David Collins is licensed to dive the Cannon Historic Wreck in Lyme Bay
Diving Bat’ s Head Reef
Do you do any diving with a purpose?
Black Hawk bollards
At the end of 2024, we linked in with a local team that has spent many years researching and surveying the 1805 wreck of the East Indiaman Earl of Abergavenny. We are aiming to work more closely with them during 2025.
In 2019, our Diving Officer started on a search for the lost and forgotten First World War wreck of the steam drifter HMD Golden Sunset. Built in 1913 in Lowestoft, she was hired by the Royal Navy as a patrol boat in 1915 and armed with a six-pounder gun. On 13 January 1918, while escorting a convey, she collided with Touraco off the Shambles Lightship and sank. The gun was recovered from the wreck by local divers in the 1970s, but the site details are lost.
What’ s your plan to find it?
We found an old Decca Lattice chart of the area to cross refence locations previously recorded. Then with a series of magnetometer surveys we located seven possible targets at a depth of 28m. In November, we discovered that there is no wreckage at the one named on the Admiralty chart, but instead there is a reef formed by two elongated pits, which initially resembled a wreck, but on closer inspection appears natural. The site is now renamed Sunset Reef. We will carry on, probably with the discovery of further reefs and boulder clusters, but that’ s all part of the fun when wreck hunting.
What is the range of diving skills in the club?
The majority of our members are Sport Divers, PADI Advanced Open Water and Dive Leaders. We have a couple of Ocean Divers, an Advanced Instructor and a National Instructor too.
Is training popular with members?
Training will be our main focus in 2025. Having a hardcore membership of divers wanting to go diving has meant that the development of new members and the diver training programme side of our activities has become too lean.
How are you going to fix this?
We held a Try Dive event in February 2024 and have another scheduled for this year. A couple of our members are working towards instructor qualifications, so our training team will grow during the year. Of course, by working closely with Jurassic Aqua Sports, members can access all the seamanship-related qualifications, which can be hard to do when a branch doesn’ t have a boat.
Are there any particular problems you encounter delivering diver training?
Access to a swimming pool is becoming more challenging year-on-year. With pools closing as local authority austerity kicks in, access to pool facilities is getting harder to arrange. We pool share with four other organisations on Tuesday nights. Booking ad hoc slots is more difficult due to the commercial use of the pool.
Anything else you’ d like to tell SCUBA magazine readers about?
We must seem like a small club, dedicated to local diving, but we are looking to build and develop a strong team to support growing our club membership and increase our diving activities. We had a very constructive AGM and agreed a format to expand the club, so our members are definitely onboard. �
Club dive off Worbarrow Bay
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