The 11 November 2024 issue of The New Yorker magazine features an article on shipwreck “detectives” and how they search for sunken treasures. Many of the wrecks and salvagers will be known to SEACS members, and the focus on various shipwrecks ranging from fairly recent wrecks to lost Portuguese galleons is both entertaining as well as an introduction to how salvagers work–as often in archives as at sea. Examples in the article include some of the most recent finds and controversial discoveries such as the San José, the ship the sank off the coast of Cartagena in 1708 loaded with a cargo estimated in the USD billions. (Wikipedia’s summary of the story of the San José can be found here.)
