| Subject: |
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Re: Has Spain 'WON' the battle for our Cultural Heritage ?? |
| Name: |
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Bob Ward |
| Date Posted: |
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Dec 21, 06 - 6:45 PM |
| Email: |
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drake@newportnet.com |
| Message: |
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For a pretty full and interesting discussion on the subject of Sub Sea Research's supposed discovery of the Deliverance, I suggest you visit the discussion on the History Hunters Forum. Here is the link:
http://historyhuntersinternational.org/index.php?topic=966.0
It is almost certain that the wreck is NOT the Deliverance, and SSR shot themselves in the foot by saying that it was. When they first filed an Admiralty claim, it was for "an unidentified vessel etc.", but within a week, and with no other action taken, they modified their compalaint to say that it was an armmed French merchant ship, sailing under the Spanish flag. This was picked up by a local reporter, who published the story in a Miami newspaper, naming the ship as the Deliverance. The reporter can only have got this information from SSR. It was when Don Goold, the attorney for Spain, read the newspaper article that he intervened on Spain's behalf. Later, SSR modified their complaint to remove the phrase "sailing under the Spanish flag", but by then they were already bleeding from the self-inflicted wound. SSR then produced documentation to show that the Deliverance had been captured by the British in 1745, ten years before supposedly sinking off the Tortugas while carrying an almost identical treasure load for the Spanish, which caused the British to file a notification of possible interest. SSR had managed to put a bullet into their other foot.
SSR claimed that the British had then sold the captured ship back to its original French owners, a most unlikely scenario for two countries that were still at war, but produced no documentation to support this assertion.
The judge did give them substitute custodial status on the supposed wreck (there appears to be no evidence that they had actually found the wreck they claimed), and gave them permission to carry out surveys in that part of their designated area that is part of the FKNMS.
Still, SSR seem to have learned their lesson. In November 2004, they filed a second complaint in the same Key West courtroom, citing only an "unidentified wreck" in an area about half a degree west of the previous area. They were not silly enough to name this time, and with no co-defendants (they had previously cited FKNMS as co-defendant). This time, after following the due process, they were awarded custody of the wreck in a default judgement.
ps. a little birdie tells me that SSR never knew where the so-called Deliverance wreck was in the first place, but that they were trying to establish a claim on a wreck that somebody else had found some years earlier, without giving that person a fair shake of the whip. Seerms to me they got what they deserved.
The second case, however, which went through with what appears to me no real evidence that a wreck even existed in the second area, and so easily that it does seem to back what Pat Clyne said recently in the "salvage permits denied" thread: that the 11th circuit is better inclined towards private salvagers than the 4th circuit, which handed down the SeaHunt/Juno/LaGalga decision in 2000.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting in 2007.
Bob Ward |
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