So how do you beat the credit crunch? Strike gold with a £700m shipwreck

AN 18TH-CENTURY warship laden with gold worth an estimated £700 million has been found at the bottom of the English Channel.

Marine explorers have discovered the wreck of HMS Victory, the predecessor to Nelson's ship of the same name.

Talks are taking place between the Ministry of Defence and the US company that discovered the ship, over the fate of the gold bullion, the 110 bronze cannons and treasure looted from foreign ships believed to be on board.

Dr Sean Kingsley, a marine archeologist from Odyssey Marine Exploration, which specialises in underwater exploration said: "I think this is the shipwreck of the century. It is more important than the Marie Rose or the Titanic.

"When it was built it was the biggest ship in the world – something people never believed could possibly go down."

The HMS Victory was lost in a ferocious gale in the Channel in 1744. When it sank the ship was carrying four tons of gold coins, a cargo for Dutch merchants from Lisbon.

The ship also had booty captured from at least 11 enemy French ships

Dr Kingsley said the wreck will cost around 20,000 a day to explore,

but the discoveries would be fascinating to naval historians

"There is also the question of how this ship was sunk," Dr Kingsley said. "We know that at the time the British navy was using rotten wood. Because of the Enclosures Act, they were running out of mature oak and the French spy Blaise Oliver reported that the English were throwing old wooden parts on to new ones."

So far, two cannons have been recovered from the wreck, which the company says constitutes "conclusive proof" that the ship is the Victory.

Gregg Stemm, the co-founder of the Florida-based company said:

"This is a big one, just because of the history. Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this."

He declined to reveal the location of the wreck, which is about 100 below the surface, but he did say the ship was found in an unexpected place.

"We found this more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down," he said.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed that negotiations were taking place. He said: "We are aware that Odyssey Marine Exploration claim to have located the wreck of a British warship from the Age of Sail, which they believe to be HMS Victory lost in 1744."

He added: "We have been in touch with the company, but cannot, at this stage, confirm their claims. Clearly, if true, this would be of significant historical interest and important."

The missing millions lost at sea

HMS Sussex was lost off Gibraltar in 1694. The ten tonnes of gold coins on board are now worth 350 million.

Odyssey Marine Exploration has found the wreck but failed to come to a deal with Spain over its recovery.

THE Beatrice sank off the coast of Spain in 1837 laden with the discoveries of British archeologist Richard William Howard Vyse – including the blue basalt sarcophagus of the Egyptian pharaoh Menkaure. Determined to locate the lost treasures, the Egyptian government has enlisted the help of marine archeologist Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic.

The Beatrice lies somewhere between Malta and Gibraltar. Even if the wreck is located the ownership of the treasure is likely to be contested – it was given by Vyse to the British Museum, while the Egyptian Government want its return.

ONE of Scotland's most famous wrecks, the Blessing of Burntisland, sank in the Firth of Forth in 1633 laden with the personal treasures of Charles I, who watched the ship go down. Thirty men drowned. The loss of the ship remains a mystery, and it is believed the treasure on board would be worth millions today.

The Merchant Royal went down off the coast of Cornwall in 1641, laden with treasure looted from Spain. Carrying 36 bronze cannons, a crew of 80 and "300,000 in silver, 100,000 in gold and as much again in jewel", its loss was a national financial disaster.

The French vessel La Vierge du Bon Port sank off the coast of Guernsey in 1666, laden with treasures from a voyage to Madagascar bound for the court of Louis XIV. The ship is believed to be the richest France ever lost at sea. No trace has ever been found.