SS Republic
Posted on 03/25/2004 7:03:04 PM PST by nuconvert
Court Grants Ownership of Rich Shipwreck to Tampa, Fla., Company
Mar 25, 2004
By Mitch Stacy/ Associated Press Writer/
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A federal judge has given full ownership of a Civil War-era shipwreck to Florida explorers who say the site may yield one of the richest sunken cargoes in history. Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa discovered the wreck of the SS Republic last summer and has already plucked 52,000 gold and silver coins from the site in the Atlantic about 100 miles southeast of Savannah, Ga.
Early estimates put the collectors' value of the coins at $120 million to $180 million. Discovery of more coins is expected to push the amount even higher.
Odyssey, which already held salvage rights, petitioned for title to the wreck after reaching a $1.6 million settlement with a company that had insured the paddlewheel steamer and its cargo and paid claims after it sank in a hurricane in October 1865.
Besides the coins, the SS Republic was carrying 59 passengers, thousands of bottles of everything from pickled fruit to stomach bitters, and various other cargo. The 210-foot ship, once part of the Union fleet, was taking the money and supplies from New York to New Orleans to aid post-Civil War reconstruction of the South.
All passengers got off alive, but the ship and its cargo settled on the sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, lost until Odyssey explorers detected it last summer after searching 1,500 square miles of ocean.
The wreck is scattered across a 40-by-120-foot area in 1,700 feet of water. The company is using a remote-controlled robotic apparatus to excavate the site and remove coins and other items.
Salvage rights were granted to the company after the wreck was discovered last year, but it remained under the federal court's protection until the judge's ruling Wednesday.
"We are now the 100 percent owners of everything, so we now have the right to do with it what we see fit," Odyssey president John Morris said.
The company made headlines last summer when it entered a partnership with the British government to excavate the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which sank in 1694 off Gibraltar.
Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins, a cargo that could be even more valuable than the Republic's.
SS Republic
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