Thanet Sub Aqua Club – BSAC Thanet 106 – has been in existence for more than 60 years . Based in Ramsgate , the club today only has a small number of members , but we are a keen group who regularly dive the wrecks of The English Channel . It was on one of these dives that a piece of history was found , an incredible story unfolded , and a family keepsake was returned .
In early September of 2021 , the club set out on a normal weekend dive . Mick Terry is the owner-skipper of Kelsey-Jane , an 8m pleasure craft . He has been diving for 17 years and is a longstanding member . On the day of the dive , the surface conditions were a bit lumpy . The original plan had been to dive a wreck on the back of the Goodwin Sands , but on arrival the visibility was very poor , so the club decided to head further out . Visibility was still bad at the second option , so they continued a further seven miles , taking them 15 miles south-east of Ramsgate , where they decided to revisit the wreck of HMS Flirt .
The wreck and the find
HMS Flirt ( 1897 ) was a C-Class destroyer operating out of Dover during the First World War , and sunk by German destroyers on 26 October 1916 . HMS Flirt sits at a depth of 40m , she is 63m long and 8m wide . The wreck is fairly flat , the highest point being the bridge , which stands 3m proud of the seabed . On previous dives , shell cases had been spotted on the wreck but nothing of greater interest had been found .
“ It was on one of these dives that a piece of history was found ”
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