David Mearns

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David Mearns
Born (1958-08-10) August 10, 1958 (age 65)
Weehawken, New Jersey
Alma mater Fairleigh Dickinson University
University of South Florida
OccupationMarine scientist

David Louis Mearns, OAM (born 10 August 1958), is an American-born United Kingdom based marine scientist and oceanographer, who specializes in deep water search and recovery operations, and the discovery of the location of historic shipwrecks.

Contents

Early life

Mearns was raised in Weehawken, New Jersey, where he attended Weehawken High School, graduating in 1976. He subsequently graduated B.Sc. in Marine Biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1980, and obtained a Masters degree in Marine Geology from the University of South Florida in 1986. [1]

Oceanographic career

From 1986 to 1995 Mearns was employed in the commercial undersea surveying industry in a managerial capacity. In 1990 he worked on the criminal investigation into the foundering of the freighter Lucona , and in 1994 located the wreck of the ore-bulk-oil carrier MV Derbyshire. Relocating to England in the mid 1990s, he established Blue Water Recoveries, Limited, a commercial company that locates and researches historic deep-sea shipwrecks across the globe. [2]

In 2001, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Battle of the Denmark Strait high seas confrontation between the naval forces of the British Empire and Nazi Germany during World War II, Mearns successfully led an expedition funded by Channel 4 Television to locate and film on the seabed of the North Atlantic Ocean the wrecks of the Royal Navy flagship HMS Hood, and its nemesis, the Bismarck. An extended television documentary entitled The Hunt for the Hood was produced from the expedition. [3] In 2012 Mearns led an expedition, filmed for a British television documentary entitled How the Bismarck Sank HMS Hood, to re-visit the wreck of HMS Hood to facilitate study of the technical aspects of the warship's destruction. [4]

Mearns and Blue Water Recoveries Ltd. holds five Guinness World Records, including one for the deepest shipwreck ever found, the German blockade runner Rio Grande, which was located at a depth of 5,762 metres (18,904 ft). [5]

In 2008 Mearns led a search team to find the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, which both sank following an engagement off Western Australia in 1941 during World War 2. Prior to finding HMAS Sydney, Mearns said that it was, in some ways, "bigger than the Titanic " because of what it meant to Australia. "Nothing comes close to the Sydney." [6] At the end of 2010, he successfully led the search for another missing Australian shipwreck, the Hospital Ship Centaur, which was torpedoed off Queensland by a Japanese submarine in 1943. [7] On 1 November 2010, Mearns was awarded an honorary Medal of the Order of Australia in recognition of his work in locating and analyzing the wrecks of HMAS Sydney and AHS Centaur. [8]

On 3 March 2015, Mearns was part of a team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen which located the wreck of the Japanese battleship Musashi in the Sibuyan Sea. [9]

On 15 March 2015, Mearns jointly announced with the Ministry of Heritage & Culture of the Government of Oman the discovery of a shipwreck from Vasco da Gama's 4th Portuguese India Armada in 1502-1503. The wreck is believed to be the Portuguese nau Esmeralda that was commanded by Vicente Sodré, the maternal uncle of Vasco da Gama. [10] Having sunk in May 1503, the Esmeralda is believed to be the earliest ship from Europe's Age of Discovery ever to be found and excavated by archaeologists. Mearns published a paper, with co-authors D. Parham and B. Frohlich, on the discovery in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. [11]

Since 2003, Mearns has been studying the possible wreck location of the Endurance , which was lost during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole in 1915. [12]

In January 2019, Mearns was commissioned to locate a light-aircraft (carrying the professional footballer Emiliano Sala and pilot, David Ibbotson) which had disappeared whilst flying across the English Channel. On 3 February 2019 the search team led by Mearns located the wreck of the aircraft lying in waters around the Channel Islands. [13] [14]

Personal life

Mearns lives in the West Sussex village of Lodsworth. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers' Club. [15]

Awards and honours

Books

Related Research Articles

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Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea.

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HMS <i>Hood</i> Admiral-class battlecruiser

HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy (RN). Hood was the first of the planned four Admiral-class battlecruisers to be built during the First World War. Already under construction when the Battle of Jutland occurred in mid-1916, that battle revealed serious flaws in her design, and despite drastic revisions she was completed four years later. For this reason, she was the only ship of her class to be completed, as the Admiralty decided it would be better to start with a clean design on succeeding battlecruisers, leading to the never-built G-3 class. Despite the appearance of newer and more modern ships, Hood remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years after her commissioning, and her prestige was reflected in her nickname, "The Mighty Hood".

HMAS <i>Sydney</i> (D48) Australian World War II warship

HMAS Sydney, named for the Australian city of Sydney, was one of three modified Leander-class light cruisers operated by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Ordered for the Royal Navy as HMS Phaeton, the cruiser was purchased by the Australian government and renamed prior to her 1934 launch.

The year 1998 in archaeology involved some significant events.

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On 19 November 1941, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran engaged each other in a battle off the coast of Western Australia. Sydney, with Captain Joseph Burnett commanding, and Kormoran, under Fregattenkapitän Theodor Detmers, encountered each other approximately 106 nautical miles off Dirk Hartog Island. The single-ship action lasted half an hour, and both ships were destroyed.

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Search for HMAS <i>Sydney</i> and German auxiliary cruiser <i>Kormoran</i>

Numerous attempts were made to find the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran, which were both lost in a sea battle in 1941. Efforts immediately after the battle focused on finding Sydney when she failed to return to port. While searchers located over 300 survivors from Kormoran, none of the 645 aboard the Australian warship were found. In March 2008, shipwreck hunter David Mearns commenced a search for the two wrecks. Kormoran was located on 12 March in close proximity to the sinking position given in German accounts. Using the survivor's information on Sydney's last known heading, Mearns and his search team located Sydney on 17 March.

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<i>Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976</i> Australian legislation

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Esmeralda was a Portuguese carrack that sank in May 1503 off the coast of Oman as part of Vasco da Gama's 1502 Armada to India while commanded by da Gama's maternal uncle Vicente Sodré. First relocated in 1998 and excavated by David Mearns in 2013–15, is the earliest ship found, as of 2016, from Europe's Age of Discovery.

The indio was a silver coin minted by the Portuguese government as a currency to support trade with India. There are only two recovered coins of this mintage, making it very rare.

References

  1. ↑ Hague, Jim. "Weehawken native finds HMS Hood on ocean's floor Mearns' six-year journey ends with mixed emotions; leads to documentary, book" Archived 2016-12-30 at the Wayback Machine , The Hudson Reporter , November 9, 2001. Accessed December 29, 2016. "When David Mearns was a youngster growing up in Weehawken, he was always fascinated by water.... Upon graduating from Weehawken High School in 1976, Mearns headed to Fairleigh Dickinson University to major in marine biology. He graduated in 1980 after studying in St. Croix in the Virgin Islands for a semester, then headed to graduate school at the University of South Florida in Tampa."
  2. ↑ Entry (dated 2017) for Mearns on the Linkedin professional profile website.
  3. ↑ IMDb entry for 'The Hunt for the Hood'. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318884/
  4. ↑ 'How the Bismarck Sank HMS Hood', Darlow Smithson Productions, 2012, IMDb website (2018). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2585546/
  5. ↑ A.B.C. (Australia) Report, 'The Hunt for H.M.A.S. Sydney', April 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hmassydney/whosinvd.htm
  6. ↑ "'I'll find HMAS Sydney'". news.com.au. Sunday Telegraph. 2006-11-12. Archived from the original on 2012-09-05. Retrieved 2008-09-01.
  7. ↑ Fraser, Andrew (21 December 2009). "Discovery proves maligned navigator got it right". The Australian. p. 3. Retrieved 21 December 2009.
  8. ↑ Smith, Aaron (4 November 2010). "Shipwreck finder gets honorary OAM". Australian Geographic. Archived from the original on 6 November 2010. Retrieved 5 November 2010.
  9. ↑ "Live video feed of sunken Japan WWII warship Musashi by Paul Allen research team". CBS News . 13 March 2015.
  10. ↑ "Vasco da Gama shipwreck Esmeralda near Oman from Vasco da Gama fleet".
  11. ↑ Mearns, David (14 March 2016). "A Portuguese East Indiaman from the 1502–1503 Fleet of Vasco da Gama off Al Hallaniyah Island, Oman: an interim report" (PDF). International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. 46 (2): 331–350. doi: 10.1111/1095-9270.12175 .
  12. ↑ 'Shipwreck Hunter David Mearns', profile and interview, 'HistoryNet', 29 April 2018. http://www.historynet.com/shipwreck-hunter-david-mearns.htm
  13. ↑ Sheena McKenzie and Samantha Beech (3 February 2019). "Wreckage from missing plane of footballer Emiliano Sala found". CNN.
  14. ↑ "Who is the man behind the Sala search?". BBC News. 4 February 2019.
  15. ↑ 'Blue Water Recoveries' website (2018), biography of David Mearns. http://bluewater.uk.com
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