SETTING A NEW record for the deepest and largest metal recovery from a shipwreck, treasure hunters aboard the Odyssey Marine Exploration have brought 61 tons of silver bullion to the surface.

Delving three miles below the surface off the Galway coast the silver bullion was taken from the SS Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo ship. It sank in February 1941 after it was hit with a torpedo from a Nazi U-boat.

The recovery consists of 1,574 silver ingots weighing about 1,100 ounces each or almost 1.8 million troy ounces in total.

Including the silver recovered in 2012, Odyssey has now recovered 2,792 silver ingots from SS Gairsoppa, more than 99 per cent of the insured silver reported to be aboard.

Odyssey will get to keep 80 per cent of the salvaged silver under its contract with the UK Department for Transport.

“This was an extremely complex recovery,” said Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s chief executive officer. “To add to the complications, the remaining insured silver was stored in a small compartment that was very difficult to access.

Here are some of the images from the discovery: