Hunt for one of the most valuable shipwrecks in the world, called ‘El Dorado of the Seas’, containing ‘£1 billion worth of gold’ off the British coast
THE ‘El Dorado of the seas’ is one of the world’s most valuable shipwrecks with £1 billion worth of gold on board – and lies somewhere off the British coast.
An English galleon called the Merchant Royal sank off the coast of Cornwall in 1641.
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The 700 ton ship was loaded with precious metalsbut the wreck was never found.
Now Cornish treasure hunter Nigel Hodge plans to search a 200 square in the English channel.
He told Subway: “There are thousands of shipwrecks out there and the Merchant Royal is just one of them.
“We literally have to go through a lot of wrecks as we’re doing them and then identify them.
“It’s not easy. If it was easy, it would be done.”
The Merchant Royal was built at the Royal Naval Dockyard on the Thames in Deptford, in the south east London and launched in 1627.
Captain John Limbrey and 80 crew sailed the galleon on trade missions around the West Indies, Mexico and Spain.
In 1641, the Spanish treasury hired them to transport gold and silver to pay for 30,000 troops in the Belgian port of Antwerp. Spain property.
The ship picked up the precious metals in Cadiz and left – despite developing a leak.
During a storm, more water seeped on board and the ship changed course England so it could be repaired.
But the Merchant Royal finally sank just 54 miles off Land’s End on September 23, 1641.
18 sailors were rescued by another ship, but the entire treasure was lost.
The House of Representatives proceedings halted when news of the ship’s loss arrived.
King Charles I called the wreck the “greatest loss ever suffered on a single ship”.
Described as a broken man, Limbrey spent his days in Limehouse, east London.
In addition to the Spanish gold and silver, the ship also carried 400 bars of Mexican silver and 500,000 pieces of eight during its voyages.
The contemporary value of the treasure is often estimated at around £1 billion.
In 2019, the search for the shipwreck flared up after a fishing boat called the Spirited Lady caught an anchor that was thought to belong to it.