By JOAO FERREIRA
New Bedford Standard-Times
Last year, a diving crew out of Fairhaven recovered an enormous bronze bell and several other artifacts from the shipwreck of the Lightship Nantucket with pomp and circumstance.
Regional media covered the feat, which came about after six years of investigative work by the Boston Sea Rovers, led by Capt. Eric J. Takakjian.
The explorers displayed the bell and other artifacts (the helm, telegraph, binnacle, signal light and several portholes) in Boston last year and intended to make them part of permanent exhibits.
Now the divers are being called scavengers.
Last week, the federal government filed a lawsuit demanding the return of the artifacts recovered from the deadly 1934 shipwreck 50 miles south of Nantucket.
The lawsuit alleges that six divers removed artifacts from the shipwreck even after the Coast Guard refused in 1999 to allow them to disturb the underwater grave.
Takakjian last week said that all artifacts have been returned to the government.
"It looks like they're going to drop the complaint," said Takakjian of Fairhaven. "We had to agree not to dive the wreck again in the future.
"Don't have any problem returning the items, never did. We're turning everything over to them with no strings attached," he continued.
He said the suit stems from his misinterpretation of a 1999 Coast Guard letter in response to his proposal to recover items from the wreck.
He said he thought the Coast Guard said it had no funds and no plan to recover the artifacts.
"Therefore, they requested we do nothing further with the Nantucket," Takakjian said. "I took that to believe that they didn't have the money to get involved in that project."
The Sea Rovers, a nonprofit group of underwater explorers, went ahead with the recovery at their own expense.
Their work caught the attention of Marty Krzywicki, founder of the USCG Lightship Sailors Association, who informed the Coast Guard.
"Projects like this should never happen," Krzywicki is quoted in lawsuit documents. "From a very personal standpoint, these people are desecrating a gravesite of my brother lightship sailors who died in honor."
Last week,Takakjian and former Lightship Sailors Association historian Douglas Bingham criticized Krzywicki for his actions.
"If he can't be involved in something, he doesn't want anybody else to be," Takakjian said.
"I just hoped that the people that instigated this investigation had asked questions first," Bingham said. "The intention was that these artifacts were going to be loaned to three maritime institutions. There was no theft, there was no pilferage, there was no desecrating a gravesite. (Takakjian) wasn't going to take these artifacts and stash them away."
Mr. Bingham was voted out as historian for the Lightship Sailors Association by secret ballot last year. He was accused of "beating the drum" for Takakjian. He said he acted merely as a consultant for the rovers and kept the Lightship Sailors Association informed of the work all along.
"My reputation has been smeared," Bingham said.
Mr. Bingham and Takakjian also disputed that the Lightship Nantucket shipwreck constitutes a gravesite.
Takakjian, a former Coast Guard petty officer, said of the seven sailors killed in the sinking, four went down with the ship. Three died aboard the Olympic, the sister ship of the Titanic that rammed the Lightship Nantucket. All were civilians.
He also said the Lightship was not part of the Coast Guard in 1934. Only in 1939 did the integration occur.
"These men were lost and the U.S. government walked away from it," Bingham said. "The government did nothing to remember these guys, so why are they so concerned with this?"
The lawsuit alleges that the Coast Guard "decommissioned ... but has not abandoned the vessel."
Capt. Takakjian said he felt he provided the government with a service by recovering the items.
"We like to discover pieces of history in the bottom of the ocean, bring them back and share them with the general public," he said. "We never sought to profit from it in any way."
