Salvage company Britannia's Gold (BGL) is heading back out to lucrative British World War shipwrecks with a new OSV.
The company has chartered an unnamed ship to try to extract millions of dollars of gold and silver from vessels in the Irish Sea and Atlantic.
It has secured the OSV with the help of UK shipowner James Fisher, but cannot name it for security reasons.
BGL had previously lined up a smaller vessel, but after reviewing some of the new tools it has designed, it switched to a bigger unit.
It will proceed towards mobilisation on Thursday.
The company's chairman Philip Reid said: “We have been wanting to update shareholders for some time but have had to deal with a number of extraneous issues that were relevant to any decision to return to our salvage programme.
"That said, we can now announce that notwithstanding a highly competitive market we secured an extremely efficient salvage vessel."
The company has highlighted equipment shortcomings in the recent past but, assisted by James Fisher, this new vessel will carry all the required tools for its three target wrecks.
Terms of engagement being agreed
"We have also recently had a number of high-level Irish and British Government contacts and we are in the process of agreeing the terms of engagement for operating in our preferred salvage areas, these should assist greatly in our operations in the future," Reid added.
Last year, the team cut through 90% of an extremely high-tensile steel hull, but found the going tough.
An April 2018 survey used Ostensjo Rederi's 2,800-dwt Edda Fonn (built 2003) to examine World War I and World War II wreck sites off Northern Ireland and the south and west of the Republic of Ireland.
During both world wars the British government shipped gold bullion to pay for munitions and goods.
The estimated present day value of these shipments is about £300bn ($404bn).
The UK government is the owner of the bounty.
BGL will store it and enter into negotiations to divide up the spoils.
Some of its cut will be kept for future projects, some will be given to charity and some will be for shareholders.
