Posted on 05/18/2015 6:26:51 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Shipwreck Could Hold Thousands of Litres of Rum
• Sunken British warship the Lord Clive could hold “treasure worth millions”, including “vast stocks” of 250-year-old rum which will be recovered later this year.
The wreck, which sunk off the coast of Uruguay, was discovered in 2004, but the Uruguyan government has only given permission for its recovery this year.
Salvage of the ship, which was sunk by Spanish cannons in 1763, will require cranes, excavators and around 80 workers and is expected to begin within two months.
The ship, which was constructed in Hull for the Royal Navy and was previously named HMS Kingston, was bought in 1762 by the East India Company for use in a military campaign in Spain, but sunk during its crusade.
After peace was declared, Spanish mariners left the area, but not before destroying the city wall and dumping the rocks on the vessel so it could not re-float.
Veteran Argentinian explorer Rubén Collado found the ship, and is now raising funds for the recovery.
The contents of the ship are unknown, as is whether the wreckage has been looted, but Collado believes it will still contain the gold coins, thousands of litres of rum, 64 bronze cannons and booty the crew had earlier seized from another ship.
When asked to value the contents of the ship, Collado told The Guardian: “You can’t really make a valuation. The canons should be US $64m altogether. The coins are worth US $5,000 to US $6,000 each and there are 100,000 of them, so just do the math.”
Thanks Fiddlstix, Hegemony Cricket, and afraidfortherepublic.
I just looked it up and “Tight Little Island” is the correct one, thanks.
It was a good movie tho not great. Still watchable.
Spanish mariners left the area, but not before ... dumping the rocks on the vessel so it could not re-float.”
Ah, rum on the rocks with some age to it.
Sounds like they were soreheads, or bad winners. Of course, this may be the only instance of this, since they didn’t win much of the time. “Let’s sink this ship for no good reason!” “Aye Aye, captain!”
I found the article confusing and did some checking. During the Seven Years War Spain seized Colonia del Sacramento, which is on the River Plate. Apparently, this ship was attacking Colonia but got too close to the land guns. After the end of the War, it went back to Portugal, hence the Spanish mayhem when they left. Obviously, eventually the region became independent and Spanish speaking.
The Company’s forces fought for both fortune and Empire, but the British Regular forces looked down their noses socially and militarily.
>> OK, so I always went for the low-hanging fruit.........
LOL, “I could read that a couple of different ways...”
The rum is always gone.
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