Q&A with Chris Davino

The Empress of Canada is an extraordinary opportunity for a financial partner to join the world’s most proven team executing a search and salvage operation for a WWII ship, the Empress of Canada, which was torpedoed off the Africa in 1943, carrying $80 million in Bank of England gold, as well as the opportunity to bring the public along on the amazing journey by virtue of various forms of media and entertainment programming.

The answer is as fascinating as the Mission itself. Empress’ 5th Officer, Frederick Bullock, oversaw the gold being loaded on the ship in Durban, South Africa, under British Army guard. While most of the crew and passengers were killed by shark and barracuda, Officer Bullock survived the sinking and, after becoming a captain in the Canadian Coast Guard, contacted the British Treasury to obtain archival evidence of the Empress’ gold to include in his memoirs. This was in the late 1990’s. The British Treasury turned the Captain’s letter over to our lead partner, Mike Anderson, an experienced salvage operator, who began a long correspondence with the Mr. Bullock, which ultimately led to Mike’s filmed interview of the Captain before his death, in which he obtained the Captain’s account regarding the gold and the events of the Empress’ sinking.

There is often chatter in the small, competitive world of deep sea salvage operations about wreck sites with treasures of gold and other valuables. We really don’t take much of it seriously. But the Empress is a different story. Captain Bullock’s direct account, coupled with our decades long research, gives us a very high degree of confidence that the gold is at the wreck site. Also, we have very specific information about where on the vessel the cargo was held. So, the only real challenges, not insignificant, are finding the ship and salvaging 40 wooden crates from a ship, in what is expected to be approximately 2 miles of water. There are only a few teams in the world that could even operate at these depths, let alone have the capabilities to conduct this type of salvage operation. Luckily, we happen to have that team.

Mike Anderson, Managing Director of Ocean Intervention, has 30 years of experience in recovery of cargo from sunken vessels, as well as having provided expert testimony in salvage cases, including the RMS Titanic case. PH Nargeolet is one of the most renowned and experienced deep-sea operators in the world. A former French Navy Commander, Nargeolet has decades of experience at sea, recovering both civilian and military aircraft and locating and exploring shipwrecks. He led the team responsible for locating the wreckage of Air France Flight 447, and led 6 of the RMS Titanic expeditions, in which he recovered more than 5,500 personal and ship artifacts. I had the fortune and honor to serve as President of RMS Titanic Inc. and in that capacity was the legal steward of the wreck site planned and led the 2010 mission to Titanic’s wreck site, which surveyed 15 square miles of the wreck and her debris field in high definition optical and sonar imagery, setting new standards in deep sea archeology.

Like with our 2010 Titanic Mission, we believe the Empress of Canada represents an incredible opportunity to create compelling media and entertainment content and leverage the digital and social domains to bring the public along on this amazing journey. For Expedition Titanic 2010, we were able to secure the Cover Story of National Geographic Magazine’s April 2012 issue, to coincide with Titanic’s 100 Year Anniversary, as well as produce two History Channel documentaries, Titanic at 100, Mystery Solved, being one of History Channel’s most successful properties of all time. Separately, we partnered with NBC, which did live news coverage from our Mission, with a news team at sea with us. By virtue of these strategic partnerships and our distributed content, we engaged hundreds of millions of Titanic fans the world over and garnered over a billion media impressions. While the Empress of Canada is not Titanic, there is a very compelling story to be told, not only of the Mission itself, but the Empress’ rich history, the events of her sinking, and the untold acts of heroism of crew and passengers being saved in shark-infested waters. We already have an offer from a leading cable network for a 2-hour documentary, and are actively exploring a feature film.

The Mission has two phases: First is to find, within a 300-mile search zone, the Empress, and then to positively identify and assess the condition of the vessel. The budget for this leg of the Mission is approximately $3 million. The second phase will be to go back to the wreck site with equipment better served for the salvage operation, and to recover the wood crates containing the gold. The budget for this leg of the Mission is approximately $5 million. The media and entertainment budgets are a work in process. For TV, we have an offer for a 2-hour documentary from a leading U.S. cable network, with an estimated budget of $700,000. With this arrangement, we would retain international rights, providing a fair amount of financial upside, as well as downside protection with regard to the Mission itself. With regard to a feature film and digital/social content, we are still in early stage planning and budgeting.