Shipwreck: Diver Won't Quit Quest for Truth
Detroit Free Press
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Michigan (US):
The mystery of the sailing ship Griffon has tantalized adventurers and historians ever since the vessel, loaded with furs, disappeared in 1679 on its maiden voyage in northern Lake Michigan.
It's the oldest and most elusive of Great Lakes shipwrecks. And Steven Libert, an amateur underwater explorer who says he has been hunting the Griffon most of his adult life, thinks he may have found the wreckage.
But for about a year, he has been locked in a legal battle with the State of Michigan over salvage rights to what's left of a ship he discovered while diving in 2001 near Poverty Island.
The sides have forged a delicate truce, however, that apparently will enable Libert to continue work next spring toward unlocking the mystery of his find.If it really is the Griffon, it may be the grand prize of his shipwrecks.
But it's not a prize that will bring him riches. The Griffon wasn't carrying treasure, and its cargo of furs is long gone. Its value is historic and, for Libert, intrinsic rather than monetary.
Dec 31, 2005
Detroit Free Press
_____________
Michigan (US):
The mystery of the sailing ship Griffon has tantalized adventurers and historians ever since the vessel, loaded with furs, disappeared in 1679 on its maiden voyage in northern Lake Michigan.
It's the oldest and most elusive of Great Lakes shipwrecks. And Steven Libert, an amateur underwater explorer who says he has been hunting the Griffon most of his adult life, thinks he may have found the wreckage.
But for about a year, he has been locked in a legal battle with the State of Michigan over salvage rights to what's left of a ship he discovered while diving in 2001 near Poverty Island.
The sides have forged a delicate truce, however, that apparently will enable Libert to continue work next spring toward unlocking the mystery of his find.If it really is the Griffon, it may be the grand prize of his shipwrecks.
But it's not a prize that will bring him riches. The Griffon wasn't carrying treasure, and its cargo of furs is long gone. Its value is historic and, for Libert, intrinsic rather than monetary.
Dec 31, 2005
