David Howe

Mr. Howe will be in Charlottesville representing the Institute of Maritime History and will be discussing a project known as SHIP, Submerged Historical Inventory Project.

SHIP is a centrally coordinated, multi-state program using volunteer divers and researchers under professional or academic supervision to conduct in-water reconnaissance and archival research on historic shipwrecks for State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs).

The project serves three principal purposes
      ♦   to develop an inventory of State historic resources,
      ♦   to help allocate assets to their management, and
      ♦   to help respond to manmade or natural threats to those resources.

The project is staffed by volunteer divers after having received specific training in archeological preservation.  Part of Mr. Howe's objective is to recruit local divers to the project.

David P. Howe is an admiralty lawyer who specializes in maritime archaeology.  After active duty as a naval line officer in Vietnam he received his J.D. with honors from Syracuse University, practiced with the Admiralty branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, was Assistant Supervisor of Salvage, U.S. Navy, was a member of the U.S. delegation to the I.M.O. Salvage Convention in 1988, and served as Program Manager for Underwater Archaeology and Legal Adviser at the Naval Historical Center.  He is past president of the Maritime Archaeological and Historical Society (MAHS), Washington, D.C.

Side Scan Sonar Image of an Intact Wreck Site.