Capturing the general outline of this shipwreck from the seabed is no easy task.
Anyway, it took Bai Yu and his team a good ten minutes to film the situation of the sunken ship, and it was all done by the three of them together.
"Uncle Liao, this shipwreck looks to be in relatively good condition. It's broken into two pieces, so can we just fish those two pieces out?"
Bai Yu looked at the screen on the computer and mentioned his own thoughts.
His idea was simple: just use the crane on the salvage ship to fish up the two sections of the sunken ship. It was simple and easy.
But is it really that easy?
If conditions allowed, it would indeed be that simple, but as things stand, the salvage boat that Bai Yu and his crew are on does not have that capability.
To be precise, it's not that we lack the ability, but rather that it's not so easy to implement.
Lifting this shipwreck is relatively easy; even lifting it from the seabed to the surface would not be a problem.
However, lifting it from the sea to the deck is not so easy, since the weight of a wooden boat after getting wet is unknown.
The salvage boat that Bai Yu and his team were on wasn't some kind of behemoth, and no one knew what kind of accident might happen during the lifting of such a sunken ship.
So, according to Uncle Liao's plan, the first step is to cut the sunken ship underwater, dividing the two parts of the hull into several sections, and then hoisting them separately.
This would effectively reduce the weight of each part of the hull, thus reducing the pressure on the salvage vessel and lifting equipment.
However, there are specific guidelines for how to cut these two parts of the hull underwater; it's not something that can be done arbitrarily.
After all, what Bai Yu and his group wanted was not the hull of the sunken ship, but the supplies it carried, especially gold and silver ingots and porcelain.
Therefore, when cutting through the hull, the operators need to be extremely careful not to cut open the ship's compartments.
Otherwise, if the various supplies loaded inside the sunken ship were to spill out during the lifting process, it would be quite difficult to clean up.
After all, this is more than 200 meters deep in the seabed. Retrieving scattered supplies under such conditions is no different from finding a needle in a haystack.
The reason for this request was that after the footage was transmitted back, the three divers also began to enter the cabin to inspect it.
According to the latest footage transmitted back, Bai Yu and his companions could clearly see that ten large boxes were scattered throughout one of the ship's cabins.
Seven of the boxes were opened for some unknown reason, while three remained unopened. Meanwhile, gold and silver ingots were scattered all over the floor of the ship's cabin.
They were all the same gold and silver ingots that the fishing boats had brought back before, with more silver ingots and only about one box of gold ingots.
When cutting into this cabin, we definitely can't cut into this side, otherwise, if we make a big hole in it, the salvage work later will be quite a hassle.
Besides this cabin, two other divers also discovered another cabin filled with boxes, but the boxes in this cabin were rather sloppy and not nearly as exquisite as the boxes containing gold and silver ingots.
In addition, there were scattered porcelain fragments in the cabin, which clearly indicated that the cabin was used to store porcelain, and these boxes were used to store porcelain.
Another cabin contained something resembling cloth, but because hundreds of years had passed and it had sunk to the bottom of the sea, these things were no longer recognizable as they were, and their texture was so fine that they could be easily punctured.
Besides these three cabins filled with a lot of stuff, there are also many empty cabins, some of which are crew rest rooms, some are storage rooms for living supplies, and some are weapons rooms.
However, apart from a few pieces of unrotted scrap metal in the armory, the other cabins were completely empty, with several already occupied by sea fish.
An hour later, all three divers had returned to the deck, bringing with them some supplies.
It was already past nine in the morning, almost ten o'clock. Besides Bai Yu, Wang Hai and Li Shuang had also gotten up.
"Brother Yu, is this a knife from the Song Dynasty? It's so rusty, it might break if you touch it!"
Li Shuang picked up a rusty knife from the items brought back by the divers, its original appearance no longer recognizable, and asked.
It is called a knife because one side of this thing is curved, which is similar to the shape of a knife.
They say it's from the Song Dynasty because the gold and silver ingots their company's fishing boats brought back had already been authenticated and confirmed to be from the Song Dynasty.
Each dynasty has its own currency, and the same applies to the designs of gold and silver ingots. Gold and silver ingots circulating in the market are generally of the official standard. Through these items, one can determine the approximate age of the shipwreck.
"Hey, hey, Shuangzi, don't touch it! Can't you see this knife is just a shell? Everything else is gone!"
Who knows if this thing will break if you touch it? You should keep an eye on it first, in case you manage to salvage it if you manage to get it back.
Let's sort through these gold and silver ingots first; there are quite a lot of them.
Bai Yu stopped Li Shuang from getting the knife, because in Bai Yu's eyes it was too fragile, and he was really afraid that Li Shuang would break it.
Judging from the previous footage, even though the knife was rusty, there weren't many of these in the entire shipwreck.
Including the one that was brought up, the diver only saw five in total. He planned to take these things back and have some professionals take a look to see if they could be repaired.
If it can be repaired, Bai Yu plans to keep one for each of them and donate the remaining one.
So even though this knife doesn't look very appealing, it's still quite valuable in Bai Yu's eyes.
As for the gold and silver ingots brought back by the divers, they were still the same as before, with a dark, black surface and many pits caused by oxidation and corrosion.
What Bai Yu and his group needed to do was to sort these gold and silver ingots into categories, putting the silver ingots in one group and the gold ingots in another, and then dispose of them all together when they got back.
Besides these two things, there is nothing else.
As for the porcelain in the ship's hold, the divers didn't bring any of it up. The porcelain scattered throughout the hold consisted mostly of fragments; there were practically no intact pieces.
There were no intact porcelain pieces in those wooden boxes either, which they weren't quite sure about. Opening those boxes underwater wouldn't be an easy task.
Especially since the divers are wearing heavy diving suits, these things can wait until the shipwreck is salvaged or lifted to the surface before we figure out how to deal with them.
Anyway, the salvage operation started the moment the divers went underwater, and it's only a matter of time before all of these things are recovered.
Bai Yu also agreed to Uncle Liao's plan to cut up the sunken ship.
So after the first group of three divers came up, several more divers started putting on their gear and preparing to dive.
Being a diver, especially working at depths of hundreds of meters, involves time constraints; you can't just stay underwater as long as you want.
As a professional team, Uncle Liao and his team were certainly very well prepared in terms of divers, with several groups of people able to take turns working.
The divers spent more than an hour underwater in the last round, and now the second group can take over.
Unlike the first group of divers who brought nothing, this group of divers brought some equipment, which looked like it was for underwater cutting operations.
Bai Yu had initially thought that underwater cutting would involve using a chainsaw, but then he realized that using a chainsaw underwater didn't seem so convenient.
After all, it's more than 200 meters deep in the seabed, and the resistance of the seawater is very strong. Just thinking about the complexity of cutting a wooden boat on the seabed with a chainsaw makes one's scalp tingle.
As for the equipment carried by the divers this time, judging from its appearance alone, it consists of cutting tools with discs on them.
Bai Yu had seen these things before; hardware stores often used this kind of grinding wheel saw. He never expected that underwater cutting also used this kind of grinding wheel saw.
The second wave of divers consisted of four people. They quickly put on their diving suits, jumped off the deck one by one, and soon disappeared into the sea.
They were going to go down to the seabed to cut down the shipwreck, cutting away the excess and useless parts, and then salvaging the useful parts.
This is a very long task, and Bai Yu and the others are going to have to wait a long time.
The most crucial point is that they are completely unable to help with this; even if they wanted to dive to the seabed, it would be an impossible task.
If you're into recreational diving, only diving to a depth of ten meters or so, Bai Yu, Li Shuang, and the others have no problem.
However, such a dive to a depth of one or two hundred meters requires highly specialized training and a certain level of physical fitness.
Moreover, this kind of work can't be done often; your body won't be able to handle it over time. It's a job that's purely dependent on youth.
Bai Yu and the others then watched on the screen as the four divers slowly descended to the seabed and began working on the sunken ship with cutting saws.
The divers themselves must master the cutting process to maximize the removal of useless parts of the hull and reduce the burden on the salvage operation.
The crew on board could only offer advice to the divers, since they hadn't actually descended to the seabed and hadn't seen the specific conditions there.
This requires divers to have a certain understanding of various types of vessels before they can better get to work.
What these divers are currently doing is to repair the exterior of the two sections of the shipwreck and cut away the obviously useless parts of the hull.
This kind of work is very tedious and boring, and requires a lot of patience.
This was true for the divers working on the seabed, and it was also true for Bai Yu and the others watching the live feed from the deck. Bai Yu had only been watching for a short while when he started yawning repeatedly.
The main problem is that the image isn't very clear. Imagine being more than 200 meters deep in the ocean; it's not exactly pitch black, but the visibility is extremely low.
The footage that Bai Yu and the others saw was all captured by the lights attached to their diving suits.
Then, when the divers used the cutting equipment, this thing was already running, which generated a lot of bubbles, further compromising the clarity of the footage.
Then the screen is silent, there's only visuals and no sound. Who would watch that for long without getting bored?
...............
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com