Holy grail of shipwrecks caught in three-way court battle

The discovery of the “holy grail of shipwrecks” off the coast of Colombia this week has provoked a three-cornered fight over ownership of the gold, emeralds and other treasures on the ocean floor.

In a tale that mixes 18th-century buccaneering with 21st-century courtroom drama, the San José, a Spanish galleon carrying one of the richest cargos in naval history, was sunk by British warships in 1708 and is now once again at the heart of a conflict.

Colombia, Spain and a US salvage company have lodged competing claims to the chests of pieces of eight, silver coins and jewels, which are estimated to be worth between US$1bn (£662m) and US$17bn.

The San José was the flagship of an armada carrying treasure from Spain’s colonies in South America to the court of King Philip V to fund battles against the British in the War of Succession. On 8 June 1708, it was was attacked off the coast of Cartagena by a British squadron led by Admiral Charles Wager, who wanted to steal the gold. But before the San José could be boarded, it exploded and sank with the loss of all but 11 of its 600 crew and passengers.

Ever since, finding the ship has been the fantasy of treasure hunters, adventurers and novelists. In Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, the unrequited lover, Florentino Ariza, dreams of recovering the sunken hoard for his love Fermina Daza.

In the 1980s, the hunt was led by Sea Search Armada – a US-based salvage company – which described the galleons as “lumbering bank vaults” filled with gold from the mines of Potosi, Peru, pearls from Panama and emeralds, amethysts and diamonds from the Andes.

“In the armada of 1708, the value of the cargo on the flagship alone exceeded Spain’s annual national income from all sources. When the bullion and coins on all the galleons of the armada were [added together], it was two or three times Spain’s annual income. In addition, there were trade goods of cocoa, indigo, leather, cochineal, precious woods and many other items,” the company noted on its website.

The discovery – 16 miles off Cartagena at a depth of about 300m – was confirmed on 27 November by an international team led by the Colombian institute of anthropology and history and the Colombian navy.

Announcing the find last week, the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, said this “constitutes one of the greatest – if not the biggest, as some say – findings and identification of underwater heritage in the history of humanity”. He promised to build a museum in Cartagena to exhibit the treasure, which also includes ceramics, brass cannon and the personal wealth of the viceroy of Peru.

But Colombia’s ownership is contested on two fronts. Sea Search Armada claims it first located the area of the wreck in 1981 and signed a deal with the Colombian government in which it was promised a 35% share of the treasure. After this was overturned by the country’s parliament, the company fought a battle in US and Colombian courts asserting its claim.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/06/holy-grail-of-shipwrecks-in-three-way-court-battle