Hail Mary

The Hail Mary is a salvage and recovery boat based out of Homer, Alaska.  Its captain Jeffery Tulley and first mate Oberlin St. Clair are both former employees of a well regarded exploration team named Historical Explorations that specialized in treasure hunting and archeological expeditions.  Due to irreconcilable differences between Capt. Tulley and the leader of Historical Explorations, he and Oberlin St. Clair started their own operation in 2005.

The dispute with Historical Explorations left Tulley with little start-up capital and forced him to buy a run down fishing trawler boat from a government seized auction.  In order to fund the purchase of his treasure hunting tools, Tulley obtained a $250,000 loan from the Japanese Yakuza.  He hoped to use his detailed knowledge of the Elando Cortez, a Spanish galleon containing millions of dollars in silver bullion, to pay back the loan.  As of this writing, the loan is still outstanding and the Elando Cortez remains undiscovered.

The Hail Mary is 71 feet in length and has a maximum speed of 37 mph.  It possesses one mini sub (maximum depth 8,000 feet), one remote operated vehicle (R.O.V) with a 10,000 foot tether, extensive scuba diving and recovery gear and a side sweeping sonar array.  At no time has all of the Hail Mary’s equipment been functional simultaneously.