Victory wreck damaged, says salvor

Odyssey Marine Exploration, which located the predecessor to Lord Nelson's famous flagship in May 2008, has stated that it has been "shocked and surprised by the degree of damage" to the site, which is in international waters, 100m down and 60 miles off the Channel Islands' Casquets Rocks.

It says that nets and cables foul a number of the wreck's many bronze cannon and iron ballast pieces. Two cannon raised last year to provide evidence of the wreck's identity - a 12-pounder and 42-pounder carrying the crest of King George I - show scratches and friction marks thought to have been caused by trawls.

Now Odyssey has conducted an assessment of fishing-boat densities in the western English Channel. The information is useful not only in relation to Victory but for numerous other Channel wreck sites located by the company.

It found that the 74 x 55-mile research box surrounding Victory yielded the most fishing boats of all of the areas surveyed. Two-thirds of the boats were seabed-destroying beam trawlers.

"It turns out that Victory is right in the middle of the heaviest trawling area in the Western Channel," concluded Odyssey.

British archaeologists are wary of Odyssey's motives, the company being keen to excavate gold bullion and coins from the wreck. This would require an agreement with the British Government, which has jurisdiction over the Victory as a flagged vessel. The Government, however, has said that it favours non-invasive survey.

That has been in response to the fact that any excavation of artefacts could be seen as conflicting with the ethos of look-don't-touch promoted by English Heritage, NAS and other sources, including the UNESCO Convention on Underwater Cultural Heritage Annex, to which the Government is a signatory.

If, however, the wreck could be shown to be under some sort of marked threat, excavation could then be considered as advisable under heritage guidelines outlined under the UNESCO Annex and backed by the British Government.

"You have to ask why Odyssey is doing such a study," Robert Yorke, Chairman of the Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee, told The Times. "They want to pressurise the UK Government to allow them to get at the wreck . . . The Victory hasn't disappeared since 1744; it's not going to disappear tomorrow."

In any case, Odyssey still faces the challenge of proving that the wreck is definitely Victory. Although most observers believe that it is virtually guaranteed to be that of the 18th century's most impressive warship, the MoD is thought to regard the site’s cannon as probable but not conclusive evidence of identity.

As such, before anything else might be considered, Odyssey is likely still to need to carry out, according to Diver Magazine’s maritime legal consultant Mike Williams, a "preliminary archaeological assessment and report, overseen by independent archaeological assessors", which manages to establish the wreck's identity beyond doubt.