Built by Walpole, Webb & Bewley, Dublin, Ireland for the London and North Western Railway in 1868, The Countess of Erne was a Steam Paddle-Ship and likely named after Mary Caroline Crichton (Nee-Hervey 1753-1842) the Countess of Erne, Ireland, from a peerage created in 1789 for John Creighton, 2^nd Baron of Erne of Crom (Gaelic: Caislean na Croime) Castle in the county of Fermanagh. The Countess was not the first of her name by any means, in 1842 a 66 foot steamer of the same name paddled down lough Erne on Friday 23^rd December 1842, watched by hundreds lining the Lough shore “…to catch a glimpse of the wonderful sight of a steam boat on Lough Erne” (K.Wilson: Lough Erne Heritage, in the Fermanagh Herald 01/2018). Sadly that steamer was lost to a fire 25^th June of 1846 and lies in Lough Erne near Belturbet, one of her regular stops on runs between Lisnaskea and Enniskillen…..another odd example of the “Six degrees of separation”, as Lough Erne and Enniskillen were a big part of my 7 months in the province, back in the day….

Our Countess of Erne lies in Portland Harbour, inside the breakwater in around 15m of water, lost after breaking her moorings in a terrible gale in 1935, and sinking as a result of being dashed against the breakwater itself, now sitting upright on the silty bottom of Portland harbour, at the base of the rock foundations of the wall itself

The Countess of Erne had been a commission for the Walpole, Webb & Bewley shipyard of Dublin from the London and North Western Railway, she was to be a paddle-ship, passenger steamer of 825 tonnes and to be completed and launched in 1868. The Countess was completed on time and to order and had an illustrious, if short, career as a passenger and cargo ferry between Holyhead, Anglesey and Dublin from 1869-1873, after which she was re-routed between Holyhead and Greenore, the only privately owned Port in Ireland. Her owners, the LNWR were formed on 16 July 1846 by amalgamating the Grand Junction Railway, London and Birmingham Railway and the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, thus fulfilling plans for the Great Western Railway’s route North from Oxford to Birmingham. The company owned approximately 350 miles of rail connecting London with Birmingham, Crewe, Chester, Liverpool and Manchester (Wikipedia) with headquarters at Euston railway station

The Countess seemingly had a charmed life between 1869 and 1873, however she collided with and sank a vessel named “Dodder” during her time on the Greenore run, and, in 1883 she collided with the collier “Captain Parry” (Sweeney, P: “Liffey Ships and Shipbuilding”. Mercier Press) after which she was repaired and then sold in 1889, after Twenty years ferrying travelers between Britain and Ireland in the glorious days of steam. That is no mean achievement for a paddle-steamer, the crossing can be a rough one and has, on many occasion, been abandoned by even modern ferries, as I found out on a dive trip back in April of 1998 when we were forced to travel from Bangor in Wales, to Holyhead on the isle of Anglesey, in order to embark for Ireland, as the Bangor ferries couldn’t get out of the harbour. It was touch and go out of Holyhead too, with high seas all the way across the Irish Sea, with my Three lads loving running across the deck of the ferry whilst it rolled to 45’ each side, whilst most other passengers were Green and throwing their breakfasts over the side and down the corridors…..  

So the Countess was a survivor, it must have been painful for her when in 1889, after Two decades sailing passengers across the Emerald seas, she was sold to the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company and used for a couple of years between Bristol and the Southern English coastal ports before being sold for scrap. That wasn’t to be her final ignominy though as, far from being scrapped, the Countess was converted to become a coal supply barge, and would eventually find her way to Portland in Dorset and drudgery, her once fine paddles removed, her proud decks burdened with Temperley Gear to transfer coal from her holds to those in harbour about to undertake more glamorous journeys…….

  Another twist of irony, or, if you wish, another knife in the Countess’s keel, would’ve been the use of Portland stone, quarried just half a mile from her ignominious mooring in Portland Harbour, to represent the company crest at Euston station, headquarters of the Steamship owners of the London North Western Railway……..

The Bristol General Steam Navigation Company had been founded in 1821 by eight Bristol merchants and started services as the “War Office Steam Packet Company” with routes to Ireland, operating a War Office contract shipping troops, recruits and convicts. The War Office contract expired in 1827 and the company changed its name to “The General Steam Packet Company” in order to avoid confusion with London’s “General Steam Navigation Company”, their direct competition for shipping and passenger services to the continent. In 1834 the name was changed again becoming “The  Bristol Steam Packet Company” although that was short-lived quickly becoming, in 1835, “The Bristol General Steam Navigation Company” until  1877 when, in its final iteration, it changed to become “The Bristol Steam Navigation Company”, a name it kept through a Hundred years continuing in shipping until 1980

The Countess continued her service with the Bristol General Steam Navigation Company for the next thirty odd years, fueling the steam-ships coming into and going from Portland harbour, her holds today can be seen as clear, which shows she retained her hull shape, however it is clear the Countess was fitted with the coaling gear of the time, which could be one of several designs called “Temperley” and consisting of, variously, derricks, or beams, on masts with bucket and draw-string type arrangements for lifting large buckets across to those requiring coal, or the type of belt conveyor invented by William Arrow of Glasgow in 1893 and appearing on several coal ships of the day, although almost impossible to find in photographs of the era…..

Coaling, or sometimes “Bunkering” was a dirty and dangerous affair carried out by “Trimmers”, men of the ships engineering contingent (there were 73 Trimmers on Titanic), who were responsible for loading the coal for the ships boilers and keeping it from catching fire, something it often did as coal dust is notorious for spontaneous combustion in dry, hot environments such as a ships coal bunker….. The job was physically hard, lifting, shoveling and man-handling tons of heavy coal required to fuel long journeys aboard ships sometimes crossing the Atlantic, worse still, as we know today, the effects of coal dust on the lungs is terrible, causing cancer and other respiratory diseases, these were tough men and their job was harsh and unforgiving, one of, if not, the worst job aboard any ship!

  For those of you who love the technical detail, here is what I have, sparse as it is: Builders: Walpole, Webb and Bewley, Dublin, Ireland in 1868, The Countess of Erne was a Paddle Steamer of 241.4’ (73.6m) length with a Beam of 29’ (8.8m) and a Draught of 14.3’ (4.4). She was 830 Gross Tonnes and was powered by Two oscillating steam engines of 350 hp at 20psi her yard number was ON 58409 and she was launched September of 1868 and could make 13 Knots, by far the fastest of the LNWR paddle steamers of the day

Sadly the Countess was seemingly stripped of all her fixtures and fittings before her employment as a coaler began, there is nothing of her oscillating engines remaining, nor of her upper deck structures. It may be that somewhere, who knows where, there are remnants of this once majestic paddle- steamer of the LNWR. It is nice to think there is something left of the Countess, perhaps not the complete engine, but maybe there are pieces…….

By the time the Countess was nearing the end of her service and being stripped out, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had introduced the propeller to the world, in 1843, on the ship SS Great Western. The Great Western was not the first ship to be fitted with a prop, that honour belongs to the SS Archimedes, built in London 1839, but she was instrumental in changing global opinion, and the move to propeller driven vessels heralded the beginning of the end for elegant paddle steamers like the Countess of Erne and, in another of those ironies, the SS Great Western suffered the same fate as the Countess of Erne, ending her working days as a coal hulk in port Stanley in the Falkland Isles in 1884………

My first dive on the Countess was 24^th May of 1995, I had just passed my 100^th dive (she was 107) in the log-book, and the little Red Book says: “Down the shot to the “Countess of Erne” in 14m max, there’s no bridge or superstructure, just the upright hulk of a cargo steamer, heavily silted & heavily rotted allowing great ferreting about. We circuited the stern, the prop’s long gone, and toured the whole length dropping in and out of the holds. Plenty of life, a few large Wrasse & Spider Crabs, couple of Blennies, a wonderful wreck to do and a “dream” for 1^st time wreckies to practice penetration”

Both me and my dive buddy Toots loved the Countess, who wouldn’t, she is sheltered in the harbour, she is complete enough, her hull being intact, and she has the most wonderful swim-through’s, with complete safety as her decking has long gone. There is plenty of life on and around her and, as long as you are a careful finner (the Countess is covered in fine, deep silt and poor finning makes her the “mistiest” thing you will see, or, more honestly, really not see!), you can spend pretty much as long as you like on her, as she sits very shallow at 14m or so. This was to be the first of quite a few dives I would do on the Countess, and I still believe she is one of the best “introduction” to wreck dives and line runs that you can get!

The Countess sat against the harbour wall in Portland after breaking her moorings in a huge storm that raged in September of 1935. The Times (Issue 47172 18^th Sept 1935) carried the news with this entry, “-Countess of Erne: Portland, Sept 17 –“ Coal hulk Countess of Erne, owners the channel Coaling Company Ltd., during the early hours this morning wrecked on Portland Breakwater during a terrific south-westerly gale” 

The countess wasn’t always recognised, for some years in the 70’s early divers believed they were diving a local wreck called the Himalaya, indeed, it wasn’t until the research of Oxford BSAC in 1973 and ’74 that her real story surfaced. The club’s project officer, Colin Fox, decided the wreck they often dived would be a good subject for further study. Following several surveys over the year, and much wider research, during which Colin wrote to the Queen’s Harbourmaster, and several local residents connected with the breakwater in various ways, (as former crew or local observers) feedback allowed the club to build a picture, and a back-story, leading to the publishing of an article: “A tale of Two Hulks: The anatomy of a club project” in 1976, the article contains a quote from one of those local sources, a Mr. W.A. Symons:

   “……..the ship you are diving on is not the Himalaya, she was bombed and sank on her moorings at least three-quarters of a mile from the breakwater. These are facts, for I was on a tug at the time, and we tried to save them and put them ashore but no luck ………In the middle 1930’s–about I would say 1936–in a strong blow, a coal hulk went ashore there, we went to her assistance but she was sunk on the tippings with her stump masts and Temperly gear (a form of rig used on hulks for loading and unloading coal) just above water, this gear was removed by a local firm Basso & Turner and the ship slid down the tipping and would I presume (be) very close to the stones at the bottom of the Breakwater. The name of this one could be COUNTESS OF ERNE ex-railway paddler”

So, finally, the Countess of Erne was recognised for whom she was, and what she had been all along, despite years in the wilderness as a coal hulk, and then years presumed to be the Himalaya. Now she stands against the breakwater, a great dive and a wonderful opportunity to train, or just to gently & carefully kick back and breeze around, one of my favourite shallow dives and a haven, for wild-life and divers alike……. in any weather

Update: 13/11/2021. I was grateful to receive an e-mail in regards to the Countess of Erne piece from Colin Fox a couple of days ago, Colin was Oxford BSAC’s Project Officer in 1976 and provided a correction to the information from Oxford BSAC’s piece on the Countess “A Tale of Two Hulks”. The author of the piece being Colin Fox himself, and not Alex Gibson as was originally stated in the piece. The attribution to Alex Gibson came from the Oxford BSAC web site, where part of the piece is reproduced, with Alex identified as the author. It is my pleasure to put things right and to have corrected the attributions within this piece. It was also a delight to be sent a copy of Colin Fox’s original piece submitted for publication, detailing Colin’s first dive and his dive and subsequent research on the Countess of Erne.

19th June 1994 and just 8 days after my 34th Birthday, I am on the Jamaican Defence Force (JDF) fast patrol craft “Thunderhawk” and about to dive a wreck shared with our military diving expedition by the local ex-pat BSAC club in Kingston Jamaica….life couldn’t be much better….I will walk through the expedition in another post………. but for now the HMT Texas calls…….

  I don’t know how many of you are even aware that the Mighty British Royal Navy had an extensive fleet of Naval Trawlers? As a matter of fact the Royal Navy had several, all with different designations, purpose built or requisitioned, operated mainly during World War I and World War II. There were mine sweepers, anti-submarine vessels, escorts, port entrance guards and occasionally Q Boats, armed but covertly, in an effort to get U-Boats in close and engage them. Most HMT’s or “His Majesty’s Trawlers” were purpose built to Admiralty specifications for RN use and were categorised by “class”, where a class was made to follow the same pattern as the first of its type, examples being “Castle”, “Tree”, “Battle” ……..etc. Then there were some 215 trawlers “requisitioned” into the Royal Navy, of no specific class. These were commercial trawlers that the Royal Navy classified by manufacturer, such ships were far more diverse than traditional naval classifications. Seventy-two requisitioned trawlers were lost after being “pressed into service” if you like, reminiscent of the press gangs of Nelson’s day, basically those “classless” ships were already sailing, small ships that the Navy liked the look of, or had a purpose for………HMT Texas was neither of those, she, along with 22 others in “lot B” of the Royal Navy’s 1918 procurement from the Kingston Shipbuilding yard, was a bit of an anomaly…… Born, seemingly under a shadow of indecision and delay, it was this order that contained HMT57, the craft that would end her days (Ironically) off Kingston Jamaica 19^th of July 1944, in a collision which sent her to the bottom…………..  

  The dry-dock in Kingston Ontario was built by the federal government of Canada in 1890, the yard was a repair facility until it was leased to Kingston Shipbuilding in 1910.  Kingston Shipbuilding endured following both World Wars, and operated the yard right up until 1968, when it became part of the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes of Canada, and can be visited if you are lucky enough to be in the area….. 1917 and World War I was in full swing, the British Admiralty ordered the construction of 36 naval trawlers from Canadian shipyards, as part of a building programme intended to improve the state of seaward defence in Canadian waters. The trawlers were constructed at shipyards along the Saint Lawrence River and in the Great Lakes. Twenty-two trawlers were constructed and sent to Quebec City to be completed and commissioned before the Saint Lawrence River froze over during the winter at the end of 1917. Once completed and commissioned, the vessels were then sent on to Sydney, Nova Scotia to join the East Coast patrol fleet. However, none of the vessels were actually completed in time to take part in the 1917 shipping season

  The American war effort, which had started to pick up its pace, began to recruit Canadian workers, this caused work shortages at the Canadian yards, delaying construction. The majority of the initial trawler order arriving at Quebec City were laid up for the winter there, most requiring further work (Ice on the Saint Lawrence River would prevent them clearing the river until May 1918). In December 1917, the British government sought to expand the shipbuilding contracts in Canada. The Admiralty ordered a second batch of trawlers from Canadian shipyards, designated “Lot B”, they were intended to be delivered by autumn of 1918, but a shortage of labour, equipment and material led to delays. The steel required to construct boilers and hulls was delivered as late as August 1918……….

Upon arrival, the trawlers were put to use in both mine sweeping and patrol roles. In April 1918, four of the trawlers were used for port defence of Halifax and others were used to escort slow convoys through Canadian waters. In order to fill the manpower need for the trawlers, ratings from the Newfoundland division of the Royal Navy Reserve were sent to Canada. By mid-summer 35 of the 36 trawlers were active with the last, TR 20, awaiting her crew at Kingston, Ontario. The trawlers remained in service until war’s end when they were decommissioned and laid up

TR 57 missed service in World War I, delays to construction and shortages of men and materials meaning she wasn’t completed until 1919. Along with several of her sister ships TR 57 was seemingly loaned to the US, the records show TR 37, TR 39, TR 51, TR 55, TR 56, TR 58, TR 59 and TR 60 were all loaned to the United States Navy from November 1918 to August 1919. It seems odd that HMT57 is not included in this listing, either side of her both Trawlers 56 & 58 were sent.  As HMT57 was named “Colonel Roosevelt” from 1919 to 1926, this may have been the reason for the omission, HMT57 was definitely in US waters into 1920 as her owners are named during this time as:

Gulf Export & Transportation Co Inc 1920-1925 (Colonel Roosevelt)

Galveston-Texas City Pilots 1925-1940 (Texas)

  It seems logical to assume (although not conclusive) that HMT57 was indeed transferred to US Navy ownership during this period and, latterly, ended up under the management of the two organisations noted. As it is also known that following the first world war, many of the TR series were sold for commercial use to make up for losses during the war, it is likely that this was the case with HMT57, becoming the Colonel Roosevelt and then the Texas in the process!

The TR series of mine-sweeping naval trawler were Canadian copies of the Royal Navy’s Castle class. There were some changes in the Canadian version, including the gun being mounted further forward and a different lighting system. They were built between 1917 and 1919 and there were 53 in total. For those of you who like the technical detail: The TR series had a displacement of 275 long tons (279 t) with a length overall of 133 feet 10 inches (40.8 m) and a length between perpendiculars of 125 feet 0 inches (38.1 m), a beam of 23 feet 5 inches (7.1 m) and a draught of 13 feet 5 inches (4.1 m). The vessels were powered by a steam triple expansion engine driving one shaft, creating 480 indicated horsepower (358 kW). They had a maximum speed of 10 knots (19 km/h) and were armed with one “Quick-Fire” (QF) 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun mounted forward. A design flaw was later identified where the wireless operator was located in a cabin below the bridge and could not communicate easily with the commander of the vessel. This was rectified with the installation of an inter-phone (Wikipedia).

In World War II, many of these vessels returned to naval service as auxiliary minesweepers in the Royal Navy. TR 57 returned to serve with the Royal Navy, under the name HMT Texas, and found her way, somehow, to Jamaica. I can’t find anything showing how or when exactly Texas ended up in the Caribbean, one can only assume it was under the orders of the Royal Navy and perhaps was escort duty, or to patrol approaches to valued commodity sources(?), however it was just outside another Kingston, (far from her birthplace in Ontario), where Texas met her fate on the 19th of July 1944, going to the bottom by the farewell buoy as a result of a collision, taking with her the lives and souls of Two of her crew, Johan Ingvald Olsen, a volunteer and Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Reserve, and Octavis Russell, her Petty Officer, of the Naval Auxilary Patrol Service

The Little Red Book reads: “Down the shot in water @ 29′ good descent in free-fall position Viz down to 3m @ 31m but good light meant alot to see. “Texas” was a US coast guard cutter – then a mine sweeper sank after a collision in the main ship lane off Port Royal – what remains is the overall shape of the boat but the plating on the decks has rotted – she’s covered in rare Black coral – beautiful- great time round the 2″ gun & bridge loads to see – the funnel area is good – great dive!” In truth I loved the dive and, but for the limited space in my log book, would have gone on to describe the mug sitting on the bridge table, the coral in the funnel, the prominent bow and anchor hawses…… and so much more that I remember vividly. The only thing I don’t recall, and we had 31 mins bottom time on what was a small ship, was any sign of collision? I don’t recall any of our dive-team mentioning damage either, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, it just isn’t part of any memory I have of the Texas, sat there upright as if she could sail away at any moment…..

Octavis Russell was listed as “Missing Presumed Killed”, and in another of those ironic twists of fate, is memorialized on the sea-front of my home town of Liverpool. Johan Ingvald Olsen, a Norwegian, the son of Nils and Gustava Olsen, husband to Anna Jeanette Olsen of Ula in Norway, is buried in Kingston Jamaica, in UP-Park-Camp Cemetery (Plot C. Grave 32)……… May they Rest in Peace having served and given all for freedom….. At the going down of the Sun….and in the morning

My thanks go to Emilie Lavallee-Funston of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network for the pictures from the Canadian Railway and Marine World publication and to the Stiftelsen Archive for the Picture of Johan Olsen’s Headstone

Twelfth of March 1994, I am back from Cyprus and the Blue water diving is officially over……it’s back to the South Coast and the wreck of the Kyarra off Swanage. I’m diving with Steve, another TIDSAC diver and it is the first dive “Tich” Tichener (another former Royal Navy sailor operating a dive-boat, the “Kyarratoo” out of Weymouth), has taken this season. The Kyarra was a beautiful ship, built by Denny’s of Dumbarton as a luxury liner in 1903, she has sleek lines and sits well in the water…….

I wanted to dive Kyarra since hearing of her, many times, whilst diving around the South coast. Kyarra was one of the easiest wrecks to get to, being close to Swanage, and there were plenty of boats that would take you out to her, Tich was our choice as he was, like us, from a services background, it made things easier as we all spoke the same (tribal) language. On this occasion we had headed down in a bit of a rush and were kitting up on the boat deck, unusual as I prefer to be suited and booted before we sail on short trips…… Kyarra had been commissioned by the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company for service to and round Australia, and was launched into the river Clyde on February 02nd of 1903 being registered in Freemantle, Australia, although her owners and “flag” were London registered. Kyarra would spend 10 unremarkable years sailing between her home port and Sydney until the looming of World War 1 on the global horizon…………

The Australian government met the call to arms of the mother-country, when, in 1914, the UK asked all commonwealth countries to aid in the struggle against the Kaizer and his Austro-Hungarian and German Army! On the 6th November of 1914 Kyarra became the “HMAT A.55 Kyarra” , requisitioned in Brisbane and intended to act as a medical unit transport ship, supporting the Egyptian theater of battle (Wikipedia). The work of hospital ships would turn out to be as dangerous perhaps as that of troop transports, several would fall to U-Boat action, despite the clear and obvious hospital markings!

However Kyarra would survive her brief period as a hospital ship and be transferred to troop carrying duty by March of 1915, barely 5 months later. Kyarra was named after the pelt of the native Australian “Possum”, the word being Aboriginal for a small strip of the creature’s fur, perhaps it was intended to refer to her sleek looks, or perhaps it was just a whim of the owners……… The technical bit, for those who enjoy such things, goes like this: Kyarra was 6953 Tonnes (Gross) and 415 feet 5 inches long with a beam of 52 foot 2 inches and a draught of 31 foot 5 inches. She was powered by Two triple expansion steam turbines and capable of 15.4 Knots (just shy of 18mph). Kyarra could carry 2600 Tonnes of cargo and 286 passengers, 126 of those being “1st Class” (Wikipedia) which, in the day, meant exactly that, Kyarra being intended for luxury travel!

Kyarra almost made it through the war, she came to lie in the channel, off Swanage, following an attack by UB 57 under the command of Johannes Lohs, just off Anvil point, outside Weymouth. Kyarra was sailing from Tilbury to Devonport, travelling light, carrying civilian passengers and expecting to take on cargo on arrival (Wikipedia). UB 57 was commanded by Johannes Lohs who had begun his career as a “Seekadett” in the Kreigsmarine 01st April 1909, just Six years following Kyarra’s launch. Lohs had a long career by the time he crossed paths with Kyarra, by then, on the 26th of May 1918, he had risen to the rank of “Oberleutnant zur See” and was a holder of the Iron Cross, 1st class, as a result of his successes with other U Boats. Like many of his peers, Johannes Lohs did not survive the war, his body washing up on the Dutch coast 21st August 1918 after UB 57’s last contact with controllers, 14th of August ’18, when Lohs was said to be homeward bound, somewhere off the Sandiette bank in the Dover Straits. At that point Johannes Lohs had sunk an estimated 165,000 Tonnes of allied shipping (U-Boat Net)

Our dive on the Kyarra started off with a wicked current running when we arrived, kitting up gave us a bit of time to see the current seemingly drop a little and we entered onto the shot line mid afternoon on the 12/03/1994……This was an uneasy descent, Steve dropped his torch and chased it off the shot-line, forcing me to either follow, or end up separated from Steve which would effectively abort the dive, neither of us would want that, so I followed…….. What follows shows how easy it is to make mistakes, which just compound…….The assumption on my part, when Steve suggested the Kyarra, was that Steve had dived it before, our haste to get kitted before it started to get dark meant the brief was just a buddy-check, and then the separation from the shot line meant, effectively, in the bloody poor viz, (about 1/2m at very best, in torch-light) that we were pretty much blind! Here’s what my log book says….. “Missed the shot line in nil viz-total black-out after 15m. Onto a sandy bottom full of wreckage, when finning against a 2kt current water went “dead” figured we’ed entered the hull inadvertently-no viz even on torches past 1/2m. Very dangerous not knowing if we had wreckage overhead. 16 mins gone by now so we ended the dive….very apprehensively…ascent was clear thank God…...”

What isn’t apparent here is what I was feeling at the time, If we’ed been tied off on the shot line I’d have been happier by far, following a line is my default setting in low viz on a new wreck, too many have died trapped inside wrecks, that is not the way I want to go! I was seething with myself for not asking the right questions before the dive, my dive slate said it all “…….can you enter the wreck….?” Steve shrugged (I got madder) “…..are we inside it.…?” Steve shrugged (I got even madder) ” ……dive over….” Steve, bless him, agreed and we turned 180 degrees and swam with the current for couple of minutes before I deployed the SMB. It was a huge relief when the water became lighter, and I realised the SMB was at the surface, not under a hull-plate……..lesson learned! Talking with Tich after we exited the water, he believed that at 29m or so, we had swam under the stern of the Kyarra which was what shielded us from the relentless current, and what had caused me to stop in my tracks thinking we had entered part of the hull. Showing the dive slate to other members of TIDSAC that evening was a sobering and humbling experience, one I have not forgotten to this day………..

Zenobia was crowned Empress of Palmyra around AD 260 at perhaps 20 years old, and is shown above on the obverse of an Antoninianus, a coin of the third century (worth about 2 Denarii). Zenobia reigned as queen of the Palmyrian Empire in Syria, following the accession of her husband Odaenathus. Zenobia, thought to have been high born, became the ruler of Palmyra (following the assassination of Odaenathus), and is known for having launched an invasion of Roman territories in the East, culminating in the annexation of Egypt in 270, although in reality still bound to Rome, her rule extended across Ancyra through Anatolia to Egypt. In 272 Zenobia declared her son “emperor” and Palmyra independent, prompting Roman reprisal and her defeat in battle. Zenobia was exiled to Rome where she died around 274 AD (Wikipedia)……. A fitting back story to a Ship crowned in Malmo Sweden, sailing to Athens, which eventually died, very young, just outside the harbour at Larnaca, Cyprus

Zenobia, a brand new “Roll-on-Roll-off” ferry, had been constructed in the Kockums shipyard in Malmo, Sweden, and she was “state of the Art” at the time, fully computer controlled and pride of the yard, she was Lloyd’s registered, registration number: 7806087 and completed in 1979. Zenobia’s details: Length overall: 172,02 meter (560 feet), Beam: 23.04 meter (75 feet), Draught: 13.01 meter (43 feet), Gross tonnage: 12,000 tones, and finally, her Maximum speed was 21.5 knots…an impressive ship! Sailing almost immediately following her sea trials Zenobia was bound for Athens, on the way the captain encountered steering problems and Zenobia took on a distinct list to port. It was initially believed the list was caused by excess water pumped into the ballast tanks, this was pumped out and she then departed for Larnaca, Cyprus, before eventually expecting to reach Syria

Zenobia arrived at Larnaca on 2 June 1980, still dogged by ballast problems from the computerized pumping system, which was continually pumping water into the side ballast tanks due to a software error, making the list progressively worse. On 4 June, Zenobia was towed out of Larnaca harbor to prevent her becoming an obstruction, should she sink, and was left at anchor around 1.5 miles offshore. On 5 June, with Zenobia listing at nearly 45°, the captain dismissed the engineers and maintenance crew, and made requests to return her to Larnaca harbor, these were denied, sealing Zenobia’s fate……… at around 2:30am, 7 June 1980, Zenobia capsized and sank in Larnaca Bay

I had wanted to dive Zenobia since hearing about the wreck from TIDSAC divers over the last few years, by all accounts she was the best wreck dive you could get, bar those of the Red Sea, and some said she was better than most of those! Zenobia was the main reason for taking Phill up on his offer of a break in Cyprus, I knew he was going to be working most of the time and I had no desire to be in the way of his wife, sat around their home for a week. I had been in touch with Ian McMurray at Octopus Divers beforehand, having been told of his exploits recovering unfortunate divers, (those who made the mistake of getting lost within Zenobia), over the 13 years she had sat on the bottom of Larnaca Bay. I once again took the little Suzuki trials bike out, and made my way to Ian’s quayside slot where we loaded up and briefed the dive, assigning buddy’s as Ian went about preparing to motor out the mile and a half or so to the wreck

  My log-book entry reads “Zenobia the now famous Cyprus ferry wreck c/w cargo of lorries sank when ballast computers went haywire on her maiden voyage (for the second time) A whole wreck intact, dropped to bridge @ 17m then over side & along to cargo decks & lorries. They hang on chains as Zenobia is on her side. A great look around this area, then back along the hull to the bridge for a look. Two precautionary stops – 9m & 6m a fascinating wreck.” My buddies on the dive were Two BSAC divers, one a Scot, “Jock” and one called “Charlie” both seasoned divers who looked after me very well

I vividly remember seeing the glint of sunlight on the deck rails of Zenobia as Ian moored over her, she is only 16m or so beneath the surface and she is a big wreck, you can make out some of her hull, the upper promenade along her Starboard side, and as we rolled back into the bay, under beautiful Cyprus sunshine, you could see her in all her glory below you, Zenobia was, and I am sure still is, an impressive sight. The descent is an easy one, we had little if any current on the day and we quickly made our way, as was our training, to the deepest depth agreed on the brief, which was the 30m mark. At that depth, hovering above her stern, it was possible to make out her prop some 10m below us , and to see her stern decks with the twisted remains of the trucks, some at the limit of their deck chains, some completely free, having broken them during the sinking

My memory has us spending a little time just circling the stern deck, looking at the lorries just meters below us, and then swimming back along the deck to the main superstructure, the beginnings of the restaurant and the accommodation and bridge structure. There was no penetration to be had on this dive, for a start I had never dived her before, something I am absolute with at all times, no “entry” until I feel I have familiarised myself with the lie of the wreck around me, and even then it is often several more dives before I would feel confident enough to enter a wreck, no matter its condition.

We swam back along the deck and passed the bridge windows and the entrance door, the wreck was only 13 years old when I dived her and there was considerably less growth on her than in the photos I have found of the areas we dived, and I only recall One of the windows being broken on her bridge…… This was the window used to rescue a diver trapped inside in an air pocket several years beforehand, luckier than her dive guide who paid the price for getting lost in the accommodation area, having disturbed the fibre board partition walls, long since reduced to tiny shards and lying in wait for those passing, creating a black-out of tiny debris, almost impossible to see through, especially when disoriented or starting to panic when low on air…..

It would be easy to drop in and look around Zenobia, I sat and waited at the Bridge whilst Jock and Charlie had a root about the area, but they clearly thought, as I did, that going inside was not part of the plan and we all made our way along the Starboard deck rails, past the bridge to see the bow area ahead of us. Zenobia being such a big and intact wreck, it was clear we did not have sufficient air reserve to push down to the bow, we had had such a good look around the lorries, and stern, that our safety stops would leave us at 50bar, the standard BSAC reserve for any dive. It was enough to see the bow reaching out in front of us, as we steadily made our way back up the shot-line, looking back below as Zenobia retreated into the Blue of Larnaca Bay

I am intrigued again, to find imagery on the web which shows Zenobia as she sits on the bay floor at Larnaca, I can, once again, clearly see the route we took on that December dive in 1993 and pick out where I was at each point I remember, it adds some clarity and acts as a valuable reminder. If you imagine Ian’s skiff moored to the bridge at its foremost, highest point you can see the distances we traveled to the stern and back again, along the hull, gradually moving from mid depth and mid-deck level, to join the promenade rails along Zenobia’s upper Starboard wing and back to the shot-line to ascend. I know I would love to return to dive her more extensively, and if I hadn’t been going back to the UK a day later, then I would gladly have dived her again at the time….some things just have to wait for another day…………

This is likely to be a disappointing post, Achilleas is the next wreck in my little Red Wreck book, the earlier wrecks from 1991-2000, and was one I completed whilst in Cyprus following Northern Ireland staying with Phill Talbot and his wife in Akrotiri. I say it will be disappointing and that means to me personally, I have spent quite some time trying to get some history on the Achilleas without success. I remember asking the guys at Cydive for some background at the time, and they had little too, which is odd considering this is a fairly young wreck going down outside the Paphos harbour in 1975 as a result of an explosion……. Achilleas was my 50th dive, an auspicious moment to all divers, the first 50 and then the 100 are special dives, but no one could give me much on this wreck, I think she is just one of those many ships lost to the Greek Merchant Insurance schemes as a result of poor management, a diminishing business for medium and smaller commercial transports, and greed……..

I wanted wrecks and there were wrecks to dive, so once again it was out with the Suzuki 125 trials bike and off to Cydive for the morning, this was to be my last wreck with Cydive. I was off to Larnaka the next day to dive with Ian Mc Murray at Octopus divers, but more of that in another post…….I knew this was going to be a nice easy dive as Achilleas sank shallow, as many 1970’s Greek wrecks seemed to do…..12m max as far as I was told beforehand, and again we would be in crystal clear Aegean waters on a wonderfully hot day, 07th December 1993, my buddy was to be Stan another UK diver getting a little winter sunshine in Cyprus! The boat ride out was fairly short as I remember it, no dramas and an easy kit-up before we dropped in to the warm embrace of the sea off Paphos, I could see the upturned stern of the Achilleas from the surface before we descended so finding her was not an issue!

My dive log speaks volumes about the wreck “Achilleas” A Greek vessel which sank “mysteriously” in 1975 off the harbour at Paphos (R.H. Side) 3 main areas of wreckage, all are inverted. Stern section is well sunk in and overgrown. Bronze prop still in place & portholes still about. A large Grouper lives in the bow section & shoals of smaller colourful fish abound. A great dig about in a well dispersed wreck ……..

I do hope there will be something more to add, better marking the passing of such a vessel in the ’70’s…… which just frustrates me to be honest, a ship “explodes” off a Western Hemisphere port, in the 20th century, and nobody bats an eyelid…..very odd! I’d love to add something about the history of Achilleas before her sinking, and a photo, but I have found nothing through the years, there will be someone out there that has something more, I truly hope they get in touch so I can edit this post and share more of the story, but until then this is pretty much all I have. I have asked Cydive and the local Cyprus press to help and we will see if anything comes up but until then…..on to the next wreck!

  I had the opportunity to spend some time in Cyprus following my tour of former Yugoslavia, my roommate (Pleso barracks, then ISO container) had been an RLC soldier called Phill Talbot from Radcliffe in Manchester, and we had kept in touch after the tour for a while. I had got on well with Phill, he had taken to diving after doing the R&R course I set-up in Zagreb, passing his CMAS 1 star, BSAC Novice Diver qualification whilst there. I had gone on to do Northern Ireland and after 7 months (what is it with 7 month tours, they were all supposed to be 6 months…..) there, I knew I needed some down-time. Phill invited me to stay in Cyprus with him and his wife, even though the only time I could get there he would be working so I’d be mostly on my own for entertainment. I didn’t have a problem with that and got the first “indulgence flight” out of Brize that I could get on! I was taking my dive-gear too, there were wrecks to dive and I couldn’t wait! 

I had been in touch with Cydive in Paphos after a disappointing and drawn-out correspondence with the local military BSAC club, the DO there was a pain, nothing could be guaranteed, there would need to be a series of shake-out dives to prove my quals were “good enough”, and there wasn’t much chance of anything other than shore dives….if there were cylinders charged (which couldn’t be expected, I would be lucky or I wouldn’t depending on who was there to fill them and “if” there was someone to fill them….), basically a case of “you’re not welcome here pal,you’re too much effort” so sod that, Cydive here we come!

  Cydive wanted a shake-out dive too, I had no problem with that and they had no problem with full dive cylinders, so Phill and I got to take a half-hour shore dive, close to the Paphos dive shop and it’s wonderful promenade location just shy of the harbour castle. Phill was working the next couple of days so I hired a 125 cc trials bike to get me to and from Akrotiri, a good half hours run out, but great fun in the circumstances, and I had booked my first Cyprus wreck….the Vera K!  I picked up my kit from the Cydive drying room in the morning, and we made our way down to the jetty and the small skiff there waiting for us, I couldn’t have been happier, the Sun was shining, it was well over 20′ and we were heading out to a shipwreck……perfect!

  The Vera K had led a varied life, prior to meeting her end outside the Paphos breakwater back in May of 1971, she had started life as yard number 624 in the Deutsche Werke shipyards in Kiel, Hamburg in 1951, just 9 years before I was born. She was named Sloman Valencia to 1967 and was a 2,214 Tonne, Diesel engined cargo vessel with sleek lines, a good looking transport ship of the day. The Sloman Valencia’s engine drove her along at a steady 13 Knots for her owners, the Danube Mediterranean Line (Demline) out of Beirut in the Lebanon. In 1967 she was sold, or perhaps transferred, and her name changed to the Jebel Sinneen, this period of her life lasted until 1970 when she was again renamed, this time to Vera K. If anything that would hint that she had transferred to a Greek shipping line, as using the “K” suffix was a Greek trait and I have latterly dived several other wrecks named with that protocol, more research needed here methinks! As is the fate of many Greek transport ships of the time, Vera K ran aground within sight of a port, on a known reef, in what was expected to have been very good visibility, now there is no inference here, (…at all your honour), just a slight feeling of deja-vu over the seemingly poor navigational skills of an ageing section of the Greek merchant marine community, often very close to retirement…….

Vera K ran into the Moulia rocks outside Paphos harbour in May of 1971, she was carrying cars, timber and Sodium Sulphate, amongst other general cargo. Clearly where Vera K ran aground was too close to the shipping lanes locally to be allowed to just let nature take her course, as, in 1974 the Cyprus authorities had her blown to pieces, to clear what was obviously a shipping hazzard. The explosions used to break up Vera K had an effect on the rocky outcrop she sat upon, the main of the wreckage is in 4 sections and very broken up. The dive is a good one, with plenty of time to look around her and the rocks she sits in amongst. I remember coming over a gully at around 6 m and seeing tunnels through the outcrop, by what remains of her bow and the bridge, or a large section of her bridge, unmissable as it was a very “block” like construction as you can see from the photos of her in her prime. There were stairs off on one side of the bridge structure, sat there in the Blue and I remember thinking Vera K would clearly make a very good subject for photographers back then…..

I took a good swim around and there was plenty of wreckage evident, bearing in mind it was only 19 years before that Vera K had been blown to pieces, in order to clear her down to a manageable size for passing shipping to avoid. I found what looked like a transmission amongst a tangle of other debris, I figured it was the transmission from the huge fluid flywheel/Torque converter housing bolted to the rear of it. I was not sure it was large enough to have had anything to do with the main engine, perhaps a donkey engine for start-up?, it just seemed too big to be for a standard car. I managed to find a picture of the transmission on the web and I’d be happy to be told I was wrong if there are any with better understanding of her Diesel drive-train?

The viz around Vera K was phenomenal at somewhere around 35m, my buddy on the dive, a NAUI diver called Stan, and I had no trouble navigating the area and spent a good 45 minutes on a single 10L cylinder enjoying the water temperature and the experience of diving in Cyprus. I have to admit, even though this was only my 14th “Blue Water” dive, I could see the attraction. There is more to research on the Vera K, there is limited information I can find at present, I will add to this post if I can go any further at a later date, however, let’s say the Vera K has yet to give up the last of her secrets, especially how she managed to end up on a known navigation hazzard, so close to a safe harbour on such a gentle sea……

  Herzogin Cecilie was my first and I think remains my only “Clipper”, a legendary class of sailing ship that included the Cutty Sark, that last remaining example of her type in the world, almost lost to history when she caught fire during a refurbishment in May of 2007. The term “clipper” comes from a bygone era when ships raced from Australia back to the UK, to ensure they got the very best price for commodities like wool and tea. It was a profitable merchant who’s ship arrived in port “first”, hence these sailings were essentially races, where it paid to be a winner. One of the fastest of the ships of the day (1870’s) the Cutty Sark topped out at 17.5 knots which is 20mph, the Herzogin Cecile was timed at Skagen, somewhere around 1920, at 20 knots which was quite a “clip”….. a term for rattling along at speed, and one which could have its origins way back in the days of horse travel…. Another term for these huge traders, with their sleek lines and immense masts was “Windjammers”, far easier to figure out when you take a look at how many sails flew from their huge masts and their bow-sprits…….

   So, for those that like their numbers and details: Herzogin Cecilie was yard number 122 and was launched on 22 April 1902. Completion was on 7 June that year. She was 334 feet 8 inches (102.01 m) long, with a breadth of 46 feet 3 inches (14.10 m) and a draught of 24 feet 2 inches (7.37 m). Herzogin Cecilie was built for Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen. Unlike other contemporary German merchant sailing ships, the black Flying-P-Liners or the green ships of Rickmers, she was painted in white. She was one of the fastest windjammers ever built (Wikipedia) evidenced easily,  as she won the annual grain race from Southern Australia to Falmouth four times prior to 1921, she again won the grain race four times in eleven trips from 1926 to 1936…… a seriously impressive achievement

  Herzogin Cecilie is an unusual name and I remember asking if anyone in TIDSAC knew what it meant, I was faced with a round of blank faces and it took me 27 years to find out, not that I was looking all of that time, it just took until now to take the time to find out. The answer is her namesake, Duchess Cecilie of Prussia, a striking beauty of the time and Crown Princess of Prussia, being married to Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany (Son of Kaiser Wilhelm II) and daughter of Frederick Frances III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, born September 1886 dying in 1954 aged 67. “Herzogin” being the Prussian for Duchess…. hence Herzogin Cecilie…. or in English “Duchess Cecilie” ……….far easier!

  The Herzogin Cecilie came to her end as a result of a collision with Ham Stone in thick fog April 1936, whilst en route to Ipswich, she floundered at Bolt Head but that wasn’t her end. Herzogin Cecilie was a strong ship, used to the punishment of epic, global journeys, and built to withstand the worst the Roaring Forties and the like could throw at a ship, and she wasn’t going to go without a fight…….. 

  Herzogin Cecilie had been running Wheat and her cargo was deteriorating, to the point where it could be smelt by those who gathered to see her on the rocks, where she had quickly become a curiosity to the general public. The local Devon council decided pollution from the cargo would be undesirable and that she should be salvaged if practical. Herzogin Cecilies’ cargo was removed and as she lightened it became possible to float her at high tides. Tugs were brought round to her to drag her from her ignominious resting place and it was decided to beach her in Starhole bay locally in order to facilitate repairs

  Sadly Starhole Bay, considered a safe site to beach Herzogin Cecilie, was far from that, it didn’t help that a series of gales sprang up locally in July of 1936, just after her beaching, but Starehole bay, as any local diver today will tell you, is far from a sandy and benign cove, more a mix of Rock, Sand and Kelp…… It did not take long for the fury of the July gales and the rocks under her hull to break the Back of Herzogin Cecilie, and, after that, it wasn’t much longer before her masts began to give way and festoon her decks, a sorry and tragic end to such a  magnificent example of a dying era…….. 

  I would dive her in May of 1992, just 56 years on from her demise in that secluded, but fatal cove just around the corner from Salcombe in Devon. The club had decided on a weekend away to dive sites around Salcombe as a change from those of Portland and Dorset. I was excited as we had recently dived a couple of “scenic” sites and they weren’t particularly exciting if I’m honest. The chance of diving another shipwreck was just what I was looking for, and kitting up and getting the RIB into the water from the small public slip at Salcombe was fun and full of anticipation. The trip around the coast-line to the Herzogin Cecilie site has either been blanked or has faded from memory, like so many trips out to dive-sites, they “grey” into every other trip you’ve been on…….The memory of the dive, as ever, never leaves you and even though she is well broken, it was never hard to find her final resting place, here’s what my log says from the day……

    “Down the shot line to 7m, the wreck is heavily broken and in a few sections, we found 2, corroded to the ribs but with some plating intact a lot of interesting life but a fair amount of swell….Viz 1-2m”  Now I might be accused of brevity there by those who read this, perhaps even romanticising somewhat, occasionally, but I remember the dive clearly and we spent much of the time hunting in poor viz for signs of wreckage. There was steel everywhere, Herzogin Cecilie had a steel hull, and it was all riveted, so we knew our plates were pre-war wreckage and likely to be exclusively from  Herzogin Cecilie, but you still see plates for what they are, big slabs of Steel, and as she had been well broken up over the last 56 years in the bay, we were unlucky not to find anything on the day that resembled more than that. Others have found her a far more giving dive and speak of tunnels to swim through and more recognizable wreckage and hull fittings, but we were to find nothing distinct, nothing “Ship” like, on the day

   I remember Herzogin Cecilie as a series of plates and broken metal lying in a shallow grave under 7m of Devon sea, those who live locally, some of them at least, will remember her hard on the Ham Stone, or lying at the mercy of the July storms of 1936 in Starhole bay. Those who sailed in her will mostly, if not all, have passed into history with her, but it doesn’t take much imagination to think of her heeled over, flying a cargo of wheat or wool at 20 knots over howling seas…..in her prime….sails straining to cope with the wind and her immense masts creaking in the spray……….

  My second wreck dive 01st September 1991 and only my 17th dive…this was a TIDSAC dive and my buddy was Gary Horton, another squaddie from the Tidworth Garrison, although I don’t recall his unit or cap-badge, not that that matters! We were using the club RIBs and I had been told there would be some current on the surface so we needed to be “under” sharpish, or we would run the risk of being taken over the wreck and into the harbour, where there was very little to see on a muddy flat bottom……incentive, I like it!  HMS Hood was a Royal Sovereign Class Battleship (built before the Dreadnoughts of WWI era) and served largely in and around the Mediterranean (Med) from what I can gather. Here’s some of the facts & figures for those who love detail: Hood was 125m long and 23m across sitting 8.7m when fully loaded and displacing 15000 tonnes, with a crew of 690 officers and enlisted men. When built she cost the Admiralty just under £1m and was the last of 8 Royal Sovereign Class Battleships, being commissioned  01st June 1893 and serving until her eventual de-commissioning in 1911, just 3 years before the outbreak of WWI (Wikipedia)

  HMS Hood never saw real combat, the time of her service was largely peaceful, and her days were spent showing the flag around the Med, on behalf of the Crown, at a time when Britannia very definitely ruled the waves. Ships like HMS Hood were built to ensure things stayed that way, and their time on exercise and sailing, at will, into foreign ports sent a message to any would be “upstart” nations…. HMS Hood did however take part in the bombardment of Crete following the Greek uprising of 1897, being a member of the “International Squadron”, alongside ships from Austro-Hungary, Russia, France and Germany……kind of Ironic really, as HMS Hood’s ignominious end saw her sunk, as a block to potential German U Boat attacks on the British Fleet, within the harbour at Portland, at the outbreak of WWI in 1914. Even more ironically HMS Hood’s Bell, her heart in the eyes of those serving on her, was passed to her namesake, the Admiral Class Battlecruiser nicknamed “The Mighty Hood”, lost to the Bismarck in the Denmark Straight May 24th 1941

      Diving the Hood is quite something, she was stripped prior to her sinking in 1914 and she has obviously settled in to the seabed considerably over the following 76 years. HMS Hood, you must understand,  is an immense ship, imagine her as a submerged 30 foot high wall of steel, almost completely spanning the harbour’s Southern approach. The ebb and flow of Portland’s 2.4m spring tidal range means considerable amounts of water pass in, and then out of the harbour, creating quite a current between the breakwater barbettes. There is an imposing chain stretching between these massive, stone block constructed, towers as if the rush of water over the up-turned hull is not enough to impress!  TIDSAC had towed the 2 RIBS down for a weekend at Portland and we stayed at the Breakwater Pub, a favourite haunt of the crew of small fishing craft locally, and divers everywhere. The Breakwater sits opposite the small pebble beach, facing what became the Aqua-Sport Hotel, started, owned & run for a generation by a good mate of mine Eric “Budgie” Burgess. At the time I first dived HMS Hood the building was practically derelict, and Budgie was operating his RIB from the Breakwater. I would spend many Wednesday afternoons diving from Budgie’s RIB over the 6 years I was in Tidworth, but more of that in other pieces…… 

  The trip out from the Breakwater beach at Castletown was an easy 10 minute affair, you had to observe the 5 knot speed limit within the Harbour, or risk the wrath of the Harbour-Master and a potential fine. There was no rush and we were soon at the land side Barbette, where the huge chain links rose above us to a great big ring set in the stonework. This was my first dive with Gary but he was a likelable diver, far more experienced than I was and I was happy with that, we rolled easily over the side of the RIB and without much ceremony, gave a quick OK signal and dumped all our air from our stab-jackets, descending quickly to settle on the bottom at about 6m. We sorted ourselves out a little, gave reassuring OK’s, and Gary led the way as we saw the massive hull, upturned (up-side down), to our Left side and swam deeper and towards her. The visibility was somewhere around 5m so we were lucky, it’s difficult to describe more than the feeling that I was next to a massive Iron & Steel “Tower Block”, and swimming along it past kelp and spider crabs, small Wrasse and debris, in amongst the odd rocks strewn around the seabed. I have dived the Hood several times since and seen far more than I remember on this dive, there are easy penetration points, where the superstructure is holding the deck above the sea-bed, there are bollards plain to see and latterly, as I got bolder, there were swim through’s which I enjoyed, even if they gave an impending sense that, at any moment, the Hood may just collapse down on me. But on this first dive we saw little but the immense sides of what had been Hoods hull, and the 35 minutes we spent swimming along, and then turning back on ourselves, so we were away from the shore when we surfaced, making the RIB recovery a little easier, were unremarkable, and eventually appeared in my wreck book as “pretty low key“…..  Portland has a lot to offer the diver and none-diver alike, walking the “Bill” is great fun and Chesil beach is a wonderful natural history and wildlife magnet, I can strongly recommend the little Portland Museum, which holds many items from local wrecks and is a great source of information on them too…..

  I was to dive HMS Hood on several more occasions and enjoyed each dive rather more than I had the first. I got to love her and to look forward to getting back to Portland, the harbour has many attractions and a few more wrecks too, but it was a real disappointment to find that in January of 2004 all diving on HMS Hood was stopped by order of the Harbour Authorities. The excuse given was that HMS Hood was becoming unstable, and that the fear of accidental death was becoming evermore likely to divers on her. I cannot comment on ulterior motives for such a ban, it is unique as far as I know throughout the UK and it’s waters, and a dangerous precedent in terms of sport diving. I had heard from divers locally that plates on Hood’s hull were visibly moving in high swells, but that is not unheard of in shipwrecks across the globe. I had also heard that the massive engines, which some divers had found access routes to, were about to come adrift from the hull and would inevitably drop to the sea-bed from above, but that is often the case inside ship-wrecks, where all kinds of fixtures and fittings dislodge and can injure or kill the unwitting or unlucky. I loathe over-regulation, the pathetic “nanny” state tactics where we are all “a danger to ourselves” if we are allowed anything more than bottle feeding, whilst wrapped in cotton wool……..I like to make my own assessments of what presents a danger to me, whatever I am doing, and I am completely against such a ban, it is long overdue overturning in my opinion…..I’d love to dive HMS Hood again and know many others who remember her fondly would too!

 

  It is perhaps ironic that the very first wreck I ever dived was the James Egan Layne, very probably the most dived shipwreck in the world, and probably one of the most popular….if Carling made shipwrecks…….

The James Egan Layne (Plymouth, England)

  This was only my 15th open water dive, and for those who know the wreck it was the main Bow section, it would be years later I dived the stern section of the wreck which isn’t that far from the main wreck, but distinctly separate from it

  The James Egan Layne was a “Liberty Ship” of WWII vintage, essentially utility boats made in the US in record times, basically of necessity, to out produce those lost to U Boats. The Liberty ships were made to the same pattern in multiple shipyards across the USA, they were welded, a fairly new technique, where ships of previous generations were steel hull plates riveted together. Riveting was a method of joining Two overlapping plates by drilling through them, pushing near molten dowels through the holes, and hammering the ends to make them “pin” the Two plates together. This was a slow and arduous method, meaning shipbuilding took many months, sometimes years to complete. Welding, by contrast, is a technique where an electric current is passed through metal between Two plates butted up against each other in a “run”, the metal creates a molten “bond” between the plates essentially joining them together, permanently, in a very much shorter time. Liberty ships could be “churned out” at an astonishing rate of 3 ships every 2 days over 18 shipyards in the US

  The James Egan Layne was launched in 1944 and named after a US marine Engineer lost aboard another ship, the Esso Baton Rouge, sunk in the same manner, by a U Boat torpedo in 1942……… ironically the year U399, so central to the story of the James Egan Layne, was built. The James Egan Layne was a part of the US war effort, ferrying supplies vital to the UK and its allies, fighting Hitler and the Nazis in Europe.

  The James Egan Layne joined convoy BTC 103 ferrying supplies from Barry Island (Wales), en route for Ghent (Belgium), when she unwittingly became a victim of the German U Boat U399 (Wikipedia) commanded by Oberleutnant Heinz Buhse. U399 had been laid down in Kiel shipyard 12th Nov 1942, launching 4th December 1943, and Buhse was on his first patrol after joining the 11th flotilla out of Bergen (Norway) and aged just 29 (U Boat Net)

 The James Egan Layne was hit on the 21st March 1945 and survived the torpedo attack, with no casualties, to be towed ashore by the tugs Flaunt & Atlas (Wikipedia) in Whitsands Bay West of Plymouth. The U399 didn’t have the same luck as the James Egan Layne, only 5 days later she was sent to the bottom by the Frigate HMS Duckworth (U Boat Net)  and 46 German U Boatmen went down with her….miraculously 1 survived!

  I recall there being little current running on the day I dived her, 10th of July 1991, I was taken by the huge amount of dead mans fingers on her, she literally looked White along huge sections of the landward side of the bow section, an eerie sight as anyone who has seen dead mans fingers will attest to……My Little Red Wreck Log records the dive “10/07/91 PLYMOUTH “JAMES EGAN LAYNE” Descended shot line to prow dropped over the side and moved round the prow, re-entered the prow section and dropped to the lowest accessible level, plenty of wreckage, good viz, up to 10m, small Pollack shoals and the odd small Wrasse lots to see, the superstructure is rotting heavily, access to one lower forward section same condition throughout. Air In 150 Out 50 Buddy Roy“

   I was with a diver called James and we were diving from Cee King, a 25′ hard boat out of Plymouth, we made our way through the very open hull on the Starboard side, then up through the Two deck levels we could easily access through the shattered remnants of the ribs and deck supports. I was spoiled on that first wreck dive, I loved it, for all its eerie Green haze and the limited 10m or so of viz we had on the dive, not bad for the area as it happens, I could make out mashed metal everywhere but I couldn’t readily identify much, I did see a couple of large reel-type objects, the kind industrial electric wire might be wound around on a civil construction site….There were fish too, Bib and small Pollack, occasionally, when we disturbed them from their shadowy hiding places, or they swam bizarrely down the hull plates in small shoals. They were nice to see and, along with the odd Wrasse, showed what a haven a shipwreck becomes to wild-life and soft corals everywhere

  At the time there was no way I could afford an underwater camera and there were not the huge internet resources now available to us, the image above is a great development, one which I believe came from Aberdeen University research, and a combination of Sonar and Bathymetrics (sea-bed topographics) along with some clever GPS work. It is amazing to see clearly where James and I swam on that first breath-taking dive, on one of this Earth’s most iconic shipwrecks…….