http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601409_3.html
An article today in the Washington Post gave an outline of the saga of the Black Swan. Most of the information cited in the article has been known for some time. There was one statement by an Odyssey representative that was new and cleared up a mystery, i.e., how did Odyssey Marine salvage 500K coins in such a short period of time?
"Much of what was recovered was in the form of large, rocklike collections of encrusted coins, weighing an average of 60 pounds apiece and discovered in a "debris field" rather than in a single area that might be the remains of a ship, according to Odyssey's Nesser. That suggests that people aboard the ship might have thrown the cargo overboard to try to prevent a sinking, he said."
If the coins were indeed in 60 pound "rocklike" collectons of encrusted coins then Odyssey would only have to pick up 566 individual items (17tons x 2000 = 34000lbs/60 = 566), not 500,000 individual coins. It was mentioned in the Sworn Statement of of Greg Stemm dated July 5, 2007 that the shipment consisted of artifacts as well as 552 containers of silver coins. Close enough and certainly feasible to be accomplished in the time that the Odyssey Explorer was in the Atlantic during March and April of 2007.
March 23 - Odyssey Explorer sailed west into the Atlantic and returned on April 4 (13 days)
April 17 - Odyssey Explorer sailed west into the Atlantic and returned on May 12 (26 days)
Another part of the article is intriguing indeed, and might be the equivalent of finding the holy grail -
"The papers, in which Odyssey asks to be named "custodian" of the wrecks, do not name any of the ships and give only vague descriptions of their graves, but undersea archaeologists and other experts say there is little doubt what they refer to: the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes; the Merchant Royal, a 36-gun British navy vessel that sank in 1641 in bad weather off southwestern England with a fortune in silver, gold and jewels; and the SS Ancona, an Italian passenger liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915 off the southeastern coast of Sardinia, taking 12 barrels of gold and a shipment of silver bars with it to the bottom."
If the experts are correct then Odyssey has found three of the richest shipwrecks ever. Their recovery ship, the Odyssey Explorer, has been forced by Spain's actions to sit in port "at a cost of more than $20,000 a day, company officials said." Perhaps this is small change to them now.
In any event Spain has until September 19th to respond to Odyssey's amended complaints. There should be some interesting news breaking any time soon.