Finding X

Is attempting the impossible a good idea? Generally, no, because it's... impossible. Or so you might think until somebody does it.

With the discovery of the 1715 Plate Fleet shipwrecks along Florida's Treasure Coast, what seemed impossible at first has, over five decades of toil, become standard operating procedure. How to locate and recover the remains of the wreckage is accomplished today using computerized technology and advanced sensory methodology, but that was not the case when the first salvors of the modern epic began exploring the many sites we know of, which are currently spread out over fifty miles of coastline.

The progression of techniques employed to discover, recover, and document the 1715 Fleet shipwrecks begins with ardent adventurers, using hit-and-miss methods, right through analog mapping schemes, and on to digital data collection that is tried-and-true. "Finding X" gives the reader a brief glimpse of the technological developments resulting from this enterprise, why they came about, and how they came about.

In the prologue Taffi Fisher Abt provides the reader with an ample summary of the problems encountered along with the solutions devised over time. In the addendum the Mel Fisher Center, Inc. contributes excerpts from the Florida East Coast Shipwreck Project reports highlighting germane issues covered throughout the volume.

T. L. Armstrong gives the reader a lay-person overview of the practices and defining circumstances that are the foundation of the salvor's craft, with special notes on recent developments in the 21st century where software is a key element.