found no evidence of a shipwreck, the two searches firmly discrediting the alternative engagement area. Wreck discovery American shipwreck hunter David Mearns first learned of Sydney and Kormoran's battle and mutual destruction during a conference in 1996 and started studying the battle in 2001. Mearns focused on primary source documents, which led him to believe that German accounts of the battle's location were truthful. He convinced the RAN that a search around that area was feasible. Mearns's organisation partnered with HMAS Sydney Search Pty. Ltd., a not-for-profit company set up to support a search for Sydney, in late 2004. In mid-September 2004, the German government granted Mearns permission to film Kormoran if she were found. On 14 August 2005, the Australian government announced a A$1.3 million grant to the Finding Sydney Foundation (a charitable foundation set up by the directors of HMAS Sydney Search to manage funding), which was followed by A$500,000 from the Western Australian government and A$250,000 from the government of New South Wales. Companies and the public made small donations, but it was not until the Australian government approved another A$2.9 million in October 2007 that the search could proceed.McCarthy, A précis of search-related events, p. 9 Even so, the money raised only permitted the chartering of the survey vessel SV Geosounder for 45 days. Mearns' plan was to determine a 'search box' for Kormoran by plotting the possible starting points of the two rafts from the raider through a reverse drift analysis. This search box (calculated to be in size) would then be inspected over several days with a side-scan sonar towed by Geosounder. Mearns focused on finding Kormoran first: the German wreck's approximate location could be predicted, and while the same was not true for Sydney, there was a wealth of information indicating her position relative to Kormoran. After locating one or both vessels, Geosounder would return to port and embark a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to film the wrecks. Geosounder reached the southeast corner of the search box just before midnight on 4 March, but recurring faults with the sonar and the effects of Tropical Cyclone Ophelia hampered the early days of the search. Kormoran was located during the afternoon of 12 March: the ship had been torn apart by the mine deck detonation, with two large pieces sitting below sea level and apart, with an oval-shaped debris field between them, centred at .