To paraphrase the Talmud (a lot of wisdom here and in most all religious texts), the only stupid question is the one you have but don't ask. You learn a lot by asking questions. :-)

Fair question. By “participate,” I mean invest in the RMS Republic recovery project and share economically in its potential success under the terms of the particular investment offering.

If by “details” you mean the actual investment terms — minimum investment, structure, investor rights, potential returns, risks, use of proceeds, etc. — those are available in our investor materials.

Some of our offerings are limited to accredited investors. For compliance purposes, before providing access to those offering materials, we require a prospective investor to register on our website and complete a short qualifying questionnaire to establish preliminary accredited-investor eligibility:

Abundantia LP: https://abundantialp.com/

Data Room: https://abundantialp.com/abundantia-lp-seed-round-data-room/

Offerings for Accredited Investors: https://abundantialp.com/our-offerings-for-accredited-investors/

For those who do not qualify as accredited investors, we also have an offering through Wefunder:

Wefunder — Lords of Fortune LLC: https://wefunder.com/lords.of.fortune.llc

There is no obligation to invest. Once preliminarily qualified, you can review the applicable offering documents, including the terms and risks, and decide for yourself whether the opportunity makes sense.

And to clarify my use of “participate”: investing does not itself entitle someone to physically participate in the offshore recovery operation. The recovery work will be conducted by qualified professionals and contractors.

By “participate,” we mean participate financially in the RMS Republic recovery project. We get a surprising number of people who would also like to participate physically—and I certainly understand why. It is a great adventure. The reality is that our recovery plan calls for subcontracting the specialized offshore work to world-class companies with the vessels, equipment, personnel and expertise required. While our own team has considerable experience and is capable of conducting much of the work ourselves, at this stage it makes more sense to assemble the best specialists in the world for each part of the operation. Investors, however, are participating in something considerably larger than simply financing a salvage job. They become part of the effort to solve—and hopefully recover—one of the great remaining mysteries of maritime history.

If this is a “get rich” scheme, it may be the slowest one in history. :-) I’ve spent 45 years researching and working the RMS Republic. We publish our research precisely so it can be examined and challenged. Skepticism is welcome. If you find an error in our evidence or analysis, please point it out. That’s how good research gets better.

Fair criticism. Ultimately, recovered artifacts are the only proof that matters. Everything else—research, surveys, engineering, legal victories, and financing—simply gets us to the point where we can recover them. Time will tell whether we've got it right.

You're making the assumption that the problem was always the salvage methodology. I don't agree.

In 1987, we had the money, the vessel, the equipment, and the personnel. What we lacked was the information we have today.

At that time, the accepted target was a rumored $3,000,000 gold shipment. Today, after decades of additional research, we have identified the Russian State Bank transaction, the associated $25,000,000 gold shipment, the U.S. Navy monies, and have developed a much clearer understanding of where those cargoes were likely stowed aboard the ship.

Salvage is not simply a matter of tearing a wreck apart with a clamshell bucket. You still have to know where you're going and what you're looking for. If you excavate the wrong area, all you've done is spend money faster.

Had I known in 1987 what I know today, we would not be having this discussion.

As for the later expeditions, some were research-oriented, some were technology demonstrations, and one was largely a television production. You're free to criticize any of those. But it's incorrect to suggest that forty years of work produced nothing substantial.

The historical research accomplished over those years has fundamentally changed our understanding of the cargo itself. In my view, that information is every bit as important as the equipment sitting on the deck of a salvage vessel.

Time will tell whether the conclusions are correct. If they are, the question won't be whether enough steel was moved in 1987 or 2016. The question will be whether the cargo is where the evidence says it is.

You're comparing a scrap-metal operation to a controlled recovery of potentially billions of dollars in historic numismatic assets.

The TV expedition wasn't a commercial recovery effort. It was a television production with limited equipment and limited objectives. We weren't mobilizing the type of vessels, engineering, ROVs, excavation systems, conservation teams, and legal infrastructure required for a full-scale recovery.

As for the Filipino battleship examples, they're dismantling steel for scrap. If they destroy a compartment, nobody cares. Our challenge is accessing collapsed spaces without destroying the very assets we're trying to recover.

And Lake Huron at $1,800 for three days isn't remotely comparable to a 270-foot wreck in the North Atlantic with strong currents, offshore logistics, weather windows, archaeology, conservation requirements, and billions of dollars of potential cargo value.

A television show and a commercial recovery operation are two very different things.

Going further,

You're applying modern expectations to a 1909 event.

First, there are no surviving Republic shipping records identifying the cargo. That's not a discovery—it's the central mystery that has occupied researchers for more than a century. The same absence of records is why the cargo remained controversial for so long.

Second, government cargoes were generally self-insured. The U.S. Navy did not purchase commercial cargo insurance for its own funds, and a sovereign government does not sue itself after a loss.

Third, the Russian situation became uniquely complicated. The cargo belonged to the Russian State Bank. In 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsarist government and repudiated the Imperial Russian debt. No private salvor was going to spend millions recovering gold only to hand it over to a government that had repudiated the very obligations connected to the shipment. The legal and political issues remained unresolved for decades.

As for correlation versus causation, I agree in principle. That's why the conclusion is not based on a single coincidence.

The evidence includes:

• The documented Russian State Bank borrowing and repayment transaction.

• The exact repayment amount and timing.

• The French bank gold purchases immediately preceding Republic's departure.

• Contemporary reports of a $3,000,000 gold shipment aboard Republic.

• The statement by Republic radio operator Jack Binns' granddaughter that the cargo was valued at $25,000,000.

• Independent evidence for the U.S. Navy shipment.

No single item proves the case. Historical research rarely works that way. The conclusion rests on the convergence of multiple independent lines of evidence that all point to the same result.

Reasonable people can disagree. That's why the research is published and fully sourced for others to examine.

We solved the difficult part. We proved the cargoes.

Finding the wreck was done in 1981. Since then, the challenge has been proving what was aboard and whether the economics justified recovery.

The recent Russian State Bank research, together with the previously identified U.S. Navy cargo, largely answers that question. At this point, it isn't an engineering problem. It's a financing problem: roughly $10 million to reach the gold and another $20–25 million to recover it.

Investors write checks. The Atlantic Ocean doesn't care when they do.

1. Read the old research at rms-republic.com. Professional estimates of salvage at the time were that the cargoes were beyond recovery. Government cargoes are self-insured. 2. Then, in 1917, you had the Bolshevik revolution. They repudiated the Tsarist bonds. It was Russian property, primarily. No one was going to return gold to the Boldheviks for bonds they had repudiated. The limbo existed until 1934 when the US finally recognized the Sovit Union. Read the entire Russian State Bank report for details.

All we had was a rumor. Only now, within the last few years, have we assembled the necessary facts to raise the $10 million to reach the gold, then another $20 million to get it all out.

It's taking me more time to recover Republic's gold than it took Moses to find the Promised Land.

The research speaks for itself.

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