Projects we pursue
Three million sites, finite time and finite money. Every target we take on falls into one of three categories, and each one is justified differently.
Example: Titanic
These discoveries focus solely on the impact they have on history and the knowledge they provide to humanity.
Some wrecks are worth finding for no other reason than what they tell us. There is no salvage case and no commercial return. The value is the record itself: a vessel, a cargo, a crew, and the moment they stopped. The Titanic is the example everyone knows.
Example: wrecks carrying legal tender or specie
Target recoveries in this category focus on the financial benefit of the find outside of any historical relevance.
Vessels carrying legal tender or specie can fund the work that pays for the rest of the program. These projects are assessed on the strength of the archival case, the recoverability of the cargo, and the legal standing of the claim before a single dive is planned.
Example: WWII-era tankers and fuel bunkers
Historical discoveries that pose an active environmental threat where they lie.
Thousands of wrecks still hold hazardous materials: dangerous chemicals and petroleum products leaking on the bottom of the sea. Locating and characterizing them is a prerequisite to doing anything about them, and it is work almost nobody is funded to do.
Before a single dive
A target does not become an expedition because it sounds good. It has to survive the archival case, the survey plan, the legal standing and the economics.
Primary sources that put a specific vessel in a specific place, and a manifest worth confirming.
A defined search box the technology can actually cover, with sonar and ROV time budgeted against it.
Jurisdiction, permits and title settled before mobilization, not after a find.
For commercial targets, a recovery that pays for itself and funds the work that does not.
Members get the project planning detail: the research, the survey plan, and the reasoning behind going.
