Cold and shivering, Bill Day hauled himself out of the water and into an inflatable boat bobbing lightly on the incoming tide. Brass, copper, even silver will corrode over time in the ocean. Close menu. The vessel's winches whirred into action. These simple steel boxes would change our transport industry, our ports and how we work and shop. It wouldn't be a huge job – just a few weeks down at the islands dragging the sea floor. Almost every metal tarnishes with exposure to seawater. Ocean Chief … A map depicting Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine on the Florida peninsula. Lost Treasure of New Jersey. Then, in 1830, while in Hobart, a drunken seaman named John Anderson fell overboard and drowned. "There's some metal down there," he gasped. Missing Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) Treasure Ships Ridderschap van Holland (1694) Fortuin (1724) Aagtekerke (1726) IS THIS THE WRECK of the Aagtekerke? Soon after leaving Nelson for Napier, the Delaware was wrecked in what is now known as Delaware Bay. While Day spoke once more of his expeditions, his thoughts were on unfinished business. Several of the ships that went down in the tempest have been recovered over the years, including the Urca de Lima and Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. The metal will dull with a blackish grey film. $851.00: $25.00: Hardcover $851.00 2 Used from $25.00 1 New from $851.00 1 Collectible from $39.95 Enter your mobile number or email address below … But what of its passengers? The produce suggested that it was a ship which left Australia, bound for Britain. Pages in category "Shipwrecks of New Zealand" The following 32 pages are in this category, out of 32 total. Its 50-odd pages were dedicated to the wreck's "lost souls". Hidden in the Lloyd's Register of 1833, number C32, a ship owned by Iron Standards and built in Montreal. "Here we have it," he thought, "just as the survivors' reports had said.". They had been dived and searched and ticked off by an armada of salvage missions for more than 150 years. It was right in the middle of the area where the wreck should be. The ship's crew was able to escape to safety by floating on ice packs. The expedition team had swum the length of the west coast of the islands, which lie like irregular dragon's teeth, 300km below New Zealand's southernmost tip. This is where the Roaring Forties scream across the Southern Ocean. At around 11 p.m. the following night, with a strong south-east gale blowing, the ship struck rocks off Table Cape, Māhia Peninsula. This loss resulted from a battle with an English squadron. The disappearance of a ship usually implies all hands lost. If the disaster occurred in rough weather, McCrystal said, it was likely that the ship went down quickly, with all aboard perishing. Commercial re-use may be allowed on request. It was eventually crushed by ice and sank in November. "If it was easy I wouldn't be doing it," he said. On March 18, 1990, two thieves dressed as police officers broke into the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum and stole 13 works of art valued at about $500 million. Seaman Joseph Jewell remembered a dense haze hiding a full moon. The divers, wearing helmets which allowed direct communication with the surface, and with hot water pumping around their suits, went in. Glory Day! Treasure hunters on … Man finds £50k gold on beach, and you can too . Hidden Treasure Of Aotearoa - Metal Detecting New ZealandTreasure Day! He, too, drowned. All non-text content is subject to specific conditions. "Sparkling like the day it slid into the sea," Day said, holding a gold half-sovereign in his palm. Day, who still had a few minutes of air left in his tanks, put his mask back on and tumbled into the sea. The Lure of the General Grant. In many cases a probable cause has been … There might be a sign. The fate of the brig Sophia Pate, wrecked on a sandbar at the entrance to Kaipara Harbour with the loss of 21 lives, highlighted the dangers of navigating New Zealand’s poorly charted coastal waters. The sinking of the Lyttelton–Wellington ferry Wahine is New Zealand’s worst modern maritime disaster. One of the most famous New Zealand shipwrecks is the General Grant, which sank in the Auckland Islands in 1866. Underwater, everything looked the same. She had 12 crew aboard and six passengers including Dr William Porteous, a surgeon returning to England after working aboard a convict ship. This one, however, had no name. There were seven known wrecks peppered around the island's coasts and coves. A waterfall flowed from the middle of a cave roof, washing over hanging rocks and into the ocean below. In the days before the telegraph, the transmission of information depended on news carried to and fro by other shipping vessels. McCrystal could say, with "almost 100 per cent certainty" that the Half-Crown Wreck could now be properly identified. He called in favours overseas to search British and Australian newspapers in an era when records and newspapers were notoriously sparse in detail. It was loaded with a cargo of wool and skins, 2,576 ounces of gold and 83 passengers and crew. Fifty-one people lost their lives that day, another died several weeks later and a 53rd victim died in 1990 from injuries sustained in the wreck. Day had high expectations. Treasure hunter David Yates unearthed a 4.5-kilogram gold lump, alongside shoes and a gold seal, buried on the Marlborough coastline in October last year. Twenty survivors were taken prisoner. Day knew of McCrystal's background as a researcher and shipwreck aficionado, and invited him on a short half-day dive. Before the Rifleman's final voyage from Hobart, in an incident McCrystal believed to carry "eerie" similarities, the Rifleman lost another man overboard during Christmas Eve revelries. Rocks overhead quickly broke the masts and shunted them through the wooden decking. The coastal areas of Virginia and the Carolinas are said by some to contain treasure left behind by … But as the clues emerged slowly, something was not right. With Ken Wahl, Lesley Ann Warren, Donald Pleasence, George Peppard. Her name was the Rifleman and this was her last voyage. It became known as the "Half-Crown Wreck" in honour of its dubious booty. Who wore the uniform bearing that button? Here's an exciting selection of 12 famous real-life lost treasures - "real" in the sense that countless people have gone out in search of them (with limited or no success!). "Great anxiety is felt by numberless persons in Sydney," wrote the Sydney Monitor, "to know what vessel the wreck on the Auckland Island belongs to.". The Picton-Wellington ferry SS Penguin struck rocks in Cook Strait and sank in heavy seas off a rugged, isolated coast. He saw a glint of obsession in Day's eyes. Eight months on, the Rifleman was thought to be lost. It was there he found her. CARGO OF VALUABLE COPPER ORE … Sure enough, in the rubble on the sea floor, about 20 metres down, Day could see anchors, a chain and even a part of a cannon. She was notoriously "leaky", having to repair several times in port. "Land appeared like a cloud over our heads," he later recounted. On their first day they gathered over eleven kilograms. No lives were lost, but in financial terms it was our costliest-ever shipwreck. The most intriguing part, though, is that of the 11 treasure-filled ships, four haven't been located. This site is produced by the History Group of the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. But, to … It's out there.". For those treasure hunters interested in searching for pirate loot along New Jerseys coastline, they should read the book Folklore and Folkways on New Jersey, and also the Newark Daily Advertiser for December 27, 1834. The date rang a bell with McCrystal. Lost treasures in Australia & New Zealand Paperback – January 1, 1980 by Kenneth W Byron (Author) See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions. Here, midway between the 100km of towering cliffs that make up their west coast, the salvage team had made their next prospect. Read more... For the British it was the costliest day of the New Zealand Wars – but it occurred far from the battlefield. This provided more ammunition for Wellington settlers who were trying to convince the government of the need for a lighthouse. But there is another scenario. Posted on August 19, 2012 by 1stminstrel. The first coins they found were a large grouping of silver half-crowns. There were numerous Spanish treasure ships christened San Miguel, and more than one of them sunk between the New World and Spain, but one in particular is enticing. Forty-five years ago, on 19 June 1971, the first all-container ship to visit New Zealand arrived in Wellington. Back on the bow of the boat, Day stood by himself gazing out to the water. Columbus New Zealand was part of a worldwide revolution in shipping. And right now, all across the planet, the locations of a select few of these lost ships … It’s said to have sunk as part of a secret Portuguese mission to explore Australia in 1522. Mariners called the route "dead man's road". "Isn't it a pity that ships don't go down in places like this," Day told the boatman at the engine. Accounts of the incident often focus on the heroism of Hūria Mātenga, one of five local Māori who helped the crew get ashore. There is at least now a human face to the site – a young surgeon named Porteous, who left his tools on the bottom of the ocean. Only an unusually long spell of calm weather - dubbed 'Wanganella weather' by locals - saved it from becoming a total wreck. The New Zealand Shipping Company freighter Turakina was intercepted and sunk by the Orion nearly 500 km off the Taranaki coast with the loss of 36 lives. It was in late 1833, McCrystal recalled, that reports reached Sydney of a large amount of wreckage found on the beaches of the north-western coast of the islands. And yet there is no account. It may sound cliché, but everyone wants to find hidden treasure, whether they believe in it or not. The cause of the tragedy was never established. There are many unsolved treasure mysteries surrounding us, especially those involving ships being lost at sea. There was no margin for error. Sailing from Melbourne to London, the General Grant hit cliffs on the west coast of the main island in the subantarctic Auckland Islands. One of them, the refreshing-sounding San Miguel, was lighter than the others, just in case they were hit by a storm, so it's suspected to have survived the carnage and ended up further north -- which is important, because some estimate that the San Miguel alone could have been … It was a rare day in the Auckland Islands. It took an average of 105 days for a ship to cover the distance between Australia's east coast and the United Kingdom. Maybe someone crawled out of the wreckage and, if only for a short while, tried to make a life on the edge of the world. It’s estimated that, beneath Earth’s waters, 3 million undiscovered shipwrecks exist. The team was buoyed. The ship was making good progress when, 10 days later, in a black night and a light wind, cold rain began to fall. Read more... On 3 September New Zealand honours Merchant Navy Day. Vincent Thurkettle was stunned to find the incredible 97.12g nugget of gold worth £50,000 - … She sank in about 1,000 feet of water on June 8th, 1708. He tracked arrivals and departures, scanning faint, densely handwritten pages containing thousands of entries a month. Five months later, on August 14, 1862, two Californian prospectors, Horatio Hartley and Christopher Reilly, rode into Dunedin, New Zealand’s biggest city at the time, and tied their horses outside the office of the gold receiver. This was the treasure, consisting of silver coins and gold,that went down with the earliest known shipwreck, the British ship ‘Tryal’. The ship struck a cliff, turned in the water and then drifted into a large cave about 100 metres from the western shore. Meet the NZHistory.net.nz team, Plaque commemorating New Zealand's worst shipping disaster, now held at Huia Settlers' Museum, Rutherford - Pickering memorial, Havelock. Aboard the Russian icebreaker, Day gave a presentation about the General Grant and his salvage expeditions. A sealing gang sent ashore on the islands reported a cargo of wool and whale oil strewn across the beach. McCrystal would like to go back to the site and search the top of the cliffs with a metal detector. There was the Derry Castle and the Marie Alice. The climbing is not too hard there, and he would just like to see for himself. He thinks he may have idea of where his Everest might lie. McCrystal scoured the shipping records. McCrystal moved towards him. Shipwrecks of the Caribbean: Spain drafts treasure map of its own days of empire The Culture Ministry has charted the 681 vessels sunk between 1492 and 1898, including the Santa María, the largest of Christopher Columbus’s three ships on his first voyage across the Atlantic . Read more... No human lives but many irreplaceable government records were lost when the steamer was wrecked on the Wairarapa coast Read more... 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