Questions of ownership – and whether shipwrecks are being explored or plundered – are causing deep divides among the people who dedicate their lives to unearthing the ocean’s hidden loot
, the British warship sunk in 1941 by the German battleship Bismarck, and the Esmeralda, a Portuguese ship lost in a storm off the coast of Oman in 1503. Advances in technology, including remote-operated vehicles and sonar, have made wreck hunting easier, while the costs of exploring the ocean – in shallower waters at least – have fallen.
Many believed it to be La Trinité, a French ship involved in a bitter battle with Spain that sank in the stormy waters off the Florida coast in 1565. Its loss, along with three other ships, proved to be a historic moment, allowing the Spanish to gain a vital foothold in North America. Criticism of shipwreck hunters’ methods is further inflamed by the fact that wrecks are often watery graveyards. A 2017 Guardian investigation foundin south-east Asia’s waters had been damaged by salvage divers seeking valuable metals. Up to 4,500 crew members are estimated to have died when these boats sank. “You may as well just go into a war cemetery and dig it up. It’s no different,” James Hunter, from the Australian National Maritime Museum, told the Guardian at the time.
For him shipwrecks are a puzzle to be unravelled by peeling back the layers like an onion, to measure, document and analyse everything, down to the tiniest insect remains or scrap of cloth. Mearns believes most hunters are in it for the history and sense of discovery. “It’s a great feeling to find something that’s been lost for so many years – and the material that reveals that was a bunch of dusty papers found in an archive or a private library,” he says. “You’re bringing it to life so people can then see it, experience, relive it, relearn about it.”
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