How much Gold is un accounted for on the Laurentic...

[Scubadec / Dec Hanniffy]

Hey all,
from reading different sources on the net, there seems to be varying opinions on how many gold bars are left on the wreckage.
Have ye any opinions on how much is left? When was the last piece recovered?

Myself and a few members of our club NUIG GMIT SAC will be diving it on Saturday if the weather allows.

[baza]

The offical web site says 20 gold bars still unaccounted which are worth some £10 million at current prices.

http://www.laurentic.com/

You better bring a very big bucket and spade..

[t1mm]

Aren't they supposedly buried beneath several feet of seabed? Can't remember where I read that though!

[Fintan Lowney]

The offical web site says 20 gold bars still unaccounted which are worth some £10 million at current prices.

http://www.laurentic.com/

You better bring a very big bucket and spade..

And a fast Car to get out of Donegal / Derry alive with it   

Regards,
Fintan

[Stewart McMickan]

Many people have looked for it but non have found it

[Vic Foster]

If my memory serves me correct: Around 1980 the diving support vessel Holga Dane moored over Laurentic, and a team of saturation divers set to work.  Apparently they dug 18 feet into the sand, and found 2 boxes of coins, but no gold.

If you swim aft on the Port side of the wreck( Fanad Side) there is a semi circular area of sand adjacent to the engine blocks.  This is known as the 'Gold Area' and apparently is where the saturation divers from Holga Dane worked.  There used to be a cloth tape measure secured in this area.  Ray cossum told me that this was the gold area.

Henry Dent, one of the salvage divers, said the gold came up in pieces, it was not all intact bars, now was it all located wher they had it expected it to be!

I presume that they weighed the pieces, and presumably this is how the accounted for most of the 3211 bars.

Happy hunting.

Regards

Vic

[Eoin OBeara]

There was a team of technical divers a few years ago that brought down a pneumatic drill (AFAIR) and went to work on the area where the safe is half covered by rock hard silt. They dived a few times each weekend for a month and still didn't find anything.

Maybe the original find brought it all up and it was "mis-counted"? 

[nortoda1]

any reason why the gold came up in pieces?  Was it blown apart?   Its chemically inert so will not degrade in sea water

[Grifmike]

I am with Eoin on this one...

One for me.... ten for the government... one for me... 

[Vic Foster]

Apparently with the disintegration of the wreck, bars og gold got bent.  Some had steel rivets embedded into them.  The power of the sea etc.  Remember, an Atlantic storm made Laurentic collapse like a deck of cards.

You can see this collapse in the area where the safe is.  It looks like 3 decks stacked on top of each other.

[Peter McCamley]

Well Vic
I noticed that  after you did your last dive on the Laurentic, you bought the new Audi the following week. Was that only a coincidence?