SUNKEN TREASURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 July 1938, Page 7

SUNKEN TREASURE

HUGE DREDGER ATTEMPTS SALVAGE. OVER A MILLION IN GOLD AND SILVER. I visited the tin dredger Karimata, now engaged in an attempt to salvage over £1,000,000 in gold and silver from the wreck of the British frigate Lutine, says a special correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” writing from Terschelling. The frigate sank off this island 138 years ago. Rough seas had caused the suspension of the work for the day when I arrived. Viewed from the tug in which I was a guest of the Billiton Tin Company, owners of the Karimata, it was easy to follow the lines of foam bordering the sandbank in which the Lutine lies'buried. We had on board Mr F. J. Houwert, one of the directors of the Billiton Company, and Mr -van Wienen, who this summer is to start salvage in Scotland on the wreck of the Duke of Ferenzia with his own invented diving tower.

The Karimata’s colossal structure of steel and iron is like a floating machine hall. It floats on 38 tanks, each containing an electrical device which sets an alarm bell going in the event of water rushing in. At 10 points there are buttons. These only need pushing in an emergency to stop the engines, which together develop 1800 horsepower.

The dredge’s bucket chain, with its 132 steel scoops, can be drawn in and out like the snout of a gigantic anteater.

The greatest depth which can be reached is 90 feet. At present the Karimata works at-42 feet, but ultimately the layer of clay, at a depth of 60 feet, on which the Lutine and the gold are supposed to rest, will be reached. Up to now only one silver coin, dated 1789, has been brought to the surface. It is about one and a-half inches in diameter and shows the head of Charles IV. of Spain. On it are the words “Hispan et Ind Rex.” Apart from this, only some old iron from previous salvage expeditions has been recovered, including parts of the iron chain of the English salvage tug Loan, which tried its luck before the war.