Hargitt Marine Services - Shark Tank Update

Treasure hunter Mark Hargitt appeared on Shark Tank Season 5 seeking $250,000 for 25% equity in Hargitt Marine Services, valuing his business at $1 million, presenting one of the most unique and high-risk investment opportunities ever pitched on the show. His business centered around salvaging the S.S.

Mariposa, a ship that struck a reef and sank off the Alaskan coast in 1917, taking with it tons of copper, silver, and gold ore valued at an estimated $2.4 million while all 265 passengers survived the wreck. Mark had secured the mineral rights to the century-old shipwreck from the State of Alaska and believed he could retrieve the entire treasure in just one to two weeks with proper equipment and crew, making this either a sink-or-swim investment where investors could potentially double their money or lose everything depending on the success of the retrieval mission.

To demonstrate the legitimacy of his treasure hunting operation, Mark brought chunks of raw copper ore recovered from the ship in an ice chest, explaining that while other divers had already looted smaller artifacts like the captain's wheel and whistle over the decades, the valuable mineral cargo remained largely untouched on the ocean floor waiting to be recovered. The investment would require funding for a comprehensive salvage operation including a work crew, diving equipment, an industrial marine vacuum, a barge, legal support, and security measures, with any participating shark receiving 25% of the recovered treasure's value.

Mark admitted to the sharks that they were essentially "plan C" for funding, as he was reluctant to risk his retirement savings on the high-stakes underwater treasure recovery operation, though he remained confident in both the location and value of the sunken cargo based on his years of experience in marine salvage and treasure hunting.

Despite the romantic appeal and potential for significant returns that his treasure hunting venture offered, Mark Hargitt faced unanimous rejection from all five sharks who found the investment too risky and speculative for their portfolios, with each expressing different concerns about the viability of underwater treasure recovery operations. Mark Cuban, who revealed he gets pitched treasure-hunt investments "all the time," was the first to decline, stating that such ventures never turn out the way treasure hunters expect them to, while Daymond John admitted he loved the "romance" of the investment but lacked the expertise needed to properly evaluate treasure hunting operations.

Robert Herjavec, despite being an avid diver himself, couldn't see how he would achieve adequate returns on the investment, while Barbara Corcoran found the mineral-focused treasure lacked the "sex appeal" she preferred, stating she would have been more excited about recovering jewels rather than copper ore. Kevin O'Leary was the last shark to consider the deal and showed the most interest, drawing on his own experience with ship recovery operations near Cyprus, but ultimately concluded that Mark was dramatically underestimating both the time and money required to successfully bring up the treasure, leading him to also withdraw from consideration and leave Mark without any offers from the tank.

Following his rejection by all the sharks, Mark returned to his treasure hunting operations independently, but despite the national television exposure from his Shark Tank appearance, Hargitt Marine Services appears to have struggled without the significant capital injection he was seeking to fund the complex salvage operation. Based on research from both sharktankrecap.com and sharktankblog.com, there is no definitive evidence that Mark ever successfully recovered the valuable ore from the S.S.

Mariposa, with his last social media posts about the shipwreck dating back to 2015, including a photo of the coastal waters where the wreckage lies with a comment that his treasure was still out there waiting to be recovered. As of 2021, Mark was reportedly still involved in marine-related work including "derelict vessel removal, beach cleaning and underwater exploration," suggesting he continued operating in the marine services industry but apparently never achieved the major treasure recovery that would have transformed his business, and our latest research shows the business is not operating anymore as the treasure hunting venture he originally pitched to the sharks.