Wreck salvage team ordered to halt

AN OPERATION to salvage the wreck of an 18th-century packet ship lost off the north Cornish coast over 200 years ago was ordered to stop at midnight on July 18^th 1997.

The order to protect the wreck of the Hanover was made by Tony Banks, the Culture, Media and Sport Minister, under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. On Thursday it emerged that 14 cannon had been taken out of the wreck, off Cligga Head, near Perranporth, by treasure hunters hoping to raise gold bullion worth up to £50 million.

Three of the two-ton cannon were raised from the sea on to a diving rig where they are wrapped in sacking to preserve them. The remainder are still under water near the rig. The team salvaging the wreck of the square-rigged Royal Mail ship, which sank in a storm in 1763, is being led by Colin Martin, 35, chairman of the Cornish salvage firm Hydrasalve.

He spent ten years hunting for the wreck and has had a team of about 25 working from an offshore diving platform for the past three weeks.

Pumps have been used to clear sand which had covered the vessel, which sank on route from Portugal to Falmouth. It was believed to be carrying gold coins then worth £60,000, but which would now be worth millions.

The department said yesterday that the order made it an offence to interfere with the wreck, or to carry out diving or salvage operations without a licence from the Secretary of State.

"The current operations have to stop," a spokesman said. The department's interest was in the archaeological value of the site. Mr Martin would need to apply for a licence from the Secretary of State if he wanted to continue.

Although the department had been monitoring the situation closely for some months, they had not known the precise location of the site, and diving had only recently started.

A spokesman for the Post Office, which tried unsuccessfully to have the site designated a protected wreck, said its experts did not believe there was any bullion at the site. The spokesman said: "Salvage continued for two years after the ship was wrecked, and it seems likely any treasure left on board would have been recovered." It was, though, concerned about artefacts, which were part of the nation's heritage.