Billion Dollar Wreck

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I finally watched the show and I was disappointed. The first thing about was this Marty guy who scammed investors out of millions for a wreck that many think doesn't hold any value. He destroys his marriage, attempts or succeeds in shooting his former friend along with harassing and bribing him. Then has the balls to scam people again with this show. Being a wreck hunter, I know the determination along with the money and skill to search for lost wrecks. I know 99% of them a worthless in monatery value but I have been bitten by the bug and will continue to hunt them. People like this guy gives us a bad name.

Secondly the diver getting "bent" is ridiculous. Any of us who has experience with a hard hat knows full well to switch to back gas with the valve on your right. He'll you can use the defogger blast to breath is necessary. When they supposedly sent the backup diver in, he was not geared up and how was he going to help the diver? I did not see another umbilical in his hand to switch out with the supposed blocked or unoperating umbilical. It also seemed funny that surface support was not going through a check list to find out what was wrong or to fast change banks. Then what the heck was the guy doing in a 280ft dive with no mixed gas experience at all? No salvage company I know would even consider doing that lest they get a massive lawsuit if something was to go wrong which apparently they did. This cannot be for real as many people who work in the industry who have seen the show are appalled at the way they are operating things. If the diver was in that bad of shape, I would assume that the boat rolling the cameras around the main salvage vessel would take him to the nearest land for medical treatment instead of him taking up the entire chamber for 70+ hours while another diver is "working" 300ft down an may need it for emergency.

Third, the wreck seems to be in worse shape than the depth charged and torpedoed Lusitania. The divers descend down to the wreck with nothing but a basket and a ROV. What work is going to be done on a wreck that is so badly collapsed that there is only 18 inches of space between decks and the supposed gold in near the bottom deck? I would be taking torches and explosives down to blow that thing wide open and them sending divers down to move debris out of the way or a clam bucket dredge to break through the decks like Odyssey.

Fourth and finally many know that this wreck has no billions in gold on it. Even the scam artist called it a rumor, so he decides to waste more money and time to hunt something that is not there. He failed in the 80's, wreck divers have probably dove the wreck numerous times after the discovery and pulled any loose artifacts off. I won't even start on the conspiracy part.

It's not that I do not appreciate a show that has something each one us does along with a quest for riches, but I find it insulting on how fake this show is just to get viewers to watch it. The History channel has sure went down the tubes in the last decade or so. Now what is absolutely awesome on that show is the wreck model. I want to build one!
 
I saw that too. Made me sick to my stomach to watch too. Even my wife commented that I got visibly uncomfortable.

The show, likely for entertainment pursposes, glossed over the incident which left me frustrated. Even more so when they sent another diver down, presumably on the same umbilical system even though the previous one had an incident and DCS hit.

Soemthing seemed fishy to me, either that it was staged or the dude just straight panicked (which would be odd considering it appears they are using commercial guys).

They never really covered it again in later episodes either, only that the docs wouldn't clear him again (obviously) and he left the boat while in port swapping out a generator.
 
Criticisms aside, a belief in something to your core is a hard thing to walk away from. It is always easy for those with over the top resources, or no skin in the game to find fault with the methodology of the dreamer.

Need I remind everyone of a man by the name of Mel Fischer? People thought Mel was crazy, people very close to him died while in pursuit of Mel's dream. What did Mel always say? "Today is the day". Mel said this thousands of times throughout great sacrifice and personal tragedy. And then finally it happened, he found the Atocha!

If you don't have the fortitude to seek what adventure is left in the world, then sign up on for a website that allows you to post critiques about others that ARE seeking it, and have virtual time of your life. If you do have the fortitude then go "get some" I could really care less what you do for a loving or how Many thousands of dives you have, where have you left your legacy? In pursuit of judging others?

Nuff said.
 
Criticisms aside, a belief in something to your core is a hard thing to walk away from. It is always easy for those with over the top resources, or no skin in the game to find fault with the methodology of the dreamer.

Need I remind everyone of a man by the name of Mel Fischer? People thought Mel was crazy, people very close to him died while in pursuit of Mel's dream. What did Mel always say? "Today is the day". Mel said this thousands of times throughout great sacrifice and personal tragedy. And then finally it happened, he found the Atocha!

If you don't have the fortitude to seek what adventure is left in the world, then sign up on for a website that allows you to post critiques about others that ARE seeking it, and have virtual time of your life. If you do have the fortitude then go "get some" I could really care less what you do for a loving or how Many thousands of dives you have, where have you left your legacy? In pursuit of judging others?

Nuff said.

I think the difference in this case is that there's nothing on the wreck. As HowardE mentioned in the other thread, that boat has been dug through several times before, including a professional salvage company.
 
I can certainly acknowledge the views of others but regardless of what has been done to date on the republic, is there ever certainty beyond raising the ship and dissecting it frame by frame?
This is the very principle by which adventure is based. Yes large sums of money are spent and lives are destroyed and wasted but only time can judge.
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not Mel Fischer was spoke of in the very same context ( fraud, con man, crazy, etc.) right up to the day he had success.
 
Nobody ever doubted Mel Fishers discovery of the Atocha. His search for it is what you are referring to. Atocha was always known to carry a vast amount of valuable cargo. Books written in the 1950s and 60s confirmed that she was carrying gold. The RMS Republic on the other hand was not. It came from the rumor that was started a few years after sinking.

In 2013 we discovered the Keystone State at the bottom of Lake Huron. It had a cargo manifest of "iron implements" which was understood as war materials for the armies of the Union forming in Wisconsin during our civil war. A few years after her sinking rumors were circulated about her carrying gold coins to pay soldiers. None of that has yet been found on the wreck. So that's why I do not put much faith in either written or verbal cargo manifests.
 
The only fair comparison between Mel Fisher and Martin Bayerle is that they hunted treasure.

Fisher knew there was a wreck, the cargo was documented. His determination is legendary and respectable.

Bayerle is going on the some wild ass secret government conspiracy to hide the truth theory that there was a treasure. There is no documented treasure, and nobody else in the world believes there is, except him. Focused obsession and plain idiocy are two completely different things.

While I stopped watching this show, because I personally found it to contrived for my likings, I'm sure that all they'll find on this and any subsequent expeditions to the Republic would be some plates and maybe a few portholes. Bayerle originally claimed the "treasure" was silver. Now its Gold. His expedition costs $60,000 a day? Really? When my friend chartered the 401' Keldysh including the 2 Mir Submersibles to dive on Titanic, it wasn't even $60,000 a day. It was almost half of that. The show is a farce.
 
His expedition costs $60,000 a day? Really? When my friend chartered the 401' Keldysh including the 2 Mir Submersibles to dive on Titanic, it wasn't even $60,000 a day. It was almost half of that. The show is a farce.
Well if you pad the books enough you can come up with $60K a day LOL.
His whole plan is to bilk his investors by adding costs that don't exist. There's no way it's costing him $60K a day unless he's taking gold down to the wreck to show he's "finding" gold.
 
Nobody ever doubted Mel Fishers discovery of the Atocha. His search for it is what you are referring to. Atocha was always known to carry a vast amount of valuable cargo. Books written in the 1950s and 60s confirmed that she was carrying gold. The RMS Republic on the other hand was not. It came from the rumor that was started a few years after sinking.

In 2013 we discovered the Keystone State at the bottom of Lake Huron. It had a cargo manifest of "iron implements" which was understood as war materials for the armies of the Union forming in Wisconsin during our civil war. A few years after her sinking rumors were circulated about her carrying gold coins to pay soldiers. None of that has yet been found on the wreck. So that's why I do not put much faith in either written or verbal cargo manifests.[/
 

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