Tiny robot submarine discovers ‘Holy Grail of shipwrecks’
Spanish treasure fleets that traversed the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and back were a 16th century invention as important as free two-day shipping. Organized 70 years after Columbus’ first voyage, the fleet was made up of several specialized ships with one primary goal: Exploiting the riches of the New World as efficiently as possible.
The San Jose, the largest galleon and the flagship of one group of Spanish ships that started sailing in the 16th century, was big and — thanks to 62 bronze cannons engraved with dolphins — deadly enough to deter or destroy ships, whether pirates or rival nations.
Except when it didn’t. On June 8, 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the San Jose’s gunpowder ignited during a battle with British ships, sending 600 doomed sailors to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean — along with gold, silver and emeralds from mines in Peru, a total haul valued at about $17 billion in today’s dollars.
It stands as one of the most expensive maritime losses in history. And “the Holy Grail of shipwrecks” stayed underwater, undiscovered for more than 300 years.
Enter a tiny submersible robot named Remus 6000 — packed with sensors and cameras and capable of diving about 6.5 kilometres underwater — that has discovered the centuries-old final resting place of the sunken ship.
The unmanned underwa- ter vehicle, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), uses far-reaching sonar to identify objects on the sea floor — then circles back to take pictures of anything worthy of a closer look. Remus 6000 used the same tactic to find the remains of Air France 447, two years after it crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009.
The wreckage of the San Jose was discovered two years ago, but the location off the Colombian port town of Cartagena and other details have been closely held secrets.
New details were recently released from the agencies involved in the search, including the Colombian military that ferried Remus 6000 to the search location.
Researchers realized what they had found from a key distinguishing feature.
The small craft descended to just nine metres above the wreck and snapped photos of those unique cannons.
Jeff Kaeli, one of the engineers who operates the Remus 6000, said he was in his bunk when the first pictures came in.
“I’m not a marine archaeologist, but ... I know what a cannon looks like,” he told CBS News. “So in that moment, I guess I was the only person in the world who knew we’d found the shipwreck,” he said.
Those who know the co-ordinates of the find have not expanded much beyond the robot and the engineer in part because the remains of the San Jose are the subject of another international dispute:
Do the precious metals and emeralds at the bottom of the Atlantic belong to the people of Colombia or to the people of Spain?
Still the researchers at Woods Hole say they have no financial stake in the haul.