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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (90443)	10/8/2002 10:51:08 PM
From: lorne	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 116811

Do you suppose they may be in need of some gold? Britain and U.S. Launch Deep-Sea Treasure Hunt October 08, 2002 DON (Reuters) - Britain and the United States have agreed to launch the world's biggest-ever sunken treasure hunt -- a joint mission in search of the gold on a warship that went down more than 300 years ago. The Royal Navy's HMS Sussex was engulfed by ferocious storms in the Strait of Gibraltar in February 1694 on a secret mission to bribe a fickle ally in its Nine Years' War against France. All but two of its 500 men were lost, as was the million pound pay-off, now worth close to $4 billion. The Navy said that if fully recovered it would be the largest ever haul of treasure. Britain's Ministry of Defense said Tuesday it had struck a deal with U.S. salvage firm Odyssey to recover nine tons of gold coins lying half a mile under the sea. "Odyssey has determined through a combination of historical research and archaeological survey that a wreck in the western Mediterranean is most probably that of the HMS Sussex," the ministry said in a statement Tuesday. "It's too deep to reach with divers and will have to be done with remote operated vehicles (submarine robots)," Lieutenant Commander Sue Lloyd of the Royal Navy told Reuters. The wreck has huge historical value. Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler, captain of HMS Sussex, had been given orders to buy the fluid loyalty of the Duke of Savoy against France's King Louis XIV, whose global ambitions were opposed by many countries in Europe. Historians suggest the bribe's failure to arrive prompted the fickle duke to change sides, leading to a stand-off between Britain and France and contributing eventually to the American Revolution. Lloyd said that the proceeds from the salvage would be split between the British treasury and Odyssey. Odyssey would take the bulk of the proceeds during the "cost recovery phase," but after $45 million of treasure had been raised, the rest would be split almost evenly.