BSAC TRAVEL CLUB - Trip Reports - WRECK HEAVEN in Northern Ireland

TRAVEL CLUB

BALTIC ADVENTURE

by Jon Gunns

The Baltic may not be on everyone’s list of top diving locations but the easing of tensions between East and West in the 1990s following the collapse of the Berlin Wall has opened up previously off-limits parts of the Sea with the tempting prospects of ‘virgin’ wrecks to whet the appetite. Taking advantage of the situation, Steve Roberts and Chris Goddard planned a diving trip for our club to some of these wrecks in 1997.

A quick review of the chart of the Baltic highlighted the number of wrecks available. Enquiries at the Hydrographic Office offered more information on the more promising sites and an outline itinerary was agreed spanning some 6 days of diving. Some of the selected sites were in the 40 - 50 metre range and it was decided to limit attendance to experienced dive leaders and above. Contact was made with a Germany-based charter ship and the trip was on.

THE CHARTER SHIP MV ARTUR BECKER

We travelled to the port of Greifswald in the former East Germany to board the Artur Becker. This is a converted survey ship that has been refitted for the needs of sport divers with an air compressor and recompression chamber on board. The captain, Karl - Heinz Hanke, has wide experience of the Baltic and the entire crew were helpful and supportive throughout our charter. Conditions aboard were basic but comfortable although we had to cater for ourselves.

As we intended to search for a number of wreck sites using a towed magnetometer we decided to take a club RIB and this was duly rigged with a cradle for towing behind the Artur Becker.

THE VOYAGE
Once on board we soon settled into ship’s routine which involved sailing through the night to the search area, despatching the ‘Away Team’ before breakfast each morning to find and buoy the wreck and then 2 dives each day in 2 or 3 waves.

Our first target was a Cypriot freighter that had sunk in mysterious circumstances some 2 miles from the Polish coast. This was quickly found by the Away Team some 400 metres from an isolated danger buoy and we had 2 good dives in 20 metres including some cautious penetration.

Unfortunately the RIB’s electronic gear had been playing up during the day and we decided to call into the island of Bornholm on the second day in order to seek expert help. While the RIB was away we took the opportunity of diving from the Artur Becker on the wreck of a Russian Zulu 4 Class submarine that had sunk in 1989 and now sits upright in 35 metres. With underwater visibility greater than 20 metres the wreck came into view shortly after leaving the surface and we all had an excellent dive.

With the RIB repaired we sailed westwards again overnight to dive on the wreck of the Knippla, a 500 ton Swedish sugar carrier sunk in 1916. The wreck stands some 2 - 3 metres proud of the seabed in 15 - 20 metres of water and made for an undemanding dive.

The next day found us at the site of a deep wreck, tantalisingly marked as ‘unknown’ on the chart. The wreck was quickly found and buoyed and a large decompression station with 2 spare air cylinders was deployed. This dive proved to be the highlight of the trip. As we descended the shotline, a massive freighter came into view sitting upright and rising 10 metres from the seabed at 48 metres. We spent the best part of 2 days on this site carrying out 2 or 3 dives each and conducting an outline survey of the vessel for the Hydrographic Office. Unfortunately we were unable to find any indication of the name of the vessel.

During the week we had experienced changeable weather with generally clear, calm days interspersed with short periods of rain squalls and fog. However, our luck changed at the end of the week and we were forced to run for shelter as the wind got up, blowing out our final day’s diving. Despite this, everyone considered the trip to have been a great success.

WRECK HUNTING

During the week we found and dived on 4 wrecks. We hunted for other wrecks of which we located and logged one, without diving it, and failed to find another 3.

Our wreck hunting procedure was to moor the Artur Becker in the vicinity of the wreck, drop 2 buoys as datum and then use the RIB with magnetometer to pinpoint the wreck’s location. This could be a frustrating experience with hours spent trolling up and down to no effect. Before finding the unknown wreck we had spent several hours looking for another wreck to no avail. Determined to make the best possible start in finding the new site we cross-referenced information from the chart, the Hydrographic Office and the Notices to German Mariners, only to find that the Artur Becker sailed right over the top of the wreck as we entered the search area!

Captain Hanke offered us great support in searching for wrecks and his local knowledge was invaluable.

The wreck details from our trip are given below:

WRECK	LOCATION	REMARKS
Cypriot Freighter	54 22.800, 16 14.200	Wreck upside down in 20 m
Vulture	54 57.800, 15 05.300	Not found in reported location
Zulu 4 Submarine	55 14.720, 14 39.430	Upright in 35 m
Koronowa	55 13.283, 14 33.072	Located but not dived
Odin	55 24.366, 12 36.333	Not found in reported location
Knippla	55 18.400, 12 47.850	Well broken wreck in 20 m
Tinda	54 55.133, 13 12.000	Not found in reported location
Unknown Wreck	54 53.908, 13 23.158	Large wreck upright in 48 m

SEA/WEATHER CONDITIONS
We were generally lucky with the weather, only losing one day’s diving because of high seas. There was little current on any of the sites we visited.

The underwater visibility was exceptional, frequently in excess of 20 metres, but it was very dark at depth. At 40 metres the water temperature was about 4 degrees centigrade.

OVERALL IMPRESSION
This was an outstanding expedition but not necessarily to all tastes. Relatively few dives were undertaken but this was counter-balanced by the quality of the sites visited and the thought that we could have been the first to dive on some of the wrecks. A large portion of our time was taken up with diving-related activities including preparing a never ending supply of shot lines in addition to wreck hunting duties.

The nature of the diving - depth, darkness, cold and decompression requirements - means that only experienced divers should be included on such trips. Divers will need a powerful torch, delayed SMBs, distance lines, either a twin set or main and pony cylinders and should be prepared for lengthy decompression stops. A decompression bar with spare air is essential. Equipment needs to be in good condition, in particular, regulators need to be well serviced to avoid free flows in the cold water.

DATA
MV Artur Becker can be contacted through:

Tauchsportclub Greifswald e.V.
Yachtweg 3
17493 Greifswald
Germany

Telephone/Fax: Germany 03834 840147/813070

In 1997 we chartered the vessel for a week for just over Ł2,000.

The magnetometer we used was hired from Plant Electronics, Ipswich and cost Ł350 for a week.