Thanks for the info! Something didn’t smell right about that case . . .
Thanks for the info! Something didn’t smell right about that case . . . colorado tanker
As I recall, this issue came up around 2007. I joined a Spanish naval history forum as I was doing genealogical research on some of my ancestors who were Spanish Naval officers during that era. One of the forum members was able to local the service records of one them who, it turns out, was one of the officers on the Spanish warship San Nicolas in it's combat with Horatio Nelson's HMS Captain during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797. (The “Nelson's Patent Bridge for Boarding” episode.) If your ship has to lose a battle , it might as well be to Horatio Nelson. ;-)
In the forum, I was the only member who was fully bilingual so I was able to report back on what U.S. newspapers in Florida were saying about the case. The company was claiming that the wreck was "somewhere in the Atlantic" without revealing where. The "Black Swan" code name was used to suggest that it was a British ship (if I recall correctly, they claimed permission from a British Court) but there was suspicion on the Spanish naval history forum that the "Black Swan" was, in fact, the Spanish warship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes.
The company was extremely coy about the whole thing and every effort was made to hide the fact that the wreck was a Spanish sovereign wreck.
Yes, the company knew the law regarding sovereign wrecks and they made every effort to skirt the law.
For those who argue that Spain should not have sovereign wreck rights, remember that the same law protects U.S. warships at the bottom of, say, Iron Bottom Sound, from being salvaged by some Japanese salvage company for sale of souvenir artifacts in Japan. By maritime law, only the U.S. has the right to salvage or cede salvage rights in regards to any sunken U.S. warship, anywhere in the World.