Caught in crossfire in dark depths of False Bay
Dispute over salvaging ‘historical treasure’ heaved into court
A TUG-OF-WAR over a World War 2 minesweeper in False Bay has erupted into a legal rumpus involving two of the country’s top shipwreck experts.
The SAS Pietermaritzburg took part in D-Day in 1944. Now 20m underwater, it’s back in the crossfire as state marine archaeologist Jaco Boshoff and salvor Gary Mills go at each other like a pair of pirates.
Boshoff, who made headlines in June with the “discovery” of a slave ship on the seabed a few metres from Clifton Beach, has accused Mills of trying to “steal” the minesweeper, which was scuttled 21 years ago.
He tried to stop Mills speaking at the Ship Society of South Africa earlier this year, and was instrumental in having the ship declared a heritage site to stop Mills “destroying the site”.
Mills has hit back, claiming that Boshoff has sabotaged the local salvage industry.
The war of words has prompted a defamation suit and made WAR OF WORDS: State marine archaeologist Jaco Boshoff, left, and salvor Gary Mills, right, won’t go sailing together soon waves in the maritime sector, where the two combatants are well-known. Boshoff is a marine archaeologist for the South African Heritage Resources Agency, responsible for protecting and researching heritage sites in the ocean. Mills has discovered or worked on several well-known wrecks, including the Star of Africa.
The flare-up came two years ago when Mills, busy with an underwater project in False Bay, located the SAS Pietermaritzburg’s bridge some way from the wreck and not far from undersea cables. He got all the necessary permissions to salvage the bridge — copper and brass — and was doing so when “all hell broke loose”.
Amid claims that Mills was poaching an underwater treasure, police investigators tried to intervene with a charge of stealing naval property, but Mills persevered and got his prize.
As a result, the Simon’s Town Historical Society rallied to get the wreck declared a national monument.
“The bridge was not on the ship, it was lying on the seabed about 800m away. It was clearly a navigational hazard,” Mills fumed. He claims his reputation has been damaged and work delayed on a revolutionary undersea desalination project.
He was also nearly banned from addressing the South African Ship Society after Boshoff wrote a threatening letter earlier this year.
The move backfired, and Mills is now suing him for defamation. Boshoff was ordered to see the investigating officer at Fish Hoek police station, where he reportedly claimed Mills had called him a baboon.
NO PEACE: The wreck of SAS Pietermaritzburg is the subject of a spat over salvors’ rights
While some maritime stakeholders point to professional jealousy, others say the standoff is a proxy for a deeper conflict between salvors and regulators over the rights to South Africa’s underwater heritage. The government claims new regulations were necessary to stop a salvage free-for-all, but salvors say the controls have effectively outlawed the profession instrumental in locating many of the wrecks and retrieving precious artefacts — both for profit and for posterity.
“We’ve got all these wrecks here — it has taken years to find them. But what do we do now?” Mills said.
Boshoff declined to comment this week, but said he found it all “hugely irritating”.
The heritage agency’s John Gribble said the new regulations did not preclude salvage divers’ involvement with shipwrecks. “That involvement, however, needs to be positive and add value to our understanding of our underwater cultural heritage,” Gribble said.
Divers need a permit from the agency to dive on a wreck older than 60 years, and are not allowed to do so for commercial reasons.
A wreck diver who wished to remain anonymous said these permits were almost impossible to obtain.
“They [the agency] don’t want divers to do anything — that is what it is all about”.
They don’t want divers to do anything — that is what it is all about