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Catherine the Great of Russia lost her famous treasure ship in the Finnish archipelagos. Many have searched for the ship, but the Finnish Marine Museum now believes they have located it.
25 miles off the coast of Poland lay three of the top five worst shipwrecks of all time, all within a few miles of each other. Their stories have never been fully told, but early in 1945 over 15,000 mostly young people lost their lives on these ships.
Within a man-made breakwater of derelict ships on Canada's west coast lies a possible relic from a fascinating era in American history - the rip-roaring time known as prohibition.
Using the latest underwater technology, our team of renowned historians, divers and marine archaeologists search for the world's most renowned lost ships and tell the history and mystery of each epic ocean tale.
Just off the coast of Poland, deep beneath the icy waters of the Baltic, lie the torn remains of a German ocean liner. The vessel was to have been the salvation of thousands escaping the wrath of the advancing Soviet army, her dash to freedom cut short by three Russian torpedoes. Join the Sea Hunters as they explore the site of the greatest single shipwreck tragedy in history, the wreck of the Nazi liner Wilhelm Gustloff.
Disaster at sea is a phrase that makes you think of great ocean liners, sinking with huge loss of life - tragedies like Lusitania, Empress of Ireland, and of course, Titanic. Ships whose death toll exceeded one thousand lives. But imagine a wreck that sank with five times the number of victims as Titanic. It was in the Baltic Sea at the end of the Second World War when a ship crammed with over ten thousand men, women and children, fleeing the advancing Russian Army sank carrying with it nine thousand of these refugees who became the forgotten victims of the largest maritime disaster in the history of the world. The Sea Hunters will be the first group to explore the wreck with the aim of publishing the findings.
The team travels to the Gulf of Gdansk, where Wilhelm Gustloff's final voyage began. The Sea Hunters and researchers from the Polish Maritime Museum will sail to the wreck from the historic port of Gdansk.
The Wilhelm Gustloff began her career as a public relations tool for the Nazi regime. Named after a martyr, the assassinated leader of the Swiss Nazi party, the Wilhelm Gustloff was built as a cruise ship for the German worker. The cruise ship career of the Willie G. as she was called came to an end when the war was declared. In 1940, she was assigned to a the newly captured Polish Port of Gdynia to serve as barracks for German U-boat submariners.
In 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of Russia by an army of approximately three million Germans. Germany had made a huge mistake by invading the Soviet
Within a man made breakwater of derelict ships on Canada's west coast, lies a possible relic from a fascinating era in American history - the rip-roaring time known as prohibition. Join the Sea Hunters as they seek the last resting place of the most famous smuggling ship on the west coast, the fabled, Queen of the Rum Runners, Malahat.
From the years 1920 to 1933, America was thirsty for beer and whiskey. By turning off the tap, anti-saloon do-gooders unwittingly created a sub culture that inspired gangsters, speakeasies and organized crime. Seeing an opportunity, many resourceful Canadians were happy to become suppliers and the rumrunner was born. Mariners on the eastern seaboard, across the Great Lakes and along the west coast, happily embraced the smuggling of liquor for fast and easy profits. One of the finest examples of a rum-running wreck is that of the fabled Queen of Rum Row, Malahat.
Prohibition was an era of gangsters, jazz and bathtub gin. What started out as a noble experiment soon became a multi-million dollar illegal industry controlled by well-run criminal gangs. Crime lords like Al Capone, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel ruled entire cities buying off police and politicians and gunning down anyone else who got in their way. Small time smugglers gave way to the huge syndicates dealing thousands of cases of liquor across the USA, much of it by sea. During the thirteen years of prohibition, one ship delivered more contraband than any other - the notorious schooner, Malahat.
The story of Malahat begins on Canada's west coast, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The city of Vancouver was the homeport of the Malahat, and the headquarters of Canada's rumrunner fleet. Near the end of World War I, the losses to shipping inflicted by the German u-boat campaign were so great that all available vessels were pressed into the war effort. This left a shortage of ships at home, and Canadian sawmills were left with no way to get their product to the market. After
In 1771, Catherine the Great of Russia lost her famous treasure ship in the Finnish archipelagos. Many have searched for the Vrouw Maria. A Finnish historian has now located it. Join the Sea Hunters as they travel to the Baltic Sea, and become the first foreign cinematographers to join the Finnish National Maritime Museum's underwater archaeologists, in confirming the identity of this vast treasure ship and filming the process of excavation and preservation.
Under Catherine the Great the Russian court became a centre for European culture and the Vrouw Maria was a part of this. She was sailing from Amsterdam to St.Petersburg with a cargo of fairly ordinary merchandise when she encountered a storm off the Finnish coast. Her captain and crew escaped with their lives to a nearby islet and over the next few days proceeded to salvage much of her more mundane cargo. However, the captain and crew were unaware of the valuable treasure trove contained deep within her cargo holds. Her incredible art collection had been a closely guarded secret. Soon, another storm raged over the area and Vrouw Maria was now irretrievably lost to the depths.
The Empress issued orders for salvage attempts but the ship was never found and the story of her riches remained dormant until the 1980's when diplomatic records were discovered by a Finnish historian.
Since then Vrouw Maria has achieved renown as a treasure ship because of her incredible cargo purchased by the famous Empress and other Russian aristocrats. The Empress was well known for her extensive art collecting. Dutch, Flemish, and Italian paintings from the 16th and 17th century are just a part of her cargo. Paintings by Old Masters Rembrandt and Rubens number among them.
But Vrouw Maria's value extends far beyond that of the art treasures contained within her depths. The relatively undamaged framework of the wreck will enable the archaeologists to study the characteristics of Vrouw Maria's vessel type, known as a 'snow' s
