Company recovers 48 tons of silver from shipwreck
An American company has made what is being called the heaviest and deepest recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck.
The Tampa, Fla.-based Odyssey Marine Exploration announced Wednesday that it had recovered 48 tons of silver bullion from the SS Gairsoppa, a sunken British cargo ship in three miles of water off the coast of Ireland.
Between the Gairsoppa, torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II, and the SS Mantola, sunk by a German submarine during World War I, Odyssey said in a press release that about 240 tons of silver could be recovered by the end of the operation.
The recovery is being made under a contract awarded by the U.K. government, which will keep 20 percent of the cargo's value, estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
