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story of the greatest gold salvage from a sunken vessel
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RMS Niagara Expedition April
2007
History rises from the deep
By Mike Dinsdale
After almost 67 years on the Northland ocean floor, the bell
from the gold ship Niagara will finally ring again after divers
recovered it and other artefacts on Friday. An international
team of divers has been exploring the wreck of the Niagara -
sunk by two German mines off the Hen and Chicken Islands on
June 19, 1940, with 590 gold bars aboard - for two weeks, and
on Friday their search turned up trumps. Keith Gordon, of Tutukaka-based
SeaRov Technologies, who has the salvage rights to the vessel,
was buzzing with excitement when he saw the bell surface on
Friday after Australian diver Craig Howell found it in about
120m of water.
Deep Sea wreck diver Craig Howell with
dive partner Richard 'Harry' Harris in the background. |
The TechNZ07 divers also
found the telegraph from the ship's bridge, and Mr Gordon
believes it shows the Niagara's captain ordered the vessel
to ``stop engines'' as it started taking on water.
The bell, telegraph and other recovered artefacts, including
the steam whistle from the merchant ship's funnel, now
have to undergo preservation so they don't fall apart
after so long under water.
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Deep Australian wreck diver
and expedition leader Craig Howell with the find of a life
time the Ships Bell from the Pacific Gold Ship RMS Niagara |
"We are looking at a bit
of history here," said Mr Gordon, who last year wrote a
book on the wreck - Deep Water Gold. "The bell's in pretty
good condition, considering it's been underwater for nearly
67 years. It should be able to be restored."
He said the "stop engines" order on the telegraph
would have been one of the last orders given by the captain
before the Niagara went down.
Most of the gold bars from the ship
have been recovered - 555 of them in a 1941 salvage operation
and 30 in 1952. But five bars are believed still there.
The question was: Will the missing gold - worth up to
$2million - be recovered?
"There's every chance that at some stage a diver
will find the gold that's still down there," Mr Gordon
said. "On this two-week expedition we only managed
to dive the Niagara on three days for a combined 12 hours,
so there's a possibility somebody will find the gold one
day."
Mr Gordon holds the salvage rights, but the British Treasury
owns the gold and it had been kept informed of the latest
expedition, he said. |
Keith Gordon |
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Left:- This
great shot, taken by John Stone from the Northern Advocate;
shows from left to right: Craig Howell with the Niagara's
bridge bell, Leigh Bishop and "Harry" Harris
with a telegraph.
The expedition is cut short by a
tropical cyclone which dropped the most amount of rain
in North New Zealand in the last 20 years, the base of
the expedition Tutakaka was cut off from other towns due
to land slides.
When the weather made another break the team once again
began diving the wreck and by the end of the week became
the most successful technical diving expedition to the
wreck to date.
Read
the official expedition website
click here >> |
A full report will appear at a later date as well
as in major dive publications of the Northern and Southern
Hemisphere. |
Copyright Niagara team 2007/Northern
Advocate
If you see this feature stolen by internet scum CDNN please report
to us this article posted April 8th 2007
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