Is it really Drake's ship?

So, just how big a deal is what former Sixers owner Pat Croce's expedition found in the waters off Panama?

We asked a few experts for their take and got two differing views:

"It's pretty significant because he [Drake] was one of the most famous pirates of all time. The English didn't think he was a pirate. He was a national hero. Of course, the Spanish hated him," said Bob Cembrola, curator of maritime history at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. "They may be closing in on the location of the coffin, too. That would be really phenomenal. That would really get the attention of Great Britain."

Cembrola, who said he was the archaeologist who assessed the Whydah pirate ship, which was shipwrecked in 1717, added, "This is all based on the assumption that it is indeed those ships. And if it is, it's very significant."

Kevin McDonald, the A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow within Carnegie Mellon University's history department, was more cautious. "There's probably not much to the actual physical remains," he said. "From a historical perspective there could be some interest if there are some artifacts around.

"I don't know exactly what they found. How certain are they that these are the actual ships? Usually, you need to find something like the ship's bell . . . but these were probably taken off before they were scuttled. I don't know if they're doing any dating on the wood. I would imagine that [if they did] that would take a long time.

"There's probably quite a few shipwrecks in that area . . . there's obviously a good deal of skepticism you should come to the table with."

- Jenice M. Armstrong