ferry divers down to the sunken vessel and retrieve small artifacts. U.S. Navy interest in raising the entire ship ended in 1978 when Captain Willard F. Searle Jr. calculated the cost and possible damage expected from the operation: $20 million to stabilize the vessel in place, or as much as $50 million to bring all of it to the surface. Research continued and artifacts continued to be recovered, including the ship's anchor in 1983. The growing number of relics required conservation and a proper home so the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in charge of all U.S. marine sanctuaries, selected the Mariners' Museum on 9 March 1987 after considering proposals from several other institutions. Recovery Initial efforts in 1995 by Navy and NOAA divers to raise the warship's propeller were foiled by an abnormally stormy season off Cape Hatteras. Realizing that raising the whole wreck was impractical for financial reasons as well as the inability to bring up the wreck intact, NOAA developed a comprehensive plan to recover the most significant parts of the ship, namely her engine, propeller, guns, and turret. It estimated that the plan would cost over 20 million dollars to implement over four years. The Department of Defense Legacy Resource Management Program contributed $14.5 million. The Navy divers, mainly from its two Mobile Diving and Salvage Units, would perform the bulk of the work necessary in order to train in deep sea conditions and evaluate new equipment. Another effort to raise Monitors propeller was successful on 8 June 1998, although the amount of effort required to work in the difficult conditions off Cape Hatteras was underestimated and the fewer than 30 divers used were nearly overwhelmed. The 1999 dive season was mostly research oriented as divers investigated the wreck in detail, planning how to recover the engine and determining if they could stabilize the hull so that it would not collapse onto the turret. In 2000, the divers shored up the port side of the hull with bags of grout, installed the engine recovery system, an external framework to which the engine would be attached, in preparation for the next season, and made over five times as many dives as they had the previous season. The 2001 dive season concentrated on raising the ship's steam engine and condenser. Hull plates had to be removed to access the engine compartment and both the engine and