Portland treasure hunters on the verge of bringing up $3 billion in shipwreck loot [View all]

[bluedigger]

PORTLAND, Maine — The only thing between a team of Portland explorers and nearly $3 billion in sunken treasure is about 700 feet of water.

Sub Sea Research LLC has located off the coast of Cape Cod the shipwreck of the Port Nicholson, a British freighter secretly carrying 71 tons of platinum when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1942.

“This is the richest shipwreck that’s ever been found, bar none,” Greg Brooks, co-founder of Sub Sea Research told the Bangor Daily News Tuesday. “We think toward the end of February, if we get some good weather, we’ll get some of that cargo up on the deck. And once you get some of that on the deck, everything changes.”

Each ingot — sort of like a narrow brick — of platinum is now worth roughly $600,000, Brooks said, and there are about 4,600 ingots littering the sea floor in and around the Port Nicholson. http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/01/news/portland/maine-treasure-hunter-takes-aim-at-3-billion-sunken-bounty/

An informative story and video about the discovery at the link.