From the German: “Unterseeboot” literally….. undersea boat

  The very first wreck I dived on was the James Egan Layne in July of 1991, I was spellbound by her, sat on the bottom of Whitsand Bay, bows intact, as if she had been placed there to hide her for some clandestine purpose. It wasn’t until you dropped over her side and swim down her flank that you realise she is a shell, her structure remains but her insides have been torn apart and laid asunder by devastating force. It is only then perhaps, that you wonder at the means of her end, or perhaps you already knew her story, her desperate fight for shore and survival, the temporary success of her grounding in the bay and the removal of what could be salvaged before her forward holds flooded and she became a total loss…….. Her fate was that of many ships in those times between 1939 and 1945, “happy times” to begin with for those of the Kriegsmarine, the German Navy, those who sailed and crewed the Unterseeboot…..the U-Boats……… or “Grey Wolves” as they were grudgingly known to those at sea and caught in their periscopes 

  The U-Boat that sank the James Egan Layne was a type VIIc, one of the Type VII series, the workhorses of Karl Donitz’s “Wolf-Packs”, a lesson learned from the First World War (1914 to 1918). Grand Admiral Donitz, then an Oberleutnant zur See, had commanded UB 68, an earlier version of the U-boat, against the Allies in WWI. Donitz had seen the tactics England used to blockade the German fleet, keeping them corralled in their ports, to prevent them harassing the British fleet following the naval battle at Jutland. Donitz had seen the results, Germany had been brought to its knees in war by the Allied armies, and Germany’s population had been taken to starving point because her foreign supply routes had been denied them, by the British Royal Navy. Whilst a prisoner of war, his U-Boat having suffered technical problems forcing Donitz to surface and scuttle the boat, allowing his capture by the Royal Navy, Donitz wrote “Die U-Bootwaffe” (The U-boat Weapon), a paper on using U-Boats in “packs” (Rudeltaktik) and carrying out night attacks on enemy shipping. Donitz recommended using the Type VII U-Boat, a mid sized and reliable boat with a range eventually extended from 6200 miles to 8700 miles, ideal for the Atlantic……….. and Britain’s trade routes from the United States 

So the scene is set, between the wars Donitz spent his time following release from Allied captivity, in the Wiemar Republic, (the name given to Germany following the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, on the adoption of a new constitution in August of 1919), back in the Navy, he has risen through the naval ranks, quickly promoted to Kapitanleutnant. By 1928 Donitz was again promoted to Korvettenkapitan and, by the rise of Hitler to Reich Chancellor of Germany in 1933, he had reached the rank of Fregattenkapitan or “Commander”. It only took another year before he was again promoted, taking the rank of Kapitan zur See…..Navy Captain. Between 1933 and the declaration of war on Germany by the British in 1939 following the invasion of Poland, Donitz (a committed Nazi and supporter of Hitler) had been consistently promoted, and had reached the rank of “Konteradmiral” (Rear Admiral) and was the commander of Germany’s submarine fleet, or “Befehlshaber der Unterseeboot”, it took him no time at all to set his Grey Wolves to their task

  The type VII U-Boat was the workhorse of the Kriegsmarine submarine fleet, there were eventually “A” “B” “C” “D” & “F” variants although there were 3 of the “C” ( C, C41 & C42) variants carrying different configurations. Known as “Flak” boats, the type VIIC/41 were armed with anti-aircraft guns on their “Wintergardens” (the platform to the rear of the conning tower), by the close of the war, including the type C41 & C42’s, there had been 703 Type VII U Boats built. The basis of the VII U Boats, or origin of species, was the VIIA, there were 10 of these boats from a design of 1933, they were armed with 5 torpedo tubes, 4 to the bow (front) and a stern tube at the rear, for which they carried 11 torpedoes, unless designated as a minelayer when the torpedoes would be substituted for 2 “TMA” mines. They also had a deck gun, an 88mm breech loader for which they had 160 rounds of ammunition, this was the U boat variant that began World War II with a range of 6200 miles,  these boats were from the yards at Bremen on the river Weser & Kiel on the Baltic coast and were produced between 1935 and 1937

The drawback of the type VIIA was its operational distance, this was realised early on and corrected in the VIIB which had additional saddle-tanks fitted, carrying an extra 33 tons of diesel (U-Boat Types- Type VIIB: uboat.net/types/viib.htm accessed 9/07/20) adding 2500 miles to their range. There were 3 additional torpedoes (totalling 14), an additional 60 rounds for the deck gun (totalling 220 rounds), an increase in power giving them extra speed, now able to reach 18kts on the surface and 8kt submerged, and an additional rudder giving increased manoeuvrability. In all there were 24 type VIIB boats commissioned during WWII, the most successful of which was undoubtedly U 48, sinking 52 ships between April 1939 and its decommissioning in 1943 indeed, some of the most successful of the U Boats were Type VIIB’s Gunther Prien’s U 47, Otto Kretschmer’s U 99 and Joachim Schepke’s U 100

The next iteration of the VII class was the VIIC which was by far the most popular of the class, by the close of WWII 568 Type VIIC U Boats had been commissioned (of 703) these boats produced in Kiel, Bremen, Lubeck, Emden, Danzig, Stettin, Rostock  and Hamburg. The VIIC was slightly heavier than the B meaning she was slightly slower and was produced from 1940 to 1944. The VIIC quickly became the main of the U Boat fleet, seeing the introduction of the Flak boat configurations (VIIC41 and VIIC42), designed to combat air-attacks of the Allied Air-Force, whilst on the surface, re-charging their batteries and cleansing Air supplies

  The type VIIC was the most varied U-Boat Class and initially carried the 88mm SK C5 Deck Gun forward of the conning tower, standard between the years of 1940 and 1942. As the submarine war had changed considerably during the conflict, from wolf packs to “lone wolves”, (from surface “gun” attacks, to surface torpedo attacks, ultimately, almost exclusively, to submerged, periscope attacks), the forward deck gun had been generally discontinued, replaced with additional torpedoes in place of the Gun’s ammunition. The gradual increase of Allied air superiority and the British concentration of effort on the U-Boat threat, coupled with the Bletchley Park code-breakers successes, (breaking the Enigma encoding machines encryptions, used for co-ordinating U-Boat attacks and communications with their bases) had seen an increase in successful Allied air-attacks on surfaced U-Boats, culminating in one of those casualty’s (U 256) being modified to carry 3 “Flak” guns on the Wintergarden, immediately behind the conning tower

The birth of the VIIC/41 U-Boat fitted with Flak guns to counter the Allied air-attacks, resulted in 91 commissioned boats, generally entering the operational area in the Bay of Biscay. The VIIC/41’s were limited by a lower capacity for fuel, (reducing their range) presumably accounted for by more ammunition and the additional crew required for the manning of the Flak Guns. Compensation for the reduced range came in the form of a thicker pressure hull giving them a deeper operational depth, 120m (20m more than the VIIC) and a crush depth of 250m. The Germans were nothing if not innovators, experimentation with U-Boat configurations witnesses that “across the piece”, and the Type VII U-Boat types, although based on a generic platform, varied widely, even sometimes at the whim of their commanders. Innovations such as the Flak Traps, the inception of rescue boats in tubes, increased hull thickness to allow deeper diving and the latter day “Snorkels” fitted to allow re-charging of the electric motor batteries by running the diesel engines submerged, reducing the chances of detection………. all evidence adaption, innovation and improvisation

  I took a trip to Kiel in 2017 and spent a very wet and windy day at Laboe, visiting the only example remaining of a type VIIC/41 in the world. I have to say it was one of the best trips I have ever made and the boat itself is only one of the attractions in Laboe, the U-Boat service memorial and museum is literally 100m down the road from the stunning spectacle of U 995. To see this boat complete, and as she would have been in 1943 on her launch out of the Blohm und Voss yard in Hamburg, (just 50 or so miles from Laboe) on the beach alongside the coastal road there is quite something, you would be forgiven for wondering what on earth possessed anyone to place her there, but I am grateful to whom ever did!

  If ever there was an opportunity to feel the claustrophobia of the U-Boat, to imagine the heat, the noise, the overwhelming atmosphere of high carbon dioxide, mixed with Diesel fumes and sweat……. No matter which side of the conflict, a submariner’s life must have been a special level of Hell at times, it must have taken a special breed of men to undertake successive operational tours under such stressful conditions, let alone spend considerable time in such a toxic atmosphere, whilst attacking, or under attack. It is little wonder the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy Submariners are held in such high regard, nor that they hold a unique perspective…. “There are Two Types of Ship….Submarines….and Targets”   

The crew of the Type VII U-Boats were typically around 45 men, depending on the class, (the VIIC/41 having additional gunnery crew), the generic VII boat’s crew being made up of the Kommandant (OC), 2 Watch Officers (WO’s) a Chief Engineer (CE), 4 Chief Petty Officers (CPO’s) 8 Petty Officers (PO’s) and 29 Seamen, Gunners, Mechanics or “Other Ranks” (Doctor/Meteorologist/Cook etc) and all lived and breathed in shifts, hot bunking on a one out one in basis with little personal, or “off-duty” time whilst on patrols

U 995 is an impressive relic of the day, in pristine condition on the beach at Laboe with the sea behind her, she is not only an impressive sight from the outside, giving a sense of scale and perspective to the imaginings borne of countless movies, U 995 is even more impressive internally, serving as a record of the technology of the time. U Boats were the cutting edge of naval “tech” and were constantly innovating in search of deeper, longer patrols and ever more “stealth” technology, evidenced by the “Alberich” (Wagner’s occasionally “Invisible” Dwarf, King of the Nibelungen in the Ring Cycle Opera’s) experiments, the Asdic beating rubber covering on the stealth U Boat U 480. Commanded by Hans-Joachim Forster, U 480 was never detected by the British or Allied forces, despite being sent to patrol the heavily defended English Channel late in the war. U 480 eventually become a victim of tactical Deep Mines set in the English Channel, something even her “cloak of invisibility” could not have hidden her from   

U 995 is a remarkable piece of living history, a survivor of a service that lost 75% of its core to the Allies but still put to sea to the very end of hostilities, and, as a Type VII/C41,  she is a representative of somewhere around 10% of the entire Kriegsmarine Type VII fleet during WWII. The circumstances of her survival, damaged, awaiting the fitting of a “Schnorkel” in her berth in Trondheim at the close of the war, then surrendered to the British, before finally finding her way into the Norwegian Navy as the K Class “Kaura”, are remarkable to say the least. It is astonishing, in the circumstances, that she was saved by the German Navy League, (Wikipedia: “German SubmarineU-995”. On-line, Accessed 21/07/20) despite having been offered to the West German Government for 1 Deutschmark (way before the Euro), and transformed into the superb “living museum” that she is now

There were, eventually, other Type VII’s…….. the Type VII/C42 followed the C41, designed in 1942 to replace the VIIC and incorporating a thicker pressure hull (28mm Steel), this type was designed to increase the operational depth to 200m and the crush depth to 400m, doubling the VIIC capability in this respect. These boats were essentially identical to the Type VII/C41’s but with two periscopes on the conning tower, and carrying an additional 2 Torpedoes (total 16 carried). The VII/C42 design was almost immediately overshadowed by the introduction of the Type XXI “Elektro Boat”, perhaps the very first true “submarine” designed specifically to fight “untersee” rather than compromise between surface and the deep. There were also Type VII D & F boats, the Type “D”’s being longer than the “C”’s, configured as Mine layers, there were only 6 of this type, and 4 of the Type VIIF boats, generally acting as Torpedo transports (carrying up to 39 “fish” to re-supply other U Boats on extended patrols), or sometimes as attack craft, carrying 14 fish to use in anger. The Type VIIF boats ended the type VII U-Boat category, a once almost unbeatable force, a terrifying, hidden enemy, free to roam the seas unchallenged. By 1943 all of that had gone, the hunter had become the hunted, Enigma and Ultra had clashed……. and ultra had won, Bletchley Park knew where every U-Boat was, when every U-Boat set sail, and where every U-boat could be found once at sea……and even those wearing the new “cloak of invisibility” had to surface, were compelled to talk to the Fatherland, to report, to get new orders……..time had run out for the wolf pack, and the lone wolf was being hunted…….. relentlessly

Epilogue:

  So is this piece simply a glorification of the violence of submarine warfare, is it an admiration of those who risked everything to prowl the seas, taking down those who often didn’t even see them, before it was obvious their journey had ended and a nightmare had begun? Or is this a clinical look at the boats themselves, the technology that was brought to bear in such times of conflict, an abject and detached view of ancient enemies and their prosecution of, and the machinery behind, their application of aggression? There is something of all those tenets in the piece if I’m honest, I begrudgingly admire those who endured such conditions, under unforgiving seas, in order to serve their Fatherland. Equally, there is a deep admiration, and equally despair for those who served their country, bringing supplies across hostile seas in often terrible conditions, in order to sustain and endure, only to come under attack from hidden enemies, seemingly from out of nowhere

    There are those who say we should abandon the relics of history and that keeping these reminders gives the cause of those who prosecuted global war and terrible human suffering a legitimacy, to those people I would honestly have little to say save read Orwell………. There is something tangible in the preservation of such terrifying weapons and there is something cathartic too, having served, in at least a small way, I can honestly say, and truly believe, one man’s terrorist (enemy) is another man’s freedom fighter! If you understand history (apropos of Santayana), if you study the context of those in conflict, you will find most engaged in such saga’s are there as a result of circumstance, good men overtaken by events, or driven by rhetoric to take up arms for their ideal or an ideal they cannot escape. That does not excuse atrocities committed in the name of “cause”, it simply acknowledges the predicament of those caught between the tectonic plates of history, outside of their control and with little choice but to take part, either by luck or judgement

The 5 why’s of a real “ship-wreck”

      So for some reason I have decided controversy is a good topic of conversation, the title gives the subject matter away which means we are going to be discussing, or I am (you can chip in in the comments or feedback sections on here if you like debate?) the status of Ship-wrecks. I have, on occasion in this “diary of a madman”, already mentioned my perspective on ship-wrecks, and my personal take on all other items found on the sea floor, not considered ship-wrecks, by me at least. The “5 why’s” in the sub-title of this piece might not be familiar to anyone inclined enough to read this, however it is a common tool used in manufacturing/engineering, and several other disciplines, In order to determine the root cause of a problem, the “5” being the generally accepted number of iterations optimal to producing an answer, or at least coming to a feasible conclusion…..You could use more than 5 repetitions, you could drill way down to determine some problems, Air-Crash investigation is unlikely to be satisfied by only 5 levels of investigation to determine the reason behind a disaster, nor perhaps a board of enquiry into the Costa Concordia for example…..but 5 should be ample to suit my purpose

  There are several ways to approach the real issue but perhaps the best is to work out the exam question we are trying to answer, which, in various forms is: “what really constitutes a Ship-wreck?” There are many types of incident leading to a ship-wreck, collision, fire, storm, mechanical failure, act of war, sabotage, navigational error to name some of the most common. There are other, perhaps less obvious, circumstances that can lead to ship-wrecks, insurance fraud probably being the most common, and maybe to a lesser extent, neglect, although these will be a blurring of lines for the most part, as would a ship sinking as a result of human error, such as the Herald of Free Enterprise or the Estonia, where several issues combined to take a ship under. I suppose these are the easy and then the slightly more challenging of the categories, the ship may have sunk as a result of an impact on a reef, but was that really navigational error or a struggling owner taking a dangerous route out of a sticky financial situation, or perhaps a ship past its best costing more to run than it brought in as revenue….. Anyone having dived the Red Sea could probably debate several vessels that might fit either of those descriptives

  Perhaps another valid question might be “why” do we need to determine what constitutes a ship-wreck, does it really matter? Isn’t it fairly obvious in most, if not almost all of the circumstances vessels come to grief, and should divers even care? There’s a rub there somewhere, at least for me, I will share what I mean later in this piece but suffice to say, for some reason, it is very important to me that the ship-wrecks I dive are “real”, they floundered, came upon circumstances beyond the control of their crew or captain, they went to the bottom for a reason, albeit accident or purposeful destruction (as in an act of war…), mechanical or human failures….. Now that we are on the subject of personal feelings let me be clear, this piece and those on the site will always be my own perspective and nothing more, I am very happy all who stumble on these ramblings have their own opinion and perspectives and that is a healthy situation, don’t think I have any “deep” meaningful insight to any of this, it is me writing up what I hope may be of interest, nothing more….ever! So, the first “Why” then, why do we need to determine which are true shipwrecks and which are not? I will answer with my point of view: There are perhaps hundreds of thousands of ships under the sea, of those there are hundreds of thousands of stories surrounding the manner of sinking, the circumstances leading up to the sinking and the stories of those involved in the sinking, this is our globe’s maritime history. It is impossible to dive many, if not most of those wrecks due to depth, the middle ocean cannot be reached by any other means, at present, than deep submersibles (Jason, Argo, Mir etc…..) or ROV’s, divers are confined to the continental shelf wrecks, and many of those are far too deep to dive with scuba kit too. So divers are limited to the perhaps hundred thousand shallow-ish continental shelf wrecks, most down to no more than 100m or so maximum, for the most adventurous of our technical mixed gas and re-breather divers. Perhaps we are now down to 75000 wrecks in the more “normal” diveable range…..these figures are just guess-work, nothing more, and an exercise in understanding where I am coming from…..of all the diveable wrecks in the seas of the world, it is easy to see there is not time in a single life-time to do more than a tiny percentage of those wrecks, no matter how young you start and how long you remain an active diver during your lifetime. So partly, for me at least, I have no time to do anything but dive the wrecks I want to and can get to, and even then I will leave this earth having a huge wish-list remaining un-dived and frustratingly out of reach, and as a result, why would I want to dive anything but the “real” amongst the reachable accessible shipwrecks of the seas? So I want to know the wrecks I dive are genuine, real wrecks and that the history behind and surrounding those wrecks is, essentially, genuine time-travel!

  So to the second “why” of our piece, why is the history of “Other” shipwrecks not equally of interest to me? If the paragraph above answers the “why real shipwrecks” question, and mostly that is embodied in the wreck’s history, why isn’t there equal value in the history of say HMS Scylla off Plymouth?  HMS Scylla was a Leander class frigate (F71) commissioned in 1970, and ended her career, following de-commissioning in 1993, as an artificial reef in 2004 after the reduction of the fleet under “options for Change”, possibly the worst ever re-organisation of British Forces in History. Scylla had been the last ship built at Devonport docks, and had served with distinction, so what makes a “wreck” like Scylla less interesting than the James Egan Layne sitting just a few miles from her in Whitsand Bay? Let’s answer the second “why” first as we just introduced the third unintentionally early……  Why “other” shipwrecks such as Scylla are of little interest to me (personally) is slightly more than a simple answer and surrounds many factors, some of those would be: I hate the sanitising of a ship, by commercial interests, as it robs the authenticity of the ship itself…..if a ship has real armaments and complex, dangerous areas in it, so be it, why would you think a scaffold pole welded into a gun breech would be a fitting substitute to the real barrel? Why do those sinking these ships believe cutting all but the metal shell of the ship from its interior, and gas-axing huge holes in her to facilitate “safe swim-through’s” is better than leaving the ship whole and just cleaning her environmentally? What remains, when sunk, is a travesty of the ship itself, gutted and impotent, all vestiges of her purpose gone and just a carved up hull littering the sea bed. The ship may have an illustrious past, may have been significant in many ways, but has been taken to a site and then deliberately sunk and thus has lost relevance in terms of that historic context, it has been placed deliberately, no association with the descriptive “wreck” should be claimed. If, as some would claim, the genuine purpose of the exercise is to create an artificial reef, surely that can be achieved using far cheaper, less intrusive means such as concrete structures used to create breakwaters and groynes? No the real purpose of ships like Scylla is to generate income for dive-centers locally who have nothing, or little to offer, or those who see real shipwrecks as “dangerous” or as disappearing history which, when truly ravaged to flat metal plates on the sea bed will mean no further wreck diving business…..

  So to “why” three: why is the history of a wreck like the James Egan Layne of more interest than Scylla? This is more difficult to answer as both vessels clearly have history and both would make an interesting study adding to the experience of diving them, and yes I have dived both, although I have dived the James Egan Layne of personal choice on several occasions, and Scylla only on a re-breather course as part of the course, as planned by those delivering it. Would I have chosen to dive Scylla, even as part of the course myself, no, categorically, the James Egan Layne would have been far better in my opinion. So what leads to this situation? I think for me it is the circumstances of the sinking, the two ships were sunk deliberately, one by an act of war, the other by an act of commercial intent. Is that commercial intent paramount in my view of the relevance of the Scylla as a dive-site, not completely, but it is definitely a contention. I do not believe in littering the sea-bed with such ships when there are already many true wrecks, with real history, that resulted in their demise at the point they were last afloat and resulted in their situation, orientation and state of preservation at the wreck site when dived. I think the key here, for me at least, is that the immediate history, the final act of that history, was the cause of the sinking of the ship, not some powder monkey with a wired charge sequence, initiating explosions for a horde of spectators………

  Why four is in and of itself a complexity, a “split infinitive” of wreck determination if you wish…… “to deliberately wreck” as in the multitude of wrecks of foreign flag operators strewn around the reefs of the world, strongly suspected of being “insurance jobs”. So “why four” is why potentially deliberately sunk vessels, likely to have been insurance claims, are not considered (by me) exactly the same category as those such as Scylla ie: “placed attractions”? Another layer of complexity appears here as I cannot give an absolute answer, where there is doubt, (and the idea of sinking any ship deliberately to enable an insurance claim, undoubtedly is predicated on the intention to cause as much “doubt”, as to the real nature of the sinking, as to mean even the most thorough investigator cannot say for certain the accident did not occur naturally……), then there is as much genuine historical context to the sinking, as not. Is that enough for me in truth, no, the idea I am diving on a ship deliberately sunk by its captain as an act of paid vandalism does indeed detract from the dive somewhat, however the understanding that it cannot be determined definitively means the wreck is a desirable dive, far more so than that of a sanitised business venture designed to attract gullible, or undiscerning divers

  To conclude our “5 whys” I offer you the final and most sublime of all the questions, “why worry” why would anyone care if a ship is classed by some obscure old diver from Liverpool as a “real” wreck or not? Well, that’s more for you than it is for me to be honest! Do you care why I have brought this issue up, perhaps, perhaps not? Are you aligned with the purist view, that a wreck is determined solely by its manner of end, by the sheer force of nature or act of aggression, perhaps by the miss-management of its maintenance, its cargo, or by the conduct of its master or crew, or are you more aligned to the “cool new wreck” stance taken by those dumping surplus shipping into the seas around our world? I ask as, inevitably, you will be curious to see ship-wrecks (as divers), you will help determine the course of the dive industry in the future, whilst I will perhaps not, for too much longer. I urge you all to consider the wrecks you dive in a more enquiring way, how did it get here, what was its mission, who were its crew and what caused it to sink…..I have done this for the last 30 years of diving and it has given me decades of fascination, frustration, elation and wonder…..if nothing else the “why worry” should pose more of a question than all the others together, for it asks you if you care….and the answer, as far as I am concerned, should always be yes!

   Have I enjoyed diving on “placed attractions”? Hell yes, some of you will have read the piece on Stanegarth and my family connections to the little Rea tug, I hope that piece articulated the value of a placed attraction and showed the affection I have for the vessel and its history. Some may wonder how it is possible to hold such defined views on “real” wrecks and still dive the odd exception? I dived not so long ago on an American vessel of WWII vintage, the Indra, a US Navy Achelous class “Landing Craft Repair” vessel, I had no idea the wreck was sunk as an artificial reef after the war, the ship itself genuine enough, and the dive was a good one, teeming with wild-life, (an example of the successes of the artificial reef programme off N.Carolina) and the wreck was in fantastic condition, whilst others we visited had seen far more damage and dereliction over the previous 65 plus years. It was not until I got back on board the dive boat and started asking the questions I had not had time to do so before the dive, what sank her, what was she doing in the area, that I got the story of her sinking as a reef and it was such a disappointment, what had been a marvellous dive to that point had now taken on the air of a deception, de-valuing her to me and meaning I had wasted an opportunity to carry out 2 dives on a local U Boat wreck, for the sake of a dive on an artificial reef. The dive was an enjoyable one, but the circumstances meant it was just a dive, of no historical significance to me from that point……such a shame, but take a look, see what you think!

Take a dive on her with me………

Stoney Cove Leicester

The Stanegarth was originally built in 1910 as a steam powered tug by Lytham Ship Builders Co. for the Rea Transport Co. Ltd. of Liverpool, that means she is older than The Titanic! In a bizarre twist of fate Stanegarth took longer to sink than the titanic too….

    Stanegarth was built as a steam tug, steam power being the marvel of the Victorian age, she carried a small boiler driven steam engine powering her whilst she carried out typical duties of a tug of the day, although the main of her career would be spent towing dredging barges between Sharpness and Purton on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. Stanegarth was converted to diesel power, along with the addition of an enclosed wheelhouse, in 1957. Found abandoned at Purton, on the Gloucestershire Sharpness canal at in 1999, Stanegarth was saved from an ignominious fate by Stoney Cove and Diver magazine, in a joint operation which saw her installed over several months into the cove as a diving attraction. Now, whatever your take on inland dive sites and the attractions within, Stanegarth is the largest ship in any dive centre by a long way! Stanegarth can be found on a 190° bearing form the Bus Stop and can also be found on a 220° bearing form the slip way

The Rea family started business as Liverpool coal merchants in 1872 begun by Russell Rea, who later went into partnership with his brother James in 1879. They started “bunkering” coal with a vessel called “Cumbria” and began the Rea Towing Company in 1881, adding the tugs Holmgarth and Aysgarth in 1899 and 1900 respectively, these were quickly followed by the tugs Fallgarth and Edengarth early in the 1900’s (Collard. I: “Mersey Tugs Through Time” Amberley Publishing) which showed the Rea Coal and Rea Towing companies were doing well!

There followed the Rea Transport Company, formed in 1902, to service the steamship trade out of Liverpool docks on the River Mersey. I grew up in Liverpool, as many of you who read this blog will know from the about me page, Rea tugs were a part of my young life, they not only coaled the steamships, but later fueled and maneuvered my Father’s own Blue Funnel ships, along with ships from the Allen line and Glen line and many others I’m sure, in fact the Alfred Holt businesses had shares in the Rea towing and the Rea Transport companies, making it easier, and perhaps cheaper to do business in Vittoria and the other Holt line Liverpool Docks. All the tugs of the various Rea companies were “Garth’s” the Stanegarth being perhaps the 10^th tug owned by the Rea family of businesses, brought into service in 1910 to tow coal barges round the docks and the Manchester Ship Canal

  Those who worked on and around these little tugs were men of their time, gritty and used to hardships we can only imagine, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times….the heady excitement of the Victorian Empire, Britain ruling the waves and 2/3 of the globe, Brunel and the Great Western Railway, and the Great Eastern, his behemoth ship, the largest moving object on the planet at that time, not 20 years since, a rusting hulk acting as nothing more than a giant advertising bill-board to the people of Liverpool, beached in the Mersey. As the great Eastern lay slowly dying, Britain ran headlong into an arms race with Austro-Hungary and Germany and the outbreak of world war 1, just 4 years following the launch of Stanegarth, and only 2 after the launch and catastrophic loss of the largest ship on earth in that era, the Titanic, another ship who’s home port was Liverpool

    How can we mention Stanegarth in the same sentence as the Titanic you might ask, well our little tug wasn’t only towing barges, she was as capable of towing and mooring the great ships as she was the more mundane tasks of a working boat on the Mersey, indeed Stanegarth features in a small way in the lives of other ships far more regal, in March of 1917 the Allen Line Ship RMS Victorian’s Captain’s log reads: 21 March 1917: At Liverpool Lat 53.43, Long -3.01 (In Canada Dock, Liverpool) 6.30am: Tugs “Bison” and “Stanegarth” alongside. 6.40am: Tugs fast, cast off and commenced hauling out into Canada Basin 7.00am: In Canada Basin. 7.15am: Commenced hauling back into Canada Dock 7.50am: All fast in Canada Dock Berth No I am: Harland and Wolf’s men employed on re-armament. Hands painting and cleaning ship. Shore workmen employed in engine-room 11.40am: J Lythgoe (fireman) deserter brought on board by civil police and confined to cells pm: Hands employed painting and various duties 6.00pm: Party of men ashore for entertainment”

Those who worked on Stanegarth speak of the life with warm nostalgia, J.H. Cropper of Wallasey, a fireman with Rea in 1905 (in Collard. I: “Mersey Tugs Through Time” Amberley Publishing) remembers: “….if we were ashore for two nights each week we considered ourselves fortunate. Each member of the crew had also to take a turn watching the tug in the docks during liberty hours. It was seven days a week duty with no stipulated hours and fixed wages” and describing the routine of tug work “Tugs had to be constantly on the alert, sometimes for days before the expected vessel actually arrived. Never the less crews were happy: the spirit was like that of a family….”

My connection with Stanegarth was never one I knew, when I was invited to see her sunk in Stoney cove, on June the 6^th in 2000, a couple of days before my 40^th birthday. I had no idea Stanegarth had been a Rea ship, nor that she had worked in Liverpool docks. I was honoured to have been invited by Alan, Margaret and Rob to be a member of the enclosure at her sinking, getting a quayside view of the event as Stanegarth gently took on water and eventually slipped below the surface of the cove to become the largest ship in an inland site in the UK. Now I am clear on the term “shipwreck”, the Stanegarth is no wreck, she is a “placed attraction” and if she had been sunk at sea in the same manner I would have absolutely no interest in her. I know that sounds odd as I consider the Stanegarth an important piece of history, with a superb heritage and a huge personal connection, however, I have what friends and divers I have spent time with describe as a “weird”, and if they are being kind, “purist” approach to wrecks…..if it didn’t sink as a result of unforeseen circumstances, in an unintended manner, then whatever it is, it isn’t a wreck…. simple! I love the fact that for years of diving her, and teaching divers on her, I had no idea of the connection to Liverpool and the Blue Funnel line, so prominent in my family history

   Stanegarth is important to me for other reasons too, one of my closest friends is interred with her, his ashes forever intertwined with Stanegarth and his presence very much there, with me, every dive I take on her. Stanegarth may not be a “wreck” in the truest sense but she represents something different, an opportunity, in a fairly benign (tideless, currentless, reasonably shallow…etc) environment, to train for some serious wreck diving, and that is priceless. I have taken dozens of students to, and through Stanegarth and they have benefited from her, without knowing a thing of her true history and her past life, from the date 2 years before the launching of the Titanic, to her sinking in Stoney Cove in June of 2000 some 90 years later!

 

  Whatever Stanegarth saw whilst working at the Liverpool Docks, by far the larger part of her life was on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. Stanegarth was a tough old girl, her steam engine and boiler having been replaced with a more modern and efficient diesel engine in 1957, a full 47 years after her launch in the Ribble estuary, she went on to work right up until the 80’s hauling dredged mud, essential to keeping waterways clear for shipping, from Gloucester to Purton, it isn’t clear exactly when Stanegarth was laid up in Purton, but she was found, abandoned, by Stoney Cove in 1999. The last working photo I have seen puts Stanegarth somewhere around 1985-90, so if we give her the benefit of doubt and say 1990 that means Stanegarth had a working career of 80 years, not half bad for a 1910 Tug….a tough old girl indeed!     

   So when Stoney Cove decided Stanegarth needed saving and deserved a better end than to just rot away at Purton, they could hardly have anticipated the scale of the enterprise they had taken on. From the off Stanegarth seemed reluctant to take up Stoney’s offer of a new home, it was touch and go for a while as to whether she would get on the transport, the crane brought in to lift her very nearly didn’t…… Stanegarth weighed in teasingly near the crane’s limit and it was only when the fore and aft bulwarks were cut off, that the tug could be lifted and the trip to Stoney Cove began

    Those of you who wonder at the deep scars in the tarmac running some 20ft down the road from the middle car-park at Stoney Cove, need look no further than the photo of Stanegarth’s arrival, the truck carrying her grounded the trailer and dug in deep…..I think that is Rob scratching his head over the wisdom of just saying “fcuk it….keep going!” Eventually though, Stanegarth made it to the bottom car-park and was harboured up at the wall of the old shop entrance for further work, cleaning, preparing and removing her engine, and making safe the areas needed before placing her in the cove for the rest of time

  I was privileged to be given a set of photos of the progress of Stanegarth, from derelict homeless abandonment into the most popular inland dive site in the UK, I still have them and occasionally look back at the effort the volunteers at the cove put in to make her such an attraction. Looking back, Stanegarth seemed to be by the shop for an eternity, taking up space normally allotted for the various dive-schools and training organisations, mine included. I don’t recall exactly how long it took to make her as safe as Alan and the crew needed before she could be sunk, but I do know that the preparations were meticulous and environmental concerns were paramount to what was done

  If it had been me, I’d have left the engine and transmission in place, I always feel she is too “bare” when passing through her, it would have been far more “authentic” to leave the mechanics intact and I was never really sure why Alan and the staff didn’t do that to be honest, I suppose I should have asked…… Sadly Alan passed away in January of 2018, he is missed by all those that knew him, (for my part only in a small way), Alan gave me my first account at Stoney Cove when I started Deep Blue Diving, and it was Alan who allowed me to test the club RIB around the cove one Saturday, after diving had wrapped up for the day, before I bought it. Alan was a lovely chap, never scared of getting his hands dirty and always asking after those who used the cove and those he knew who dived there, it was Alan that started Stoney Cove as a scuba diving venture, and all that was done there, and has been achieved there stands as his legacy, including the Stanegarth!

  I have dived Stanegarth hundreds of times, in all seasons and all temperatures, I love coming across her Anchor chain, and following it up to her bow, or watching her loom out of the murky Green waters of the cove as her hull towers over me. It is great to have such a vessel to train on, to take divers into, knowing they are as safe as anyone can be inside a ship’s hull under the water. Stanegarth may have been deemed purposeless by her former employers, but that has not diminished her use as a piece of history, available to a unique set of people who still find her value inestimable! Stanegarth has been filmed and photographed thousands of times, has been lined off and through thousands of times, and she is always my favourite part of the cove, an old friend and the memory of old friends brought back just by being around her

  I think it fitting that such a stalwart of the Rea Towing Company of Liverpool has not been allowed to rust away in some forgotten berth, far from her origins, far from her purpose. Far better that Stanegarth sits peacefully under the cove where tens of thousands visit her under the water to train, to photograph, or just to dive her and enjoy. Perhaps some know something of her history, perhaps most do not, just that she is the biggest inland vessel underwater, either way it is wonderful that Stanegarth gets to spend her days at rest, simply there……an underwater tribute to 90 years of history and 80 years of hard work, rewarded in a way, with divers from all over the world coming to see her

Take a Dive with me on Stanegarth……..

I was privileged to join a Dive Expedition to the Falkland Islands, Lead by Don Shirley in January of 1996, the year I would eventually leave the Army. I had met Don on a previous Army Diving Expedition to Jamaica and we had got on very well, despite the difference in rank, I a lowly Lance Corporal, Don a Warrant Officer. Don was someone I would soon call friend rather than Sir, a down to earth and highly professional soldier, but also a keen adventurer with an infectious spirit and a healthy regard for those willing to take a step outside the ordinary! Don had planned the Expedition over the last year or so, with the ambition of diving under the ice of South Georgia, this would be thwarted by the desperate acts of an Army expedition the year before we arrived, where a canoe party forced back to shore by storms at sea, failed to re-supply the party that had tabbed (marched) the island and were isolated, without the rations carried in the sea canoes…..to the demise of some of the local penguin population. It was felt by the Islanders that our expedition should be denied diving South Georgia as a result, probably just a reprisal for the outrage caused by the roasting of a protected species, but it pissed us all off….there’s millions of the bloody things……. everywhere….. and Don had actually served through the Falklands war, ungrateful bloody Bennie’s!

Anyhow, I digress, when is a shipwreck not a shipwreck? Well, in this case when it is “Protector III” lying ashore in New Island’s Coffin Harbour. She sits just around the corner from the Two settlement houses occupied by the Islands Two inhabitants, the Islanders and renowned wildlife artists, Ian Strange and his immediate neighbor Tony Chater. Protector III was built in Port Greville, Nova Scotia, Canada in 1942 during the latter stages of WWII. She was of wooden construction, built at the Wagstaff and Hatfield Shipyard for the British Admiralty, with the original purpose of mine sweeping. The Germans had made significant use of magnetic mines, dropped by parachute into the seas surrounding the UK, wooden minesweepers had a distinct advantage in counter-mine operations, obviously, not being made of Steel, and undoubtedly saved many ships by successfully clearing magnetic and acoustic mines as a result. Protector III served until the end of the war, then finding employment in various roles before being bought to be used in the Falklands, as a sealer, and later as a fishing and general work-boat, an ignominious end to a heroic career. She was beached, (hence, although “wrecked” is not truly a “Ship-Wreck” in true diving terms, for quite obvious reasons,) in Coffin Harbour, New Island in 1969. Co-incidentally the Southern Craftsman Expedition was bunked on New Island for the second phase of our Diving adventure, following a week long stint on Weddell Island

The Sight of Protector III was unusual at the time, to say the least, here was a complete shipwreck, sat on the beach, as if she could be re-floated and, with a little ingenuity, resume her journey…. Nothing is ever, truly what it seems, at higher tides it was evident Protector III’s hull was not in any way sound as she did not float, rather she lay slightly to Starboard as if relaxing in the surf. It makes you wonder if there are many of her type remaining as examples around the world as, from a historical perspective, Protector III represents a valiant, and relatively unsung fleet. Such vessels crews, who’s “Navy Reserve” status meant many were regular trawler-men, disdainful of rank and Naval discipline, but were still willing to undertake some of the most dangerous work on the high seas, hunting and de-fusing that which could easily destroy far larger ships than theirs! At the time it wouldn’t have taken so much to get Protector III back afloat I’m sure, no matter though, now she is in quite different condition as photo’s taken more recently show

I cannot find Protector III’s previous MMS designation, it would be nice to add a little of her earlier history to this piece, she could have been a “Llewellyn” derivative having been made at Wagstaff & Hatfield, but there would need to be evidence of that and I have none but anecdotal to go on. It is clear that as Protector III there was modification carried out when she was re-roled as a “Sealer”, the Mine array reel was removed, and her transom replaced to fill the stern-gap the mine drag-lines were deployed through. On the picture of MMS 636 you can see the Bow carries the modification carried out to many of the wooden minesweepers, a device fitted to cope with “Acoustic” mines, a later development deployed to go off based on the “sound signature” of passing shipping. Basically this was a hammer affair used to create an artificial “signature” to set-off mines before more valuable ships were taken down in passing

What can be said about these small, and not truly “Navy” (in the “Royal” sense of the term) ships, is that they carried out incredibly hazardous work. I have dived HMT Elk some way off the Breakwater in the sound at Plymouth, a story for another post on here later, sunk whilst carrying out operations in the sound and hitting a mine in 1940. Many served, and many were lost, taking incredibly brave and not well recognised heroes to the depths in the service of their nation. The “T” in HMT is not a mistake, the minesweepers of the class were designated “Trawlers” or, to give their full title, His Majesty’s Trawler….. abbreviated to HMT

Here was a ship, “wrecked” but ashore, the worst thing possible for a wreck diver. It didn’t help that there were other wrecks around the Falklands that we were not permitted to dive, compounding the disappointment brought by the forbidding of our under-ice diving ambitions. The Admiralty and the Ministry of Defence had refused us permission to Dive the Falklands war wrecks of HMS Coventry and HMS Antelope, although at the time none of us but Don would have dived Coventry as she sits deep at 90m, I’d love the chance today though! I did get to dive a true Falkland island wreck earlier whilst on Weddell Island, and would dive another, later, whilst in Port Stanley, but you will need to visit other posts on here in the future to hear those tales……..

There are several co-incidences in respect to the Protector III, she gave me a perfect look at what HMT Elk would have been like when at sea, something I loved when I was diving the Elk years later. The second is the similarity to HMT Texas which I dived in Jamaica, all Three of these gritty and heroic little ships sit upright and proud, in Three different locations around the world, and fascinated me whilst underwater and ashore. But there is one more, although a little more tenuous, co-incidence here, Protector III sits in front of a museum now, when I was on New Island this was a desolate stone building full of whale-bone and the relics of those who pursued the leviathans of the deep in Southern Oceans. I did some research following my stay on New Island and found a little more about the site, having spoken to an American couple who were gradually restoring the building one holiday at a time, at their own expense I might add!

The coincidences continue as the hut was built by Charles Barnard, marooned on New Island June 11th 1813, June 11th of course being my Birthday. Charles Barnard was on New Island as a result of the wreck of the ship Isabella, out of Port Jackson, New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) en route to England when, being so badly handled by her Captain, George Higton, she ran aground off the Falklands on Eagle Island in February of 1813. Bear in mind 1812 was the American war of Independence….(a kind of “Pre-Brexit” divorce case where the USA (Largely British) dumped Britain….) leading to a tale of Two ships crews…….. the potential rescuers of those wrecked on the Isabella, from the American Sealer “Nanina”, and the remnant crew of the British ship Isabella, marooned on Eagle Island. Thereby hangs a tale best read in David Miller’s (Ex-Rupert in the Signals) excellent book “The Wreck of the Isabella” (ISBN 0-85052-456-3) which I read shortly after getting back from the Southern Craftsman Expedition. For those who can’t wait, or who will not look up such a story, it is one of treachery, where rescuers become the marooned after mutiny………It is far too good a read, and too well researched, to do more than whet the appetite here…….. I promise those reading it will not be disappointed!

So what has become of the Protector III today? I took a look on the internet and quite quickly learned that time has taken it’s toll, sadly the valiant survivor of WWII still sits in the lonely bay on New Island, and the weather and the years have not been kind. Protector III has become a shadow of her former self and it seems inevitable that she will eventually fall into the sands of time, as we all must. There is always a glimmer of hope, eventually the world woke up to the potential loss of the SS Great Britain, another long time resident of the Falkland Islands, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s first Iron, Propeller driven, Ship in the world. Now I am not saying Protector III is of the same importance or of the same innovation, but who know’s perhaps she is the last of her line and somewhere, someone cares enough……..

  My first dive abroad was 27/06/1992 in Croatia, from Punta Verudella, a small promontory of the Istrian peninsula on the coast of what was until a couple of months beforehand known as Yugoslavia. For those of you old enough to remember Yugoslavia the country had only opened itself up to tourism over perhaps Two decades or so, it had quickly become a favourite amongst UK holidaymakers being as beautiful as Italy and the Amalfi coast but, being less developed and far less known, it was far and away cheaper and much less crowded but just as engaging! I found myself serving in what was known at the time as “former Yugoslavia” by the ministry of defence and her employees, I had been “invited” to tour with the United Nations on a little jaunt known as “UNPROFOR”, or to us Op Hanwood, an intervention if you like, between the warring factions of Serbia and Croatia, the purpose of which seemed to be to become a pain in the ass of local combatants, “observing” their atrocities but failing to be allowed to do anything about them…… A piss poor state of affairs we all hated in equal measure!

  So why did it all go Pete Tong then? It’s a long story, the short version goes something like this: Round the late 1800’s the Serbs and the Croats and Slovenians were fed up with being eyed up by the Austro-Hungarians, they wanted independence and “nationhood”, Around 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand is visiting the area, Sarajevo in what was Bosnia, and a Serbian separatist dissident, Gavrilo Princip shot Franz and his wife Sophie, severely pissing off the Austro Hungarians who decide invasion is a good idea….Cue the alignment of most of Europe, the Ottomans of Turkey and Russia and the onset of the “war to end all wars” otherwise known as WWI….Things don’t go well for the Austro-Hungarians, now more popularly known as the “Hun” ….or “Germans” if you prefer, and after Woodrow Wilson and the Americans step in to make a point (14 of them to be exact) they surrender and the world forgets what had become the “Versailles State” ….. After various political meanderings, step-up Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia, who, in 1929 decided to suspend parliament and declare the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with himself as regent (in brief, and yes….this is the short version!),

all goes swimmingly until Alexander’s assassination in 1934 and then the inevitable World War 2 point 0 (WWII)….when Germany invades Yugoslavia, easily toppling the status Quo, the inevitable resistance arises, centring around a certain Communist rebel, Josip Broz Tito who’s HQ was on the island of Vis, about which, far more later in various posts on here, and, following the inevitable collapse of the Axis forces and the sound beating of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, once again after the belated entry of the USA into the conflict after having left Britain to stand alone for almost 4 years (there’s a pattern in here somewhere….) ….where were we, oh yes Tito…….

raised to leader of the nation of Yugoslavia, by popular demand, and ratified by the 3 winning allies, Britain, Russia and the USA (a bit prematurely, at a bit of a “do” at Yalta) we now have the “Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia” a quasi communist blending of Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, all happily ruled over by Tito, a half Croat, Half Serb and genuinely loved by all to the extent a dictator can be (Perhaps the best form of rule possible really, a benign dictator who loves their country and people)…….Until of course, Tito steps into the beyond, leaving no logical successor, and then it all goes seriously Pete Tong.

Croatia decide they can be a lot wealthier with the upsurge of tourist revenue they are seeing following Tito’s opening up of the country to Filthy Western Capitalist Bourgeoisie……..and declare themselves  separate from Serbia and the remaining countries of the old alliance……you know the rest of the story…..and after a couple of months of atrocious fighting between Croatia and Serbia in steps the United  Nations…….and 3 Field Workshops…..including me…… off to call “time” on Vlado and Slavko who are still very keen on kicking the living shit out of each other….with heavy weaponry………  well at least that was the “plan”!    

  The First of December 1991 was probably not the best choice of date to do a boat handling course if I’m honest…..badly thought through you might say? True, but getting permission from my employer (HM Forces) was not the easiest of things to do and involved getting a written letter from my Club Diving Officer, Norman Morley who, along with his partner Joy Morley both of Andover in Wiltshire, were legends in the echelons of the BSAC hierarchy. It is said every senior member of the BSAC, at the time, had slept on the floor or the couch in their picturesque cottage on the way to or from South Coast Dive Sites…..I believed it too! Once the CO of my unit had read the letter from Norman telling him how vital the skill was to our small, but popular, Tidworth BSAC branch, and how short of trained resource they currently were, Major Andrews kindly agreed I could attend the Poole Dive Centre course………..I was over the moon, no matter what the weather would be like!  

  My enthusiasm may have been a tad misplaced if the morning and first activity of the day was anything to go by, the course was started learning how to rite an overturned small boat, in our case a small RIB. It makes perfect sense as I am sure you realise, as, if you are going out in a RIB and do not know how to turn it back the right way up after a capsize, then it wasn’t very sensible going out in the first place………I got that, and to be honest it was a lot of fun climbing up the overturned hull and grabbing one of the rubbing strake hand lines, running the forward mooring line through it and standing up using the leverage of your weight as you lean back to pull the hull back upright! Some of the lighter guys had a more difficult task of it, but we all managed and after a couple of turns each we were ready to kit up and take out a couple of craft for a run in the bay

  There were a couple of craft we used, a small “Dory” type displacement hull craft, essentially a large rowing boat with a “cuddy” or covered area at the front. This was not an elegant craft, but it was a lot easier to see where you were going, and you were a lot less wet from the spray generated in a headwind than when cox’ing a RIB! We were getting used to being afloat and in charge of small craft, once we had demonstrated some level of competence with the Dory, and a small inflatable (running a small Transom mounted outboard), doing circuits and slow manoeuvres, coming alongside each other, safely, handing across minor bits of kit etc, we headed in for a sandwich and to swap over to a more powerful RIB, sporting a bigger outboard, and far more like what we would be using to dive from in our various dive-clubs   

    We had all been eagerly looking forward to getting hold of the RIB, it was by far the sexier of the craft we were going to use and each of us had, of course, our own ideas on what it would be like getting up to speed with a “real” dive RIB for the first time! 

  So we each took a turn as Cox (coxswain) and, at first….. gingerly, pushed forward the throttles and felt her rise up and accelerate….she was fast…. then it was getting her to “plane” where the speed of travel lifts the hull higher in the water and less of the hull is therefore in contact with the sea, that, in turn, means less drag from the water and a more ergonomic ride, a quick check of the “trim” of the outboards, making sure they are driving the boat “level” (the outboards not angled either too far down or too far up) so there is less, or better still no, cavitation (where the prop causes “frothing” losing mechanical efficiency) and the RIB is riding “sweet”  and you were “off” and allowed to let her rip a little, driving a series of lazy curves and then building some turns, gradually increasing the “ferocity” of the turn to get a feel of the RIB’s capability and your own competence 

  There were drills and skills to complete too, ship to shore (harbour-master) communications on VHF radios and hand-helds, boat to boat transfer, Diver pick-up…… but man overboard was probably the most important of all. The premise being someone, eventually, would fall overboard and everyone on board would need to recognise the event, immediately grasp its seriousness, and do the right thing as soon as humanly possible….that meant shout the event “Man Overboard”….keep the victim in sight…..and indicate by maintaining an outstretched arm “pointing” where he or she was, so the cox could turn the boat around effectively and quickly without anyone losing site of the casualty…..I’ve only ever had to do this as a drill, or during training…..and I thank God for that  

    When I eventually bought a RIB, it was based on what I learned in that first boat handling course, and what I had added to that experience handling Inflatables in the South Atlantic on military diving expeditions, handling small working boats in Jamaica in support of marine biology research, and leading boat handling courses at club and military dive expedition levels across the seas of the UK…… and what I’d been taught on the BSAC diver coxswain course I eventually got to take 15/01/1996….what is it with me and cold water ……?