Computer to Divide Sunken Ship’s Booty

A computer on Monday will begin dividing up about $100 million in booty retrieved from a sunken Spanish treasure ship, an executive of the salvage company that found the vessel last summer said.

“So massive is the amount of treasure to be divided that a computer printout of the total inventory runs 2,500 pages, with a total number of items to be divided at about 125,000,” said Bleth McHaley, a vice president of Treasure Salvors Inc.

The gold and silver, in coins and in bars, and other artifacts from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha will be assigned a value in points, and the computer will randomly match items with the amount that about 600 investors are owed, she said.

The company also will get its share of booty raised between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 1985, she said. The payoff will be in items, not cash.

Mel Fisher’s divers found the mother lode of the galleon on July 20, 1985. The find ended a 16-year search for the ship, which was dashed to the ocean bottom near here by a hurricane in 1622.

The haul includes at least 177 gold bars, 900 silver bars and thousands of coins and artifacts.