A DIVE for £30 million of Spanish treasure legally owned by the Duke of Argyll has allegedly been abandoned in a dispute over payments.
Specialist firm North West Marine was contracted so its drivers could search for the galleon which sank in Tobermory Bay in 1588.
However, businessman Matthew French, who contracted the firm for the venture, has now left the site amid allegations of he had missed a payment.
Tony Ratcliffe, managing director of North West Marine, and the company's consultant, David Wilkie, were alerted by staff on Mull that Mr French had left Mull..Mr Ratcliffe, 47, of Tobermory, said Mr French had missed his first payment on the contract and they had shut the operation down.
He alleged North West Marine is out of pocket for its divers' wages and other costs. He said it had nine divers diving daily for four weeks, completing almost 300 trips under the water.
Mr French, of the Poop Company in Somerset, had claimed to have secured cash from unnamed private investors for the dive and had a contract with the Duke.
In response to the allegations, Mr French said: "We left earlier than anticipated and we are not anticipating any more dives for this season."
Mr French declined to comment on whether the dive had suffered financial problems, adding: "It's unfinished business."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article