Record breaking salvage work in the Atlantic to recover silver bullion from two British shipwrecks has been suspended for the year following a hugely successful three months long operation.

The Seabed Worker, the ship chartered by Odyssey to conduct the salvage job, paid a fleeting visit to Falmouth last week before heading off to Bergen on the completion of her charter. The ship had been working on the shipwrecks of the Gairsoppa and Mantola some 300 miles south west of southern Ireland.

Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc, a pioneer in the field of deep-ocean exploration, has confirmed that the planned 90-day charter of the Seabed Worker for 2013 North Atlantic operations has been completed with outstanding results for the company.

The Odyssey team achieved a record recovery of 1.8 million troy ounces of silver from nearly three miles deep, bringing the total silver recovered from the Gairsoppa shipwreck to more than 3.2 million troy ounces.

Greg Stemm, Odyssey’s chief executive officer said: “This project will generate sufficient funding to support major upcoming shipwreck and mineral exploration projects.

“Newly developed technology was proven effective, including a specialised cutting tool that allowed access to secure compartments five decks down in a complicated steel shipwreck, which will be useful with targets in our current commodity shipwreck portfolio and opens up additional project opportunities.

“These results, along with planned monetisation of mineral exploration projects, put us in position to fund our scheduled exploration and recovery activities through this year and most of 2014.”

Mark Gordon, Odyssey president and COO added: The Gairsoppa project was followed by unprecedented work on the more complicated structure of the Mantola, using a newly developed precision cutting tool commissioned by Odyssey to gain entry into a storeroom on the fifth deck, down to where the silver is believed to be located.

“Although we were able to gain access to the target area and clear some of the other materials during this rotation extending the charter to complete clearing of this area did not make business sense given the current price of silver and the cost of continuing the charter.

“We plan to return to the Mantola in the future with upgraded versions of some of the technology we developed during this expedition.”

Odyssey may return to the Gairsoppa site as researchers onshore continue painstaking research of records to corroborate existing documents that suggest additional uninsured silver may still be onboard the cargo ship.