A Maine seafarer said he had found the wreck of a World War II merchant ship off the Massachusetts coast, sunk while carrying a cargo of the precious metal platinum valued today at nearly $3 billion, an unprecedented find that has raised some doubts. Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research in Gorham, Maine, said on Thursday he had discovered the submerged ship in 2008 some 50 miles (80 km) off the Massachusetts coast and, using a remotely run submersible vessel, identified it last summer as the British freighter Port Nicholson. The coal-fired ship, which is resting 700 feet (300 meters) under water, was sunk by torpedoes in a June 1942 attack by a German U-boat, Brooks said. The vessel had been bound for New York from Nova Scotia in Canada with 1.707 million ounces (48,393 kgs) of platinum, intended as a special wartime payment to the United States from the Soviet Union, he said. That much platinum, if verified, would have a value today of $2.77 billion, at a market price of $1,624 per ounce. www.reuters.com/a...