Page 10 - Treasure, World & U.S. Coin Auction 17

Remembering Real Eight: An Interview with Lou Ullian (2007)

In our Auction #2 we presented an interview with original Real Eight Co. member Lou Ullian, and on the occasion of the 1715 Fleet anniversary
we thought it would be appropriate to reprint that interview, with the sad footnote that Lou has since passed away, as have several other Real
Eight members and other treasure luminaries in recent years. What follows is the transcript of our chat with Lou on July 27, 2007:

DFS: For those who have not read about you in Pieces of Eight and
other important references, please give me a brief overview
of your life up to and including your first affiliations with
Kip Wagner and Real Eight Co.
LU: I was raised in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, graduated high
school and went to Purdue University…received a degree in
mechanical engineering…went into the Navy as an ordnance
engineer for 3½ years, in Yorktown, Virginia, worked on the
first guided missile cruiser…married to my wife in 1954,
have two children, boy and girl, three grandchildren. I met
Kip through Del Long. I started diving in 1948 once I got
in the Navy. Out of the Navy in 1955, I went to work at
Cape Canaveral as an ordnance engineer, still diving. Met
Del through the diving club, and he told me about a man
by the name of Kip Wagner who was finding coins on the
beach. He took me down there and introduced me to Kip. Lou Ullian (left) with Dan Sedwick
Kip was just about ready to start putting together a salvage DFS: Before we get to Mel Fisher, though, what was the largest
company. Since I was a diver, I was one of the first divers to number of coins or artifacts found in one day in the 1960s?
get involved with Kip. Two Air Force officers, Harry Cannon LU: Two and a half tons of silver.
and Dan Thompson, ran Real Eight. But me… Harry didn’t DFS: Was that the two chests you said you found?
know how to dive but he had a boat. One January, one of LU: No, this was over the keel of the ship.
the coldest days in January, we threw Harry in the swimming DFS: Cabin Wreck still?
pool at the officer’s club and taught him how to dive. In 1959 LU: Yes. About two and a half tons of silver.
and 1960, we worked at the first 1715 wreck, Urca de Lima, DFS: How many chests do you figure that was?
two miles north of Ft. Pierce inlet. Kip had leases from the LU: Oh, 15 or 20.
State of Florida for all of the 1715 wrecks. In January, 1961, DFS: Wow. Then maybe a couple thousand coins per chest?
on the coldest day of the year, down at the cabin, Kip could LU: Three thousand coins per chest. Three bags, each bag with a
see cannon offshore there and we got in the boat and put on thousand coins.
wetsuits…with the cannons were…two chests with clumps DFS: So that’s what? Fifty thousand coins or so that you found all
weighing about 70 lb each. We determined they were full of at once?
coins, and we tried to carry them both back to the boat but LU: Yes.
we couldn’t do it, and had to leave one on the bottom…we DFS: That’s pretty amazing! But all silver, right?
uncovered about 2400 coins that day, first day on the wreck! LU: All silver.
DFS: That was “Cabin Wreck,” right? DFS: What was your most harrowing experience diving or searching
LU: Yes, Cabin Wreck. on these wrecks?
DFS: What were your accomplishments and duties under Real LU: In 1962, in the middle of the winter, dead…I got to work
Eight Co.? Did you have a specific role with Real Eight, or the wreck…couldn’t get the boat in past the third reef, so
just diving? Dan and I swam in to the area between the first and second
LU: Just a diver. reef…Dan came up to me, tapped me on the shoulder…said
DFS: Did you make—personally—some finds that were significant he just bumped into a shark, decided to go back to the boat.
for Real Eight at that time? I don’t know who was more scared, him or the shark! Sharks
LU: I did. I found K’ang Hsi china…down at the bottom using used to mate there at “Cabin”…I got some pictures of three
a sand dredge…all of a sudden intact china cups came out of or four sharks in a wave.
the dredge…30-40 cups. Soon as we went back to the inlet DFS: So you’d routinely see sharks, then, at Cabin Wreck.
that night, the engine quit, but Kip put the china in the life LU: Yes. Didn’t seem to bother us, though.
preservers…said [the china was] more important than we DFS: Still, that had to be nerve-wracking to be working with sharks
were! in the vicinity. But no attacks, then?
DFS: I bet that was a pretty sight! What was it like finding gold LU: One time we had probably a 25-foot tiger shark…come off
on these wrecks? the bottom out of the water, swam under the boat, nearly as
LU: Found a lot of gold. First gold we found was 23 coins on the long as the boat. We didn’t do any more diving that day.
Cabin Wreck. That was the day we brought Mel Fisher to
Florida.
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