Sea Gold

wrangling
lay claim to


The Sussex controversy pales in comparsion to the trouble stirred up over Odyssey's Black Swan Project. This shipwrect in the North Atlantic contained more than 17 tons of gold and sivler coins. In March 2007, Odyssey recovered the treasure and flew it back to Florida without revealing the exact location or identity of the shipwreck. The secrecy gave rise to a great deal of speculation and legal wrangling over the rightful ownership of the treasure. The Spanish government, for example, claimed the coins were from a Spanish ship the British sank in 1804. Others thought the treasure was from the British Merchant Royal, a vessel that sank in 1641. Even Peru laid claim to the treasure, saying the treasure had originated there.

Though Odyssey later confirmed that the ship was in fact Spanish, they maintain they still had a claim to the treasure. They claimed that the ship was a "mixed-use" vessel, used for both government and commercial purposes.

To avoid this type of haggling in the future, Odysesey is widely expected to announce partnership agreements with a number of countries. These agreements would cover the distribution of money from numerous shipwrecks amony the parties concerned.

The United Nations estimates there are more than 3 million shipwrecks on the ocean floor. Why do ships sink? Sometims it's because of the ship's poor design, which leads to instability. Ships also sink because of navigational errors, leading to collisions or running aground. Of course, bad weather is a big reason, as is warfare. Sometimes boats and ships are intentionally sunk. This is called scuttling.