Posted by MHK on July 31, 2001 at 10:58:20:
In Reply to: Why I recover artifacts from shipwrecks posted by Kevin on July 31, 2001 at 10:23:54:
Kevin,
I'm sorta in the middle on this one. I do see it from both sides of the equation. One the one hand I can see the value of bringing stuff up for preservation purposes, but you will have to concede that more often than not diver's bring stuff up for bragging rights.. Take a look at the Doria for example.. The locals have more stuff then they can ever possibly use and it sits in their basement collecting dust. Many of them bring the stuff up to sell it. You quote Gary, and realize he and I are friends, but look at his website, he is selling china sets for several hundreds of dollars.. So if the taking of stuff is purely for preservation purposes then I guess I'm on your side. But, sadly, more often than not it's simply for bragging rights.. If you look at Gary's efforts with respect to the Monitor you'll see that the final condition was no salvaging.. You are probably familiar with what happened when he dove the Luisitania and Gary and I are right now suing the Canadian Govt. in something very analagous to the Monitor.. Again, we offered not to salvage, but the Canadian Govt. is taking it one step further and are precluding us from even diving two US ships from the of 1812..
On the other hand, we do Lake Superior quit a bit and I'm sure Kendall will agree with me when I say that when he and I were swimming through the corridors and bunk room of wrecks that went down before Abe Lincoln was shot and we still see the artifacts in perfect condition it did throw me back to a capsule of history that can not really be explained in proper context.. We were literally able to open the cupboards in the galley's and still see mugs and saucers hanging as if the ship went down yesterday..
So I se both sides and I'm stuck somewhere in the middle..
That being said, what occured in NY last week to me made little sense.. What did they think they were accomplishing by salvaging portholes from an artifical reef that went down three days before??? What preservation value is there in that, other than bragging rights to leave it sitting in your gararge and telling war stories later on in life about how bad you once were salvaging portholes.. Nothwithstanding the fact that the ship was, in fact, sunk for the specific purpose for diver's to view underwater..
I'm not sure there is a right or wrong on this issue so I just threw it out for discussion purposes...
Later