Merchant Royal

http://living.scotsman.com/books.cfm?id=816992007

Ever since Odyssey Marine announced the $500Mil "Black Swan" treasure recovery events have occurred which highlights the unpredictable nature of Black Swans. Odyssey Marine's CEO Greg Stemm has stated that he purposely codenamed the recovery "Black Swan" after Nassim Nicholas Taleb's new book entitled The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable "It concerns the occurrence of the improbable, the power of rare events and the author's lament that "in spite of the empirical record we continue to project into the future as if we were good at it". We expect all swans to be white and are shocked when a black one swims by."

The "Black Swan" of Odyssey Marine may turn out the be a Golden Goose, the Merchant Royal, a ship that sunk in 1641 laden with fabulous treasure from Spain; or a Turkey, since Odyssey may, or may not, get to keep the booty. Spain has constantly dogged Odyssey's recovery operations starting with the HMS Sussex, an English warship; they then filed a verified claim for the recent treasure find; and now they issued a stop and search warrant against Odyssey's ships. Black Swans are rare, and when they occur the status quo is disrupted.