Irishman leads bid to salvage €170m of sunken treasure

AN Irishman is to lead a daring bid to salvage a shipwreck containing 200 tonnes of silver worth €170 million about 300 miles of the coast.

In what is believed to be the deepest and largest ever retrieval of a precious cargo found at sea, US company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, confirmed it had found the SS Gairsoppa nearly 4,700 metres below the surface of the North Atlantic, in international waters.

The SS Gairsoppa was a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat in February 1941 while enlisted in the service of the British Ministry of War Transport.