the club to collect new images and film footage . Chatting with my fellow members , however , it became apparent that the precise location of the wreck site and gullies was no longer known , but there was much enthusiasm to rediscover the site .
The search begins
The site of HMS Racehorse must be dived at a specific state of the tide ( one hour after high tide , down to low tide ) and due to variable weather and other commitments among the members , we didn ’ t actually go in search of the wreck until August 2021 . On this dive we found a small anchor ( very unlikely to be from the wreck ), but the day was best remembered for John Kermode losing his car keys overboard , while Pauline Berrie lost a fin and her DSMB . Not the most successful initial search operation by the club !
Undeterred , we dived the site again in September , this time with Brian King on board so that he could point out exactly where we needed to dive . Again , no success , other than we did lift up five lost lobster pots and returned them to their rightful owner ! However , at the end of the dive , when the sea level had dropped so that we could see the Skerranes ( the rocks the Racehorse foundered on ), Brian repositioned the boat to a point where he believed we were in exactly the right place . We saved ‘ Brian ’ s Mark ’ in our GPS .
The club carried out two more dives on ‘ Brian ’ s Mark ’ that winter , but on both occasions the visibility underwater was poor and the multiple rocky gullies were hard to navigate and search . So , we still couldn ’ t locate the wreck site .
Nonetheless , we finally had some success on 19th December , when I found a Dead Eye , made of wood ( Lignum vitae ), through which rigging would have run . Although we couldn ’ t be certain , I believe it was from the Racehorse – we were getting close !
Rediscovery
Jon Chamberlain of Essex University visited the island in April last year . I had approached him after seeing his photogrammetry for Seasearch , and he had expressed interest in joining our team to create a model of the site .
We dived the wreck of the Citrine [ a popular IoM wreck ] in the morning and then went to the Racehorse site in the afternoon . I buddied with Jon , and we found a couple of bits of old wreckage , but ( despite the fact that we really wanted them to be ) we didn ’ t believe they were from the Racehorse .
However , back on the RIB we learnt that right at the end of their dive , Pauline and Lara had found what sounded like the main gully containing the Racehorse wreck
Cannon ball
debris . Unfortunately , they hadn ’ t been able to put up a surface marker buoy , so the boat coxswain hadn ’ t recorded the precise GPS coordinates . We still weren ’ t sure we could relocate the wreck the next day , but we knew we had a great chance .
Delightfully , on the following day the stars all aligned , gifting us a sunny and calm day . We carried out a morning dive in the Calf Sound on the wreck of the Clan MacMaster .
Iron ballast weights
Anchor in-situ
A great dive , but I ’ m sure we were all longing for the afternoon , when tidal conditions would be right to dive the Racehorse site , hopefully in that jackpot gulley with the debris . Would we find it again ?
Back at Port St Mary we had lunch in the sunshine , joined by Brian King and Adrian Corkhill . Adrian is the oracle of all IoM ship wrecks and has catalogued around 2,000 of them . He is the author of the definitive
35