F for Scrap

In the cockpit of SS Thistlegorm.

Definition

Metal wrecks, as opposed to wooden wrecks, to which certain “scrap metal” divers worship them: discover them, explore them, scratch them in all directions, saw off the propellers or dismantle the portholes (practices now prohibited), that is all their happiness. Plate dives ...

Synonymes

Wreck | Sea fortune  

Starter

In terms of frequentation and recreational diving spot, wrecks are the “top”. They are found all over the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, in fresh or salt water ... But these wrecks that interest us, built in steel (scrap) as indestructible as they seemed, are in fact very fragile and die twice: a first by sinking and hitting the bottom and a second time, literally digested, on a scale of millennia or even hundreds of years, by bacteria which were discovered fairly recently to feed on iron!

So the Titanic, venerable pyramid of metal which rests at more than 4000 m in the depths of theAtlantic north will soon be nothing more than a memory… In this regard, wooden wrecks, often older, can be kept longer, especially if they are buried in mud or in layers of icy water and poorly oxygenated as we have seen. discovered in Baltic sea or in the Black Sea.

 

There are millions of them in all the seas, lakes and rivers of the world. One wonders if the ultimate vocation of these ships was not to end up in a submarine! During my travels I have obviously visited a large number of them and even discovered a few. But, accustomed to exploring submerged caves made up of pure water and virgin rocks, I have always tended to consider these wrecks as the height of pollution: tace of scrap rusting slowly and often losing, drip, old oils. I am aware of the sacrilege committed by writing these words as it is true that most divers devote a true religion to these marine sanctuaries. Often an oasis of life, it is true that apart from the “treasure wrecks”, these silent steel monsters give off a certain mystery, a unique atmosphere and a fascinating story to piece together ...

Main course

Undisputed champion of this singular passion: the late Jean-Pierre Joncheray with whom we have dived a few times.
Profound (!) The nickname “scrap metal” was also claimed for him as a diploma. This is how he received us in his villa on the heights of Fréjus, beautiful building in a magnificent Mediterranean garden with Roman inspiration if it were not for the incredible accumulation of heterogeneous and dripping metal objects, as if the sea had just retreated to his property! He sometimes made up for it by opening a garage overflowing with amphoras or oil lamps, depending on the archaeological excavations in progress. 

 

This is how we saw, surrounded by old portholes, pieces of scrap metal in varying degrees of decomposition, huge propellers which the predator told me that it had taken him nearly 50 dives to more than 70 m to saw them. manually flush with the hub… A great diver discovering and communicating through his books, I suspected him of storing these relics here to enrage his first wife who seemed not to share his passion… He had thus undertaken to rehabilitate our last find in the holds of a wreck that I tried to photograph: A toolbox! With usual tools which seemed banal to me and not so old as that, in their blackish matrix and which gave off an “archaeological” smell. It was also during a similar dive-itch (if you were looking for Jean Pierre, you had to probe through the largest cloud of rust) that the latter had to perforate his eardrum, which complicated our ascent, but This is another story…

It would be interesting to establish the “hit parade” of wreck dives. Depending on the destinations, nationalities, depths and ease of access, we can cite the most famous. the Britannic, huge wreck sunk 120m deep in Greek waters, sister ship of the Titanic accessible today by Tek divers. The wreck of the Port, gigantic tanker sunk him off Portofino, himself sister ship of theAmoco Cadiz sunk in Breton waters off the coast of portsall. THE'Empress of Ireland which sank more than 80 m into the icy waters of the Gulf of St. Canada. THEUSS Oriskany CV-34, an Essex-class aircraft carrier belonging to the US Navy, sunk for use as an artificial reef in Florida. Or theUSS Saratoga, another aircraft carrier that sank following the blast of an atomic bomb in Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

the wreck cemeteries of Truk Lagoon in Micronesia, from Scapa Flow in Ecosse, from the Calamian Islands to Busuanga to Philippines, where a large number of ships sank almost side to side in recent armed conflicts. But we must also reckon with the anger of nature, in particular the eruption of the mountain peeled in Martinique which precipitated hundreds of wrecks like the tamaya, Roraima...

And, without a break in continuity, the Leopoldville in Normandy, the classic wrecks of the Red Sea that line the northern coasts ofEgypt, SS Thistlegorm, Giannis D… Scrap metal from tanks in Jordan. the Salem Express, a ferry that sank in 1991 after hitting a reef near Safaga in Egypt. THE President Coolidge the mythical wreck of the Vanuatu, in decorated wood.

 

the USAT Liberty in Tulamben, the famous diving spot northeast of Bali. THE' USS Arizona, the unmissable memorial ofHawaii sunk by the Japanese during the raid on Pearl Harbor. THE Fire up, sunk during a cyclone in 1911 in Queensland in Australia...

 

Wrecks by the millions ... Some flows with atomic bombs!

 

The Bermuda whose famous triangle has swallowed up many ships, many of which remain to be discovered. the Donator en France, in the Var. And very close the Togo… And the planes, the famous wreckage of the Saint-Exupéry in the creeks of Marseille, B17 from the bay of Calvi, and of course the submarines, the Ruby at Cap Camarat, theShad, refloated since, or theU 171 à Lorient in Brittany…

Without forgetting of course fresh water: that of the great American lakes, the wreck of the France Annecy lake,swallow du Geneva...

 

 

Dessert

Bailouts from wrecks are arguably as old as the ships themselves. The first Phoenician divers, the “urinatores” had this function. Because, of course and above all, wrecks are synonymous with treasures. There are countless those, historic or stumbling, to have been brought up from the bowels of sunken ships.

History has remembered the successful bailout operations carried out on theEgypt by the teamClaw. 

 

 

The 7941-ton liner had set sail from Tillbury on May 19, 1922 for Marseille and Bombay with 44 passengers and 294 crew on board and above all a strong room with a cargo of gold and silver estimated at 1. £ 054 at the time, a considerable sum. Following an unfortunate collision with another ship, in the fog, theEgypt sank 20 miles from Ar Men Lighthouse in Britain.

In June 1929, the Italian company SORIMA, specialized in deep dives, intervened on the island of Ouessant. The expedition led with an iron fist by the Commandatore Giovanni Quaglia quickly recorded a first success by finding the wreck 120 meters deep.
It then took nearly 10 years, because of the hostile climatic conditions, for the brave divers to cut the hulls and sneak up to the coveted treasure, most of which they recovered.

An adventure reminiscent of that experienced 260 m deep in 1981 in the cold and deep waters of the Barents Sea by intrepid British divers with deep saturation diving techniques. 5 tons of gold recovered from the holds of the wreck of theEdinburgh which sank in April 1942.

A saga beautifully told in the book “stalin's gold”Of the late patrick sheep. 

 

See you soon for a new definition of Scuba Bécédaire. The irreverent lexicon of diving, but not only. Because sometimes ...

Francis Le Guen

 

 

Café

And to end this keen overview here is the excellent documentary by Jérôme Espla carried out on the wreck of the Port.

And also the wreck of theUSS Kittiwake voluntarily scuttled in twenty meters of water Cayman Islands to the delight of recreational divers.