Buenos Aires, June 20 (inditop.com) A ship that sank in the South Atlantic in January, allegedly with over nine tonnes of gold and silver on board, was located off Argentina’s Patagonian coast.
According to Argentine media reports Friday, it remained unclear whether the ship’s load – worth an estimated $16.4 million – was still inside the Polar Mist.
The recovery mission had to be interrupted Friday due to strong winds, but was expected to be relaunched in the coming days.
An earlier attempt to recover the ship failed in April. The owners of the missing minerals, the mining firms Cerro Vanguardia and Tritton, argued that the effort was too expensive.
This time, recovery efforts were carried out by a ship hired by the Polar Mist’s insurance company, Lloyds in London. With the help of specialist equipment, they were able to determine that the ship they found was indeed the Polar Mist.
The loaded ship was overcome by huge waves in January off the coast of the southern Argentine province of Santa Cruz, but remained afloat after the crew was rescued by Argentine authorities. The ship was then tugged by a Chilean boat towards the coast, but inexplicably and mysteriously sank during the manoeuvre.
