Blaze Ravages British National Heritage Ship, Cutty Sark
The world’s last tea clipper, the Cutty Sark was a museum ship and popular tourist attraction located near the centre of Greenwich in southeast London. She had been closed and partly dismantled and kept in a dry dock at Greenwich while she was undergoing a £25 million restoration when she suddenly caught fire on 21st May 2007. Initial reports of the fire were disheartening for the ship was rumoured to have been completely ablaze. However, experts who made a full damage assessment survey revealed that the ship has not been destroyed in its entirety since at least half of the ship’s fabric was not on the site having been dismantled for the conservation work. According to on-site reports, the bow section was also relatively unscathed and the stern appears to have survived without major damage since the fire seemed to have been concentrated in the centre of the ship. The chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust reportedly claimed that the fire only served to redouble the trust’s efforts to restore the ship although it would take very much longer now and with an estimated additional cost of around £5-10 million, bringing the total cost of the ship’s restoration close to £35 million. The cause of the fire is still unknown and under investigation but is being treated as “suspicious” by the authorities.
Titanic's sister ship to become tourist attraction The wreck of the third largest Olympic-class liner of the legendary White Star Line and sister ship of the Titanic, the Britannic is soon to be the central focus of a multi-million dollar tourist attraction off the Greek coast. Reportedly, a joint team of British and Greek divers will explore the wreck of the wartime hospital ship that sank in the Aegean Sea after hitting a German mine in 1916 later this year before the framework of the entire project is jotted out. Presently it is alleged that plans are in hand to make the wreck available to select teams of divers and to develop a diving school alongside a Britannic museum as well as a hotel resort by the shore, 40 miles outside the Greek capital, Athens. The project is reportedly expected to commence sometime in September this year.
Dispute over one of the biggest shipwreck treasure
The discovery of one of the world’s biggest ever finds of sunken treasure by a Florida-based exploration company with an estimated worth of around USD 500 million has raised questions on the ownership. The exploration company had reportedly recovered gold and silver coins from a 17th century wreck code-named ‘Black Swan’ at an undisclosed location in the Atlantic Ocean. The company announced its discovery of the booty worth millions on 18th May 2007. However, the company has withheld details about the shipwreck, where it was found or even what kind of coins they had hauled back to the United States until it is confirmed by research, and the treasure had all been documented accordingly. This in turn purportedly gave rise to suspicion and opened a floodgate of claims to the treasure.
In England, the discovery generated press reports that the company had salvaged the wreck of the long-sought British vessel, Merchant Royal, which sank in bad weather off England in 1641. In Spain, the government is reportedly highly suspicious of the company’s find, given that it recently gave permission to the company to hunt for the wreck of the HMS Sussex in the Mediterranean Sea. Research suggests the 80-cannon Sussex was on a secret mission to northern Italy to deliver a massive cargo of coins to the Duke of Savoy in return for fighting France.It is alleged that the exploration company has however contested all claims and specifically mentioned that the treasure ship was definitely not the Sussex but that has not deterred Spain from pressing its claims on the find.
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The world’s last tea clipper, the Cutty Sark was a museum ship and popular tourist attraction located near the centre of Greenwich in southeast London. She had been closed and partly dismantled and kept in a dry dock at Greenwich while she was undergoing a £25 million restoration when she suddenly caught fire on 21st May 2007.