I have been working as a commercial diver for the last twenty years, I have always been interested in shipwrecks and shipwreck research. I have been lucky enough to have worked on historical shipwrecks, including King Henry the eighths flag ship, The Mary Rose and four VOC treasure ships including the Rooswijk.
Galleon Quest, I Have invested in this for being involved in both protected wrecks, such as the Mary Rose, and an archaeological salvage of the Rooswijks treasure, I am well aware of the law concerning the salvage of shipwrecks. There I s no law of the land or of the sea or military that can prevent the rightful owner of cargo lost in a shipwreck, from recovering their property. A Protected wreck is protected to preserve the history of the wreck along with the owner’s property, if a person has title to a wreck or cargo, the government or heritage departments must work with the owner, or holder of title to wreck or cargo, to recover their property. Governments cannot claim owner ship of the ship or cargo that they did not original own.
There is also a point where an unprotected shipwreck, and the cargo are considered to have been abandoned by the owner. This is where the law of international salvage comes in, a person can then salvage the shipwreck and cargo and claim a salvage reward from the owner of the cargo, usually 80% of the value of the cargo, the owner receives 20% of the value after the cargo is sold.
This does not include Ships of War, (battle ships) there is different laws to protect commissioned ships. How ever some ships that are considered to have been contracted, or ships owned by Privateers, they are not commissioned ships. In the case of the nuestra señora de Las Mercedes, it was a ship of war the cargo was also owned by the Spanish Government, the mistake that the salvors made was not to obtain a contract from the Spanish government to salvage he cargo, having said that they still got to keep a percentage of what they salvaged.
In the case of the salvors of Las Mercedes there is plenty on the internet about that company.
There are also very genuine people who are now trying to recovery large amounts of gold from shipwrecks, but the question I have there is there information correct? A ton of gold is roughly one-foot square trying to find that in 11000-ton ship is needle in a hay stack stuff.
Galleon Quest I know of the person suppling the information and I can read between the lines in what they are saying anyone with the same knowledge as I can see in one of their comments that they are targeting amongst others, a remote area, that was in the age of sail the most dangerous and uncharted area of the ocean. Around this most unusual area of sea there are shipwrecks that hold the same value in their hold s as The Nuestra Señora De las Mercedes. I also know that the main researcher has years and years of experience in research and archaeology, there legal team will have worked on gaining contracts with owners of cargo including government department, this will have done 100% to comply with the law of the Sea and Military Law before they begin any salvage.
On the value of cargo, ships where banks, they had to carry the cargo, but also the money to buy new cargo, there was no internet banking in the age of sail or steam, so most sailing ships would have carried bullion, and coins, again the Rooswijk had ten chests of silver and 20 chests of coins along with a full our bound cargo.
A run of the mill 1782 trading Schooner with $100,000 in bullion does not sound like a lot but according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics consumer price index, the dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 1.27% per year. In other words, $100,000 in the year 1782 is equivalent in purchasing power to $1,967,328.52 in 2018, most of the shipwreck galleon quest are going to salvage will be worth around 100 Million in today’s money really, they only need to recover one cargo to make it all pay out of hundreds of ships.
All of you are more qualified in financial matters than I, but again reading between the lines and having information of the personal wealth of some of those involved, I can see that they have invested a large amount of there personal wealth, that is what I call putting your money where your mouth is. I think this is the best planned operation to recovery artefact’s and treasure in the history of shipwreck salvage. We will be all reading books and watching the documentaries for many years depicting the recovery of some of the worlds largest lost treasure shipwrecks.
I hope this is of interest to some of you and hopefully we will be on the quest to a small profit together. All the best Pete Magowan
See media section on my LinkedIn.
www.linkedin.com/in/peter-magowan-a3127b15a
