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‘Billion Dollar Wreck’ Follows The Search For Hidden Treasure

By Charlinda Robinson
Published on: 09:37 PST, Feb 5, 2016

This series follows the father-and-son team of Grant and Martin Bayerle as they attempt to recover what they believe could be a billion-dollar bounty of 150,000 American Eagle coins from the wreck of the RMS Republic. Red Carpet Crash shared that the ship sank in the Atlantic shortly after departing from the New York Harbor in the early morning hours on January 24, 1909, after colliding with an Italian vessel that wasn’t supposed to be there. The SS Florida suddenly emerged out of the fog and hit the Republic amidships on her port side. There were six deaths and the ship eventually sank that evening.

Martin has worked this billion dollar wreck before, and spent 35 years accumulating as much information as he could gather on the White Star ship and the cargo it may have held. A life-long treasure hunter, Martin passed the love of treasure hunting on to his son, who also has an obsession with this billion dollar wreck. Together, they hope to discover exactly what secrets the Republic holds in this eight-episode series.

This will be Martin’s second attempt to find treasure aboard this billion dollar wreck, which he now owns and also has the salvage rights to. In 1987, he managed to raise the money needed for that first expedition, but unfortunately he wasn’t successful in his endeavor. In a shocking turn of events, that failure led Martin on a path that would land him in jail and leave him estranged from his family for several years. This part of the family’s story is told mostly by Grant, who was about 5 years old when his father did something that would change their lives forever.

During the couse of the show, Billion Dollar Wreck reveals that Martin shot and killed a man on April 6, 1991. After a six-week trial, Martin Bayerle was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and received a sentence of one to five years in prison. With good time, he served his sentence in two-and-a-half years. In a sneak-peek video, Grant describes how searching for the billion dollar wreck treasure destroyed his father’s life and that it may very well destroy his as well, but he feels that the risk is worth it. This part of the story is interlaced throughout the Billion Dollar Wreck series.

Now that Grant and Martin are reunited and share a common goal, they are hoping to find the billion dollar wreck treasure that has previously eluded Martin. Armed with new technology and the most up-to-date information, they will lead an impressive team of salvage divers to what Martin believes is the exact resting spot of the Republic treasure.

The conditions they dive in couldn’t be more dangerous, the billion dollar wreck is over 200 feet down, and several precautions must be taken. One diver will find out the hard way how dangerous this expedition can be when he runs into serious trouble, which immediately puts his life in jeopardy and threatens to shut the entire Billion Dollar Wreck operation down.

According to Real Screen, Billion Dollar Wreck is produced in association with Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes Productions and by Original Productions. Executive producers for Original are Philip D. Segal, Sarah Whalen, and Jarrod Harlow. Besides Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form executive produce the show for Original. For History, Paul Cabana, Michael Stiller, and Jim Pasquarella are the executive producers.

Do you enjoy these types of shows? Do you think they will be successful this time? Leave your thoughts, comments, and opinions below. Billion Dollar Wreck premieres on Monday, February 8, at 10:00 p.m ET on the History Channel.

[Image via Irish Film Critic/Twitter]

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