Diving Thoughts

Steven Schwankert is a diver and journalist based in Beijing. He has been along to SCDC’s Thursday night club night on a number of occasions, and gave a hugely entertaining talk on diving Lake Khovsgol in Mongolia. Around that time he had embarked on a new project which is just now coming to fruition. He was researching into the story of HMS Poseidon.

HMS Poseidon was a Royal Navy Parthian class submarine which sank after a collision on 9th June 1931, north of Weihai in Shandong province. In the first ever successful deployment of proto-scuba escape equipment, 6 of the 26 crew managed to get back to the surface after the sinking.

But wait… There’s more…

China secretly salvaged the submarine in 1972 and the final resting place of the remaining crew is unknown.

Steven has written a book – “The Real Poseidon Adventure: China’s Secret Salvage of Britain’s Lost Submarine”, which should be published shortly. He has set up a Facebook group for people who are interested (from where I borrowed the photo above).

I’ll post more information about this as it becomes available. And if we’re lucky we might even get Steven along to give us another talk the next time he’s in Hong Kong.

HMS Victory was Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, but it was the 6th ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy. Its predecessor was also a 100 gun ship of the line and was  launched in 1737. However it sank in 1744 in the western approaches to the English Channel with the loss of 1100 men, after hitting a major storm near the Channel Islands. Its topmast was washed up in Guernsey but until 2008 that was the last anyone had seen of her.

In 2008 the salvage company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, found the ship and is in negotiation with the UK’s Minstry of Defence (MOD) trying to come to an agreement to salvage the wreck in exchange for a cut of the profits.

Recently marine archaeologists have found a human skull and rib bones underneath a cannon on the wreck.It has not yet been decided if these should be recovered and then either re-interred, or studied.

Two cannons have been recovered from the wreck, a 12 pounder and a 42 pounder.

There is more information from the Guardian’s website, from which the above photo came.

The AHS Centaur, a hospital ship that was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in May 1943 has been found near Brisbane in 2059m of water. There were 332 people on board when it was hit and only 64 survived. The wreck is located about 30 nautical miles east of the southern tip of Moreton Island. Filming of the wreck from an ROV is due to start in January according to David Mearns, the search director.

There are more details on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

Some of the relics from Henry VIII’s warship, the Mary Rose, are being shown for the first time. The warship sank in 1545 in the Solent and was raised in 1982. It is now in a drydock in Portsmouth’s historic dockyard. Volunteers are now attempting to raise the final GBP 4 Million that is needed to build a new museum which will allow the relics to be housed much nearer to the ship itself. Currently the Mary Rose museum is near the entrance to the historic dockyard, a long way from the drydock containing the vessel which is near HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar.

The Mary Rose itself is currently being sprayed continuously with polyetheylene glycol, which is a was-based solution. This is due to be completed in the next couple of years, and then the ship will be gradually dried.

There is more information on this plus a video on the BBC’s website.

The USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was originally named the USS General Harry Taylor. It saw service ferrying American troops to the Pacific in 1944. After the war it brought troops and holocaust survivors out of Europe. In the 1960’s it spent some time monitoring missile launches in the Cold War.

It has now been sunk in 140 ft (43 metres) 7 miles off the Florida Keys. The City of Key West is hoping that it will attract divers who will help stimulate the local economy by USD 8 million.

The Vandenberg displaced 17,250 tons and was 523 ft. long. It was decomissioned in 1986, and has been sitting on a river in Virginia since then.

It is the second largest ship in the world to have been deliberately sunk as an artificial reef. Experts are hoping that it will be colonised by invertebrates within six months and will provide a new habitat for fish.

There is more detail in the Times Online.

Tomorrow (Saturday 28th March 2009) is Earth Hour, and WWF have sent round a reminder to encourage people to turn their lights off for one hour at 8:30pm. Here’s the gist of their message:

Last call: Tomorrow is Earth Hour!! Please remember to switch off your lights at 8:30pm tomorrow (28 March)!

2848 cities and towns in 84 countries are joining Earth Hour 2009!

Tomorrow is Earth Hour, and we now have 2848 cities and towns in 84 countries committed! From the Chatham Islands to the Arctic Sea, people from all corners of the world will turn off their lights for Earth Hour to show their concern on climate change – the first global vote for the planet!

In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong airport will switch off the non-essential lighting at HKIA Tower and Airport World Trade Centre for one hour to show their support. More than 500 companies and organizations, more than 1700 buildings are participating across Hong Kong.

The ongoing inquiry into the 1941 sinking of HMAS Sydney has concluded that a body which was washed up on Christmas Island in February 1942 came from the ship. It had drifted in a life raft called a Carley float for 3 months and is the only body to have been recovered. A theory for what happened to the others was raised ealier at the inquiry.

The body was buried on Christmas Island by a district officer, and there were doubts as to whether it was an Australian or a sailor. However it was exhumed in 2006 and forensically examined before being reburied with full military honours in Geraldton last year.

The examination of four press studs showed that they had the markings of “Ca Au”, which inducated they had been made by an Australian company. Fragments of textiles that were attached to the press studs indicated that he had been wearing a boiler suit of the type worn by Australian sailors.

The commissioner of inquiry into the sinking, Terence Cole, QC, found that the remains were those of a sailor from the HMAS Sydney. A fragment of metal taken from the skull contained manganese, chromium and silicon, all of which were used by Germany to produce armour piercing shells.

Here is a link to an article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Evidence from an inquiry into the sinking of HMAS Sydney in November 1941 contradicts a theory that crewmen were machine gunned in their life raft by men the German ship Kormoran.

All 645 men from the Sydney were lost. The theory grew up because one life raft was recovered by HMAS Helos shortly after the battle, and it had  a large number of holes in i. However expert witnesses have studied the 339 ruptures in the float and believe they were caused by shrapnel from a shell exploding rather than by bullets.  The damage came from a horizontal angle and was more likely to have happened when the raft was on the ship’s deck, whereas if they had been caused by bullets, the angles of entry would have been from the top. The metal that was recovered from the float also looks more likely to have come from the casing of a German shell than bullets.

This seems to vindicate the German survivors from the Kormoran, which also sank after the battle, who have always denied shooting Australian sailors after the Sydney went down.

HMAS Sydney was a light cruiser and was sunk on 19 November 1941 by the Kormoran, a German auxiliary cruiser. Last year both wrecks were  found off Western Australia.

You can read more about the inquiry from the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Mary Rose was built in Portsmouth in 1509-1510 and was one of the most powerful warships afloat in the Tudor era. She sank in the Solent on 19 July 1545, but was rediscovered and finally raised  in 1982. She now lies in a dry dock in Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard, very close to Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory. There is also a museum about the ship, but this is half a mile away near the dockyard gates.

Now planning permission for a new GBP 35 million building has been granted, and this building will be built around the dock containing the ship.  Galleries shaped like the ship’s missing port side will be built and will hold items from the wreck displayed in their original context. Galleries at either end of the ship will contain other artefacts and exhibits. At the moment only 6% of the 19,000 artefacts from the ship are displayed, so a lot of items will be displayed for the first time.

Building work is expected to start in the autumn.

Last June we posted a story about an Elizabethan warship that had been found off Alderney dating from around 1592. Further research seems to be confirming some of the initial findings, that Elizabeth I’s navy was becoming more professional and effective. Tests seem to show that was carrying powerful cast iron guns of a uniform size, firing standard ammunition. This was in stark contrast to the Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, which carried a wide variety of different weapons, many of which had been designed for land warfare.

The Alderney wreck was a pinnace, which would have carried 12 cannon, two of which have been recovered. Using these, replicas have been built and tested, which seem to show that they were capable of throwing shot at almost the speed of sound. While the guns are relatively small, theywere powerful enough to hit a target up to a mile away. Although whether they were accurate enough is another question. However, at a more typical fighting distance of around 100 yards, they packed enough of a punch to have been able to penetrate the oak planks of a ship and go out the other side.

Elizabeth’s navy seems to have worked out that a lot of smaller guns all firing at once, was more effective than a few larger guns. Presumably there would also have been a significant benefit in standardising gun sizes and ammunition. Although drawing the conclusions about standardisation when they have only recovered 2 of the cannons, is perhaps a bit of a stretch.

There is a good article on this from the BBC website, along with video of the tests they carried out on one of the replica cannon.

The Danton was a French battleship was laid down in 1906 and launched in 1909. She was a pre-dreadnought battleship which served with the French Mediterranean Fleet in the First World War. On 18th March 1917 she was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, U-64, while travelling between Toulon and Corfu.  She was carrying 1102  men, which was more than normal as she was carrying the crew of other ships to Corfu. 896 were rescued, but 296 including her captain, Captain Delage, were lost.

It has just been announced that in late 2007 a company doing a survey for  a gas pipeline discovered the wreck in 1000 metres of water, sitting upright with most of her gun turrets intact. The wreck is 35 km SW of Sardinia, some distance from where she was reported lost.

According to a BBC article, Rob Hawkins, project director with Fugro GeoConsulting Limited said that  “Its condition is extraordinary.” He also said that “After it was hit by the torpedoes, the Danton clearly turned turtle and rotated several times. You can see where it dropped some infrastructure on the way down and then impacted on the seabed. You can see where it slid along the seabed before coming to a rest,”

Researchers compared the position of its heavy guns with those shown on the original plans to confirm its identity.

The gas pipeline has been diverted south-east of the wreck location to avoid the wreck and any structural items that may have fallen from it as it fell to the seabed.

The photographs are from  BBC’s website where you can read the full story and even see some video of the wreck.

No, not Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar, which is still safely in dry dock in Portsmouth. Or at least it was just over a year ago when I visited her. But Nelson’s flagship wasn’t the first HMS Victory, in fact she was the sixth. Her immediate predecessor was built between 1726 and 1737 and when launched was considered the most technically advanced vessel of the age. She was one of the last ships to be lost at sea with a full complement of bronze cannons, before bronze was replaced by iron. Although a History channel programme the other night mentioned that Henry VIII started introducing iron guns in order to cut the cost of fitting out his fleet nearly 200 years earlier.

Anyway in 1744 HMS Victory was sent down to Lisbon to rescue a convoy that was being blockaded by a French fleet. After chasing the fleet away she was returning to the UK in October 1744 when she sank in a violent storm, killing approximately 950 men including 74 year old Admiral John Balchin, one of Britain’s highest regarded admirals.

For many years the ship was believed to have  hit the Casquets, a group of rocks north-west of Alderney in the Channel Islands. As a result Admiral Balchin’s reputation as a fine mariner was tarnished, as well as that of his captain and navigator. In addition a lighthouse keeper was also blamed and  charged with failing to keep his light lit.

On 18 November 2008 Odyessey Marine Exploration discovered the wreck approximately 60 miles from where she was believed to have hit the Casquets, which would seem to exonerate all involved in the sinking. It is now believed that the ship sank as a result of a violent storm, and that the ship’s design and construction may have contributed to her loss.

Two bronze cannons have been recovered from the wreck site and used to confirm the identity of the ship. These are a 12 pounder featuring the royal arms of George II, and  a 42 pounder with the arms of George I.

Odyssey Marine have apparently been working closely with the Ministry of Defence (MOD), which hopefully means that their relationship with the UK will be better opinion that with Spain, whose government is suing them to recover 17 tons of silver coins that they recovered from a shipwreck which they believe is the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes y las Animas, which sank off Portugal in 1804. HMS Victory was believed to be have been carrying a substantial amount of gold and silver coins when she sank.

Discovery Channel will apparently be showing a Treasure Quest; Victory Special in the UK on 8th February. They have quite a good section on their website about the discovery. And here’s a press release from Odyssey Marine, along with more details of the project. The photos on this page also come from their website.