Largest amount of precious metal ever found at sea; British vessel SS Gairsoppa was returning from India in 1941 when she was torpedoed by a Nazi U-boat.
A shipwreck holding silver worth Euro150 million has been discovered in the Atlantic – the largest amount of pricious metal ever found at sea. About 200 tons of the bullion sank off Ireland with British cargo steamer the SS Gairsoppa when it was hit by a German torpedo in 1941.
But it has now been found by US treasure hunters hired by UK Department for Transport.
They will now attempt to salvage the silver and will have to hand 20% of its value to British Treasury. The US team lowered a robot 2.9 miles to seabed and it found a gaping hole in the side of the ship where the torpedo had struck 70 years ago.
Greg Stemm, chief executive of underwater archaeology and salvage firm Odyssey Marine Exploration, said: “We were fortunate to find the ship wreck sitting upright, with the holds open and easily accessible. “This should enable to us to unload cargo through the hatches, as would happen with a ship alongside a cargo terminal.”
Valued then at 600,000 pounds, the silver today is worth about Euro 150 million, which would make it history’s largest recovery of precious metals lost at sea, Odyssey said.
After a competitive tender process the British government awarded Odyssey an exclusive salvage contract for the cargo, and under the agreement Odyssey will retain 80 percent of the silver bullion salvaged from the wreck.
In May 2007, Odyssey announced it had found half a million silver coins and hundreds of gold objects from a ship they code-named the “Black Swan,” which went down in 1804 off the Strait of Gibraltar. The find is being contested by Spain, which claims the trove.