Treasure hunter |
| Website | www.shipwreck.net |
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. is an American treasure hunt company based in Tampa / Florida . The company was founded in 1994 and has been listed on the stock exchange since 1997. Greg Stemm is a co-founder and was CEO until 2014 .
history
Odyssey was best known for salvaging ship treasures such as the paddle steamer Republic (salvaged in 2003, sunk off the coast of Georgia in 1865, worth more than $ 75 million), the English warship Sussex ( sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar in 1694 ) and the project "Black Swan" salvaged ship (probably the largest treasure found so far ), whose identity is currently still being debated.
In early February 2009 it was announced that the company had discovered the wreck of the British Victory off the Channel Islands. In February 2012, the UK Ministry of Defense transferred the rescue rights to OME. It was agreed that British researchers would be allowed to evaluate the find, that 20% of the find would go to the United Kingdom and that 80% of the find would remain with the exploration company. The recovery of the find should begin in 2012. In fact, this transfer of the salvage rights to Odyssey Marine Exploration contradicts the principles of UNESCO accepted by the British government, since, among other things, advance financing is not secured, but the company would be dependent on proceeds from the finds. Standards for the preservation of the underwater cultural heritage are not guaranteed.
A US court ruled against Odyssey on September 21, 2011, that it must hand over the gold treasure found in a shipwreck in 2007 to Spain. Odyssey claimed the site was in international waters .
On September 26, 2011, the company announced that it had made the largest underwater treasure find ever. In international waters, 300 miles (480 km) off Ireland at a depth of 4,700 m, the wreck of the Gairsoppa was located with a remote-controlled submarine. According to contemporary reports, the British cargo ship sunk by the Germans in 1941 during the Second World War is said to have up to 198 tonnes of silver bars on board as the most valuable cargo, worth an estimated 150 million euros. In 2010 the British government won the bid to salvage the ship and keep 80% of the treasure. The rest goes to the State of Great Britain.
In October 2011 the discovery of the Mantola was announced. In 2014, Odyssey Marine Exploitation found five gold bars and two gold coins at the site of the Central America wreck allegedly emptied by the Columbus-America Discovery Group of deep-sea engineer Thomas G. Thompson and is expecting further gold discoveries.
Equipment and procedure
The company invests approximately $ 35,000 daily in the search for wrecks and treasure. Four ships are currently in use, including the "John Lethbridge", which is mainly used for sonar research, and the "Odyssey Explorer". This is a 76 m long and 1700 GRT heavy special ship. The salvages are carried out with this ship. It is equipped with the latest technology, including an eight-ton, four-million-euro diving robot.
All rescue operations are precisely prepared. In advance, tons of old loading lists, shipping registers and records are sifted through in order to select potentially worthwhile wrecks. In painstaking detail work is then attempted to localize the approximate location of the wreck. Subsequently, maps of the sea bed are created and evaluated with sonar. Only after their evaluation are potential positions for dives determined. An attempt will then be made on site to find and identify the wreck. The diving robot then takes thousands of photos, which are put together to form a mosaic with the help of computers. This gives you an extremely precise map of the place where the wreck is located.
The age, origin and type of the wreck can often be narrowed down using cannons. For this purpose, the finds must be carefully examined because z. B. the size is crucial. Even wrecks that did not have any valuable cargo are precisely measured and determined, so that valuable underwater archeology is performed. All finds must be registered. Even if the location is in international waters, a state could lay claim to the find, as has happened several times.
Therefore one tries, if possible, to conclude a rescue contract with the country concerned before the rescue. Some finds in British waters were allowed to be salvaged because British archaeologists were on board, who were allowed to examine all finds carefully. 20% of the value of the cargo was assigned to the British government, 80% was given to the company, which had to cover all of the costs.
Such salvage companies are sometimes viewed as the destruction of cultural heritage among scientists and monument preservers.
Web links
- Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. website
- Welt, March 20, 2007: Deep-sea divers find the greatest treasure in history in the Atlantic
- Archeology, Aug 7, 2012: One mile to the left
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. 2013 Form 10-K report
- ↑ World: 250 year old British shipwreck discovered
- ^ Archaeologik, June 7, 2012: The Odyssey of HMS Victory ; Archaeologik, June 26, 2012: HMS Victory update ; Archeology, Aug 7, 2012: One mile to the left.
- ↑ a b ORF : Shipwreck with silver treasure located in the Atlantic
- ^ Spiegel Online : Silver Treasure: Wreck of the SS "Mantola" found
- ↑ 27 kilograms of gold recovered from shipwreck. (No longer available online.) In: derStandard.at. May 7, 2014, archived from the original on December 15, 2017 ; accessed on December 14, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ savearchaeology.co.uk: Odyssey Marine and Cameron Peer Out of Control on HMS Victory ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
