Unspacific

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world… would do this, it would change the earth.

William Faulkner

Headlines exploded all over the world in late November 2022: She’s been found! The Pacific has been found! Stunned, I began to research the significance of this find, noting:

“The PACIFIC?!!” I asked those involved, sitting heavily in a chair. “You found the PACIFIC?!!” I didn’t believe that anyone actually would ever find the Pacific. Not ever. Perhaps it wasn’t found because it wasn’t meant to be found.

…But in November of 2022 the world gasped as news of the Pacific’s location was revealed. I had trouble believing it myself.

For those unfamiliar with my Spring 2023 post Last Man to Leave:

November 4th, 1875 would be the last day of Jefferson Davis Howell’s life. Accounts tell of an overloaded, listing ship teeming with nearly 300 people, dogs, chickens, horses, and cargo puffing out of port late due to Howell not feeling well. That night, a full-rigged, larger sailing ship, the Orpheus, mistook the Pacific’s lights for the Tatoosh Island light. Its sudden maneuvering caused the two ships to collide. This caused massive trauma to the fragile vessel; water began pouring into the Pacific. But the Orpheus continued on its way, concentrated on determining the extent of its own damage, leaving all of God’s creatures on the Pacific to die in a frigid nightmare.

It is overwhelming to imagine the horrified screams that filled the lonely night as the Pacific sank near the northwesternmost tip of what, in 1889, would become Washington State. This is where the Pacific Ocean meets the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a remote location with deep water that was probably no more than 46 degrees. Passengers that escaped the vessel battled to grab something, anything to stop their descent into the depths and the darkness.

Jefferson Davis Howell was the younger brother-in-law of, yes, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States. I discussed their family history and Howell’s heroism during the stranding of another steamer, the Los Angeles in 1874. He went down with the Pacific, a disaster which cost a multitude their lives. But was it the magnitude of the disaster that drove the search for its wreckage or something else?

I struggle with whether it should be left alone in final peace or forcibly resurrected yet again. It’s a ship that refused to stay above water, its remains degrading, in pieces, or gone. Some of its victims were recovered. For many, some of whom had names in life but not in death, for women whose heavy clothing dragged them under, this is their grave. Pieces of their lives likely still lie in the chasm they settled in. But the same gilded siren song that drove the battered Pacific back into service just a few years after the Civil War calls again. About five million dollars of gold may still be down there.

Enter 2024 and the magic of public records from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, Seattle. Note that I said 2024. Rockfish, Inc., a for-profit venture headed by CEO Jeffery Hummel, had been granted the salvage rights to the Pacific in November of 2022. Rockfish told the world that they had found a wood sample, a fire brick, and paddle wheels from the doomed ship. Sonar images and tales of victory ping-ponged around the web. The public was led to believe that parts of the Pacific would be dragged to the surface and put on display, a macabre homage to the wreck known as the Titanic of the West Coast.

Words leap off the page as I skim a document filed November 18th, 2024, nearly two years after the arrest of the artifacts:

“Gold Cargo.”

“Insured Cargo.”

“…bullion, gold dust, and specie.”

“…marine casualty…”

“declaration”

“ownership rights”

“subject matter jurisdiction…”

“…paddlewheels”

“…formations…crab pots…”

Wait– crab pots? What’s going on here?

Here’s the gist of Case 2:22-cv-01659-JLR, world: Rockfish, Inc. did NOT find the Pacific. That is the allegation. If it is true– and there appears to be a strong case that those involved falsified information– then Rockfish, Inc. should henceforth be known as Bottom Feeder, Inc. due to their magic pencil marketing.

Here is the Cliff Notes version as I understand it from the above-referenced filing. This ship sank in 1875. London Market Insurers (LMI Claimants) asserted rights to the several million dollars of gold that went down with the vessel. Their predecessor had paid the claim for the cargo. LMI had been using salvage companies to search for the vessel for about two decades.

When Rockfish, Inc. claimed to have found the Pacific and obtained the salvage rights in court, LMI had to call off a five-year contract they had with another salvage company. It essentially forced them to work with Rockfish. Since Rockfish now stands accused of not finding the Pacific, or any wreck, for that matter, LMI asserts that Rockfish has no right to the wreck and that they should be entitled to recover costs and fees associated with this venture.

It gets worse. Hummel, CEO of Rockfish, had also formed a nonprofit, the Northwest Shipwreck Alliance, with an old friend, historian Matthew McCauley. I recall one aim of the NSA was to find a suitable location to display artifacts from this wreck. More generally, they wanted to, as the court case indicates, discover, recover, and preserve the Northwest’s most important shipwrecks. McCauley, along with the most of the rest of the planet, believed that they had the right ship. But then he started asking questions.

It appears that in spring of this year, Hummel and/or Rockfish had hired a videographer to document the goings-on aboard a vessel used to work towards the salvage effort. It seems that someone had the goal of making a reality TV show, not unlike the popular The Curse of Oak Island. After McCauley reviewed the production notes from this expedition, which did not find the Pacific in a month’s time, he learned from certain Rockfish shareholders that the Pacific had never been found. Yet Hummel allegedly continued to solicit funding from third parties towards the salvage efforts.

McCauley went forward with the evidence and by July 10th, 2024 was asked to step down from the board of the Northwest Shipwreck Alliance. The NSA board voted to remove him just over two weeks later. That McCauley was booted out begs a question: why? What would the NSA say if asked? Or is this classic whistleblower retaliation? Keep in mind that he’d had a forty-plus year friendship with Hummel.

The rest of the document throws in a lot of case law and legal references reminding the court that salvage rights are typically awarded on the basis that the salvage company actually has something to show for it. In short, LMI wants their money back and more. They say that the paddle wheels shown on sonar are crab pots and that a declaration by a marine archaeologist, Robert Westrick, says, at most, that materials recovered from the alleged wreck site are merely materials from that era.

It appears that there is no evidence to conclusively state that the Pacific was ever found. Worse, that might have been known all along while investors poured their money into the project and families affected by the “finding” had to face the tragedy once again. Was it all smoke and mirrors? Was it an illusion to create profit?

Enter document two, filed on November 25th, 2024. “PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT Claimant Donald W. Foster joins in Claimants London Market Insurers’ Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction…” This filing introduces a damning allegation having to do with the Westrick Declaration. Rockfish, it is said, relied heavily upon the declaration of Robert Westrick to establish what is known as constructive jurisdiction over the Pacific.

From what I’ve seen so far, Westrick never said, “this is the Pacific.” Shockingly, it appears that Westrick’s signature on the document that carried enough weight to convince the court to give Rockfish so much power was forged. It might have been lifted from an earlier document he signed.

If this is the Robert Westrick I think it is, why would he risk his career and credibility to help Rockfish secure salvage rights in the absence of hard data?

Enter document three, the Declaration of Matthew McCauley, filed November 18th, 2024. McCauley was never a shareholder with Rockfish. He was a founder of the nonprofit associated with it, the Northwest Shipwreck Alliance, as I mentioned above.

McCauley’s declaration restates a lot of what we already know from the previous two documents. It adds the sharp jab that the videographer hired last spring to take footage for a possible TV show was never paid as promised, but agreed to be compensated via monthly installments for a while. McCauley details his growing concern that the Pacific is still lost. He’s had a particular concern with certain Rockfish investors giving money to the cause without having much discretionary income. In other words, have they been pouring their limited funds into a tank without a bottom?

This declaration alleges inconsistencies between the videographer’s report and a Rockfish Target Report for Investors. Exhibit D in this declaration is a July 10th, 2024 email from Hummel to McCauley that claims a lack of communication and accuses McCauley of hostility and animosity. This is where McCauley’s resignation was demanded.

While I like to know all sides of an issue, I have noted that this email reads like a classic “we’ve decided to move in another direction” termination letter: “We’ve given you every chance to come to the dark side but you refuse so let’s project the blame for everything wrong onto a warped caricature of you!”

Rockfish, Inc., I have questions. Ultimately, as an onlooker and as a whistleblower who has paid a heavy price for speaking truth, I would like to know the following:

• Why were reports of the Pacific’s discovery ricocheted all around the world if you weren’t reasonably certain what had been found?
• Is there any possibility that the brick and the wood dredged up belong to the Pacific or another historically significant wreck?
• When were all of Rockfish’s investors informed that this might not be the Pacific?
• Why did you continue to raise funds toward this project if there was any doubt?
• What toll has this taken on Robert Westrick and his family?
• What has this done to the descendants of those who aboard this ship? Some have been eagerly awaiting more information and possibly profit from your findings. I’m sure this has been an emotional roller coaster for them.
• Why was McCauley removed from the board of the NSA?
• Who has the footage the videographer took?
• Will these efforts continue, but with complete transparency?
• If information has been exaggerated or falsified, will you take responsibility and make amends?
• Why are there rumblings within the history community that there are efforts to stop this information from going public? We the public have access to public court records. We Americans also have constitutionally protected free speech.

I have more questions. Many more. Ultimately I’m reminded why I was so skeptical that the Pacific could ever be found to begin with. It had already sunk once, its hulk raised and, in a terrible state of disrepair, put back into service and recklessly overloaded with lives for the sake of profit. It already would have been in bad shape, a spongy mass of rotting wood. Pieces of it washed ashore after it went down. I have trouble believing much of it could be left– am I wrong?

Stay tuned, folks. It looks like this heads back to court this week for another round. If LMI, claimant Foster, and others prevail, Rockfish could owe more money to those who had their hopes up than they might have ever made.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Brutus muses:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Which tide has Rockfish followed? Perhaps it should have heeded the words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and not acted too quickly.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.

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©2024 H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com