• iconNews
  • videos
  • entertainment
  • Home
  • News
    • UK News
    • US News
    • Australia
    • Ireland
    • World News
    • Weird News
    • Viral News
    • Sport
    • Technology
    • Science
    • True Crime
    • Travel
  • Entertainment
    • Celebrity
    • TV & Film
    • Netflix
    • Music
    • Gaming
    • TikTok
  • LAD Originals
    • Say Maaate to a Mate
    • Daily Ladness
    • Lad Files
    • UOKM8?
    • FreeToBe
    • Extinct
    • Citizen Reef
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
Snapchat
TikTok
YouTube

LAD Entertainment

YouTube

LAD Stories

Submit Your Content
Gold shipwreck’s £6 million treasure will soon be hauled to the surface

Home> News> US News

Updated 15:32 11 Jan 2024 GMTPublished 15:25 11 Jan 2024 GMT

Gold shipwreck’s £6 million treasure will soon be hauled to the surface

Plans are being made to bring a fortune in gold up from the sea floor

Joe Harker

Joe Harker

It won't be long before work is underway to haul up a veritable fortune in treasure from a shipwreck which has spent almost 150 years on the sea floor.

Back in the days of 1875 a wooden-hulled steamship named the SS Pacific departed from Victoria, Canada and set sail for San Francisco with around 300 people on board.

It never reached its destination as the Pacific collided with another ship, the Orpheus, and according to the only two people who survived the sinking of their ship it broke in two and disappeared beneath the waves about an hour later.

Among the ship's supposed cargo that went down with the Pacific was a haul of gold worth around $8 million (£6.3 million) in today's money.

Advert

The discovery of the shipwreck was announced in 2022, and it won't be long before teams are sent down to try and recover the sunken treasure.

Underwater missions have discovered the shipwreck and now efforts will be made to recover the sunken gold.
PEN News

That's because a group named Rockfish has been awarded exclusive salvage rights and their general manager Ethan Benson explained how they fought off the competition to dive down for the gold.

He said: "There were a few claimants. Over the past year we have had a number of conversations with the underwriters of the original cargo.

"About seven weeks ago we came to an agreement with them covering their insured portion of the cargo.

Advert

"We still have one outstanding claimant that we do not believe has a valid claim but we are working through the process with them.

"When successful, as with the underwriters, claimants receive a percentage of their valid claim and the rest goes to the salvor as a salvage award, which is generally quite large."

A chunk of wood recovered from the ship, and nobody is sure exactly how much gold has survived after nearly 150 years.
PEN News

Remote operated vehicles (ROVs) will be sent down to the shipwreck this year for the first step of recovering artefacts from the vessel and potentially recovering the gold.

Just how valuable the gold down there might be is unknown but Benson said 'we believe it will be worth everyone’s time'.

Advert

Artefacts from the shipwreck of one of the worst maritime disasters in US history may end up going into a museum.

The ship was captained by a man named Jefferson Davis Howell, a former Confederate officer and the brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America that lost the American Civil War.

If you're wondering what happened to the Orpheus after it was struck by the Pacific, it was able to sail on but was wrecked later that night but her crew were able to survive.

Featured Image Credit: PEN News

Topics: US News, Weird

Joe Harker
Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

X

@MrJoeHarker

Advert

Advert

Advert

Choose your content:

6 hours ago
7 hours ago
9 hours ago
  • 6 hours ago

    Girl, 9, dies after mum left her in the car whilst she went to work

    She was left unattended in the car for hours

    News
  • 6 hours ago

    Incredible photo shows woman hanging on to tree before being rescued from freak flood that killed 27

    The woman had been swept 20 miles downriver before being rescued

    News
  • 7 hours ago

    Man robbed bank claiming 'it was art' and filmed the whole thing

    Gonna have to try this one

    News
  • 9 hours ago

    Someone made a £5000 Bitcoin investment in 2011 and has now made ridiculous profit 14 years later

    Maybe they're a time traveller who did what we all dream of

    News
  • Mystery of what happened to 400-year-old ship carrying £4 billion worth of gold could soon be solved
  • Pilot reveals people will be 'shocked' when they find out how much money he makes
  • Self-proclaimed 'time traveller' claims to know the exact date aliens will make contact and it's very soon
  • NASA could find tiny aliens hidden under Mars’ surface as scientist says ‘we should be looking there’