[HN Gopher] Row erupts over wreck in US waters identified as Cap...
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Row erupts over wreck in US waters identified as Captain Cook's
Endeavour
Author : sofixa
Score : 68 points
Date : 2022-02-03 03:09 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| kingcharles wrote:
| Related:
|
| Shackleton's Endurance: The impossible search for the greatest
| shipwreck https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60239105
| crhutchins wrote:
| This is a nice hypothesis based on what happened
| jnsie wrote:
| > but Rimap's conclusions will be driven by proper scientific
| process and not Australian emotions or politics
|
| Whether they turn out to be right or wrong, this was classless
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| What's the difference between unprofessional and classless? It
| does seem Rimap is in the right here. They have a right to
| rebuke someone not engaging in good faith.
| jnsie wrote:
| It's one thing to rebuke. It's entirely another to
| purposefully belittle motivations. It's worse still to do so
| based on nationality, which is absolutely what was done here.
| It was crass IMHO
| Prcmaker wrote:
| The claim has been deemed premature by the primary research
| organisation involved in this project. I'd call that a pretty big
| red flag.
| ummwhat wrote:
| But, rather importantly, was there a Union Jack in the corner
| of that big red flag?
| chanandler_bong wrote:
| Oh, very good...
| willyt wrote:
| <pedantic nasal voice> Actually as a Royal Navy ship, she
| would fly a white ensign, not a red ensign. </> (Sorry,
| couldn't resist)
| codeduck wrote:
| Endeavour flew a red ensign during her service in the
| Royal Navy, as far as I can determine.
|
| The White ensign only became the ensign of the entire
| Royal Navy in 1864, prior to that it was flown by ships
| of the White squadron of the Royal Navy.
|
| The Red ensign was flown by ships of the Red squadron, as
| well as by private vessels belonging to British subjects.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_ensign#History
| soneil wrote:
| the Endeavour was sold to private ownership 2 years
| before she was scuttled. So I do think a red ensign would
| be appropriate.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| The routes of his 3 journeys never cease to amaze me:
|
| https://www.maas.museum/observations/2012/04/17/cooks-three-...
|
| Longitude was from astronomical observations and quite
| inaccurate, they had little knowledge about the prevailing
| currents and winds and they we're doing huge passages away from
| land. Often having no or little proof that they'd find land they
| were aiming for.
| mellosouls wrote:
| Actual title:
|
| _Row erupts over wreck in US waters identified as Captain Cook's
| Endeavour_
| tasha0663 wrote:
| Of course they row _over_ it. You can 't row a sunken ship
| that's underwater.
| tempodox wrote:
| What about sunken ships not underwater?
| [deleted]
| srmarm wrote:
| Interesting, although the linked article suggests that claim is
| disputed.
| scoot wrote:
| It's also what the actual headline alludes to, and the
| subheading makes clear. OP has editorialized the post title to
| be more clickbaity.
| [deleted]
| adamjb wrote:
| OP posted it with the original headline
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220203013548/https://www.thegu.
| ..
|
| They submitted at 2022-02-03T03:09:31 [0] but this post got
| re-upped by the mods, as they sometimes do for submissions
| they feel deserve a second chance [1]
|
| [0] as you can confirm by mousing over where it currently,
| erroneously, says "3 hours"
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380
| scoot wrote:
| Correct about the re-up (good catch!), but not about the
| headline, which at the time that it was originally posted
| here was "Ship fight: row erupts over wreck in US waters
| identified as Captain Cook's Endeavour"[1].
|
| (Note the use of the word "identified" in OP's title, not
| "confirmed" as in the original version of the article that
| you linked to.)
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220203024757/https://www.theg
| u...
| dfawcus wrote:
| That piece is interesting in that they suggest how one may
| probably identify it as being the Endeavour. That was by
| establishing the timbers are English Oak, as they indicate
| the other wrecks were built from American or Indian timbers.
|
| So if they have done that, then combined with the detail in
| the recent article about matching to the plans, it may well
| be reasonable to assign a high probability of it being the
| Endeavour.
|
| So maybe not 'proof', but a reasonable high probability
| assumption. Unless they find specific unique details from
| that ship in the wreck, what else could count as 'definite'
| proof?
| scoot wrote:
| Apologies, I edit the parent comment to remove mention of
| the other article with the intention of posting it as a
| separate comment, around the same time you posted this
| reply.
|
| For context here's what @dfawcus was replying to since I
| can no longer edit back in:
|
| > Here's a related article from 2018 with a bit more
| historical context: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-
| news/2018/sep/19/wreck...
| Anon4Now wrote:
| Put Morse on the case. As long as there are clues that a classic
| education will unravel, he'll have this solved in no time.
| [deleted]
| jbkiv wrote:
| I was indirectly involved in such a discovery in the 80s. A
| Spanish Galleon had been found in the Atlantic, off the SouthEast
| coast of the US, by a private, commercial, diving expedition.
| Gold was found (it may have been the main reason for that
| expedition).
|
| Congratulations were in order. But the question was: who owns
| that gold? Without getting into a lot of details, if you find a
| ship floating away or something at the bottom of the ocean, it is
| yours to keep. Sometimes the owners and passengers are rescued
| from small sailboats as the sinking is imminent and the craft is
| sunk as she would present a hazard to navigation. Or that boat is
| left floating away. I recall such a case in 1994 a sailboat had
| been abandoned off the coast of North Carolina, the crew had been
| rescued with a Coast Guard helicopter. That sailboat was found a
| year later off Cape Hatteras. Bottom line the boat was rescued,
| her owners were found, and the insurance company had to negotiate
| a return (they paid the owners for a total loss).
|
| That part is important, so let's go back to that galleon full of
| gold coins (unlike bitcoins they had appreciated in value over
| three hundred years). That load was insured by the oldest
| insurance company at the time, the Insurance Company of North
| America (INA). INA became CIGNA, then ACE and is now Chubb.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_Company_of_North_Ame...
|
| Yes you can mock insurance companies for their archaic systems,
| flat files and old windows machines. But paper files were kept.
| They had paid for that loss. Recovering that gold was just a
| matter of filing legal documents. Negotiations ensued with the
| underwater gold diggers. A deal was reached.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| What's the point of mentioning Bitcoin? Why do people have such
| an irrational hatred of cryptocurrency?
|
| You're not even correct. Bitcoin value has skyrocketed compared
| to gold, even if you go back 200 years.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| people like to punctuate stories with topical humor
| sometimes. it's a joke, not a personal attack
| jbkiv wrote:
| I am sorry about my semi sarcastic comment on bitcoin. I
| apologize. But bitcoin is portrayed "as a storage of value"
| and I wanted to show a REAL case where in fact GOLD was a
| real storage of value 200 years laters.
| wwtrv wrote:
| The price has skyrocketed, it's real value is negative
| satronaut wrote:
| why the jab at bitcoin? u salty bro?
| biztos wrote:
| It's a great story, but I don't understand how the insurance
| company is relevant to the finders. They found it, it's theirs
| (you just said) so the insurance company... wants to pay above
| market value for nostalgic reasons?
|
| Incidentally there's a miniseries about this topic I just
| started watching, the overacting on the Spanish side of the
| production is cringeworthy but it's a fun premise, you might
| like it. And if you already know it, you might comment on its
| veracity!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Fortuna_(TV_series)
| brimble wrote:
| I'm with you. I'm not following how reimbursing the original
| owner years and years ago gives the insurance company a
| stronger claim to ownership of a wreck than _being the
| original owner_ (if un-reimbursed by insurance so that 's not
| a factor, one supposes)
| djbebs wrote:
| This. It makes no sense, and insurance contract is merely a
| transfer of risk, and potentially ownership of any claims.
| It does not in itself create any claims
| lazide wrote:
| As mentioned above, as part of the insurance company
| settling claims they often get ownership rights to the
| now damaged/destroyed/lost goods. That way they can
| recover some of their loss, and can quite explicitly stop
| (from a legal perspective) certain types of insurance
| fraud. Stuff like 'losing' jewelry and then conveniently
| finding it again later becomes theft AND insurance fraud,
| for instance.
|
| So they became the new owner, AND had actually kept the
| paperwork.
| brimble wrote:
| What tripped me up was the seemingly-conflicting notion
| in the post that, typically, salvage belongs to the
| salvager, not the owner. It seems like the opposite is
| true? How it read to me was that there must be some kind
| of exception for insurers once they take ownership of
| something, but if the default is actually that the owner
| still owns it (minus reasonable salvage fees, and _if_
| they can prove it) and the point was that it was
| impressive they could still prove it after all that time,
| then it all makes sense.
| jbkiv wrote:
| The insurance company paid the claim to the owner of the
| shipb, or whomever bought the insurance contract. This is how
| Lloyds of London got started.
|
| The insurers are entitled to recovery. It happens in the case
| of mink fur theft, bank robbery, of ships salvaged and sold
| for scrap metal. Whomever bought the insurance contract got
| their money.
|
| Even with a fire where everything is destroyed, there is
| always potential for recovery (I am not talking about a
| private house). In a plant or a warehouse storing computers,
| electronics, the insurance company will reimburse for the
| loss at a given valuation agreed upon in the contract:
| replacement value, market value. Then the insurance company
| will contract with a cleanup company and will sell the
| equipment (sometimes just smoke damage) to the wholesaler.
| That wholesaler will clean up the equipment and sell that on
| Amazon or ebay. More often they forget to mention the
| circumstances.
|
| Here the insurance company has paid for those gold bullions,
| the owner was happy and is dead by now. The insurance company
| claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with
| the salvage company.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I'm confused by these two statements:
|
| 1. "if you find a ship floating away or something at the
| bottom of the ocean, it is yours to keep"
|
| 2. "The insurance company claims that they have title to
| that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company."
|
| #1 says the salvage company has full claim to the gold
|
| #2 says the insurance company has some claim
|
| If the salvage company owns the gold, why can't they just
| ignore the insurance company and sell to the highest
| bidder?
| itisit wrote:
| Ownership and title aren't exactly the same thing.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Wait, you didn't answer your question. Who owned the gold? Who
| did the insurance company reimburse? The Spanish Crown?
| k3oni wrote:
| As i read it the insurance company reimbursed the crew that
| found the gold, and the insurance company owned the gold as
| well as they paid the original owners of the ship for their
| loss(but you can't own something that you don't have), they
| had to reimburse the crew that found it for their
| work/expenses etc. I might be wrong but that's what i got
| from the OP's story.
| brimble wrote:
| I read it the same way you did, but I'm confused that
| paying out insurance gives the insurer a stronger claim to
| property than _buying_ something. Is a wreck at the bottom
| of the sea only still someone 's property if that someone
| is an insurer?
| soneil wrote:
| My very lose understanding is that finding a wreck
| doesn't confer ownership. It confers salvage rights, and
| if the owner doesn't compensate for salvage (or the
| assumed costs of salvage), you get to keep what you
| salvage in payment.
|
| So when there's no-one who can make a legal claim, and is
| willing and able to cover your costs - it starts to look
| a whole lot like "finders keepers". But if there's a
| clearly defined owner, and they're able to meet your
| costs, you have no right to keep it.
|
| (For a clearer example - if someone gives your boat a
| tow, they can't refuse your payment and keep your boat,
| that'd be absurd. But if you refuse to pay they can
| recover those costs. Adding a few hundred years in
| doesn't change this, it only makes proving ownership more
| complex.)
|
| So as I understand it - when the insurer compensates the
| owner, they assume ownership of the property. You can't
| lose something, claim insurance, then find it, and keep
| both property & payment. So when it comes to salvage - if
| the insurer can prove ownership and cover costs, it's
| their property.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| This.
|
| Shipwrecks are governed by maritime salvage law, an
| international set of legal conventions governing the
| recovery of vessels and properties aboard them.
|
| In a nutshell, the putative owner of the vessel or the
| properties recovered from it has two years from the _end_
| of salvage operations to lay claim to the vessel /goods
| recovered. If the salvage was not performed under
| contract, then they must pay fair value for the salvage
| services, but the sources I found are all over the board
| on what "fair value" is in that context.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| I'm guessing OP has a strong bias on this since the article does
| not match the title and actually talks about how there is
| controversy over the claim.
| [deleted]
| thingalope wrote:
| Actually, the Guardian headline says "identified" too, because
| both of them understand that identification is not necessarily
| factual. Their headline is saying a fight/row broke out over
| someone identifying it as such. That can be true without it
| actually being that ship. Like identifying an unknown particle
| as something and ultimately being wrong. It doesn't mean saying
| someone identified it as such is a certainty of identity.
|
| No reason to go after OP here at all. You're misunderstanding
| the nuance of the verb "identify" here. There's an implied
| "someone has" behind the "identified" in this usage.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| It's misleading through omission. If someone says something
| has been identified you assume its correct unless they give
| further information that it might not be. That's an important
| distinction between the two titles.
|
| And I'm not "going after OP", just stating that they have a
| bias.
| thingalope2 wrote:
| No, you don't, because this is a common journalistic
| shorthand in English. The article is not reporting truth.
| It's reporting that someone claims to have identified it.
| That distills to a shorthand verb "identified" in
| journalism a lot, which is not saying "the abstract truth
| of our existence has established this as so," it's saying
| "such and such group has claimed this is that".
|
| If you think OP is misleading you through omission, again,
| this is a nuance of journalism that you're overlooking (and
| possibly fair for you to overlook because it might be an
| English-specific thing, I'm unsure). The correct way to
| read OP's headline is "someone claims X can be identified
| as Y". Again, and please understand this point this time,
| identified is almost always implicitly prefixed by "someone
| claims to have". Once you truly understand that point
| you'll realize it's impossible for you to be misled here.
|
| "Body identified as so-and-so" even occasionally changes as
| more information becomes available. It's rare, but it does.
| The verb "to identify" is strongly distinct from "to be"
| and is centered on the idea that someone is reporting their
| conclusion which is often opinion. If you think you're
| being misled, you're reading it as "to be," which is a
| dangerous idea to carry through the world of news in many
| ways.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Being subject to change pending new information is not
| the same as actively under debate.
|
| I am aware of what identified means and how it is used.
| Identified never implies that qualified professionals are
| debating the topic.
| jjulius wrote:
| It might not be a bad idea to check and see if the headline
| itself has changed from when it was originally posted, before
| implying bias or whatnot only to end up with egg meeting
| face...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220203013548/https://www.thegu...
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