Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea (78 page)

The court concluded, “It will not be often, if ever, that all of the principles governing salvage awards will so overwhelmingly militate in the salvor’s favor. It will also be rare that a ship and cargo will have been imperiled for so long, and will be so difficult to objectively value, that a flat percentage award will be preferred to a sum certain. Nevertheless, this is that exceptional case, and though the district court’s ninety percent award is a generous one, we cannot say that it is excessive.”

But the court wasn’t through. It then gave Columbus-America exclusive control over all of the marketing of the treasure. The insurance companies had wanted their part of the gold immediately, so they could dispose of it however they pleased, but the court held that “there is just too much gold involved to allow more than one party to market it. The loss of the gold aboard the
Central America
significantly affected the precious metal and financial markets in 1857, and there is evidence that the gold’s recovery could, upon its re-entry into the market, have a significant effect today. Our review of the expert testimony introduced at trial convinces us that a unified plan is necessary to ensure the maximum return from the sale of the gold.”

In all of the court proceedings since the fall of 1989, one major issue still had not been resolved: Could the insurance companies prove they had paid the loss? They may have made a prima facie case for their claim to the gold, argued Columbus-America, but before they shared
in the recovery they still had to prove which parts they insured and that they had covered those losses in 1857. The court agreed. “That Columbus-America is entitled to a ninety percent salvage award does not automatically mean that the underwriters may, merely by virtue of bringing this suit, walk out the courthouse door with the remaining ten percent.” The Fourth Circuit now sent the case back to Judge Kellam one more time to “weigh all of the evidence and decide whether each underwriter has proved all or any portion of its claim.” The court noted that if the insurance companies’ proof covered less than 100 percent of the gold recovered, “Columbus-America may retain the excess.”

Then came the court’s closing words. “What Thompson and Columbus-America have accomplished is, by any measure, extraordinary. We can say without hesitation that their story is a paradigm of American initiative, ingenuity, and determination.”

The decision was a rarity in American jurisprudence: a stern and staid federal court of appeals effusive in its praise of one litigant. The appellate court’s decision so brimmed with excitement and enthusiasm, even a casual reader could discern the judges’ fascination with the story, both from 1857 and in the 1980s, a feeling that they, too, by having the good fortune of deciding this case, had entered at a select moment into one of the most extraordinary stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to become themselves a part of history. The court even praised Judge Kellam, who had “intrepidly waded through the morass of records and filings,” and who had “consistently evidenced good humor, notwithstanding the occasional contentiousness among the parties.”

In the winter and early spring of 1996, both sides submitted final briefs to Judge Kellam, supporting their claims. After the briefs were filed, doctors diagnosed Judge Kellam with pancreatic cancer, giving him only two to three months to live. Kellam nevertheless wrote his opinion in the spring of 1996, then died in June. His Opinion and Order was filed by another judge on August 13, 1996.

Using mostly articles in contemporary newspapers for supporting evidence, Judge Kellam found that all but two of the insurance companies had covered at least some of the commercial loss. The other two had never been mentioned in any of the evidence. With those two companies no
longer entitled to recovery, Kellam increased Columbus-America’s share to 92.22 percent and held that the insurance companies would receive their 7.78 percent of the commercial shipment only after Columbus-America had deducted all of its expenses, including recovery, storage, and marketing. Because the insurance companies had produced no bills of lading, no insurance contracts, no receipts, no evidence that parts of the shipment were insured against loss or that the companies paid the loss when it occurred, many observers assumed that Kellam gave the insurance companies a small piece of the commercial shipment merely to discourage further appeals. Only three tons of gold comprised the commercial shipment out of a potential twenty-one tons aboard the
Central America
. In the final distribution, Columbus-America received 92.22 percent of the three-ton commercial shipment, 100 percent of the miners’ unconsigned gold, which approximated the commercial shipment, and, if Columbus-America could recover the shipment guarded by the army, 100 percent of that shipment, or another fifteen tons. The court also appointed Columbus-America central authority over marketing and future recoveries at the site. It was by far the largest salvage award in the history of admiralty.

T
OMMY CONTINUES
to explore the ultimate disposition of the treasure. The story of how it was lost and how it was found again is certain to widen the circle of people interested in owning a piece of it. The rare and beautiful gold aboard the
Central America
was not bought from a collector or handed down within the family; it came out of the California Gold Rush, a sidewheel steamer, a hurricane, a selfless group of spirited men, a rescue at sea, a couple named Easton, a courageous captain; it came from the dream of a young engineer from Ohio, and his story of risks and setbacks and breakthroughs; it came with the opening of the next frontier. More than gold, the treasure represents a bonding of two centuries, two pioneering spirits, the opening of two frontiers.

The value of the treasure will remain undetermined until Tommy decides what Columbus-America should do with it. As of February 1998, he continues to assess every avenue conceivable and some avenues no one has ever thought of. His percentage started at forty but has been
diluted since 1985 to about one-third of the total treasure. Ultimately, he will receive a huge sum, but his friends, partners, and people at Columbus-America see him changing little. He will still wear the same mismatching clothes, ride a motor scooter in a T-shirt in January, and drive everyone around him crazy by pushing what everyone else perceives as limits. Except his new riches will allow him to dream on an even grander scale.

One perspective on Tommy’s achievement: In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told a joint session of Congress that the United States should commit itself to landing a man on the moon within the decade. For the next eight years, over 400,000 people spent nearly $100 billion (current value) to put Neil Armstrong on the moon. Many scientists and engineers consider the challenges of exploring and working in the deep ocean equal to the challenges of exploring and working in outer space. In 1985, Tommy Thompson and about a dozen colleagues committed to developing a working presence on the bottom of the deep ocean. No one had done it; no one knowledgeable thought it could be done without the full force of the United States government and unlimited resources. Even then, some were skeptical, because the government had already spent hundreds of millions trying. Despite legal challenges, a time frame of only three years, the efforts of only thirty people, and a budget of no more than $12 million, Tommy and his group successfully searched the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, perfected their technology, found and imaged a mid–nineteenth century wooden-hulled ship in eight thousand feet of water, and began recovering her many treasures.

They had proved the experts wrong. You could work on the bottom of the deep ocean, do intricate work carefully and heavy work delicately, and you didn’t have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to do it. You just had to shed old ways of thinking and reexamine old assumptions and do it smart from the beginning. You had to keep diverging, even beyond the point where it all became difficult and confusing. That’s where Tommy lives, and he made those around him live there, too, some for far longer than is comfortable for most people. Yet just on the other side of that juncture is where impossibility sometimes vanishes and the world can be seen in a new way. Tommy, Barry, and Bob had talked about it before they ever went to sea: Historic ship recovery was
really an adventure in thinking, a way of looking at the world. Finding the treasure of the
Central America
was a goal, but it wasn’t the purpose. The purpose was to unveil the treasures of the deep ocean, to enhance our understanding of history, to advance marine archaeology, to further science, to form new corporate cultures, to develop technology. Going after the treasure was like plowing and planting a field. Tommy had broached the idea during the round tables back in 1985. “If you do that,” he said, “all kinds of things can blossom.”

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedicaton

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Prologue

The California Gold Rush

Ship of Gold

Havana

Aboard the SS Central America

Tommy

Defiance, Ohio

Aboard the Central America

Columbus, Ohio

The Partnership

Off the Carolina Coast

Columbus, Ohio

Off the Carolina Coast

The Deep Blue Sea

200 Miles off the Carolina Coast

Columbus, Ohio

Aboard the Nicor Navigator

On the Galaxy Site

Columbus, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio

Aboard the Arctic Discoverer

Epilogue