Mr Mearns has located 29 major wrecks in a career spanning 35 years, including the 16th century ship The Esmeralda from Vasco da Gama’s fleet, and Ernest Shackleton’s Quest ship, which went down off the coast of Canada in 1922.
A shipwreck hunter searching for the lost anchor of the HMT Empire Windrush said he wants to “highlight the story of pioneers” who helped create a multicultural Britain.
“Sometimes when they’re lost, you don’t know exactly how that happened, and it allows us to retell that story using the films and the images of the shipwreck as the sort of vehicle for getting that message to people.
US-born David Mearns, 66, is leading a project on the seabed off the Algerian coast for the anchor of the ship, which brought Caribbean migrants to the UK in the 1940s.
He said: “Each shipwreck has a different story, why it sank, the people in it, and they’re all very compelling stories.
