UKDIVING
The Big Reveal
A select group of divers has succeeded in identifying a 17th Century wreck off Eastbourne . Story by Mark Beattie- Edwards , CEO of the Nautical Archaeology Society
Guns 1 and 2
Since 2004 , dive boat skipper David Ronnan has run Our W out of Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne on the Sussex coast . Dave and his wife Sylvia Pryer originally bought the boat to go diving themselves and to find new wrecks on their patch . Over the years they have made many contributions to the
30 wrecks listed on the excellent wrecksite . eu database . Unfortunately , in early 2019 Sylvia passed away , but Dave kept up their love of searching for new wrecks to dive . In April 2019 Dave took up the challenge to dive a magnetic anomaly found by the UK Hydrographic Office ( UKHO ). The unidentified lump was first recorded in a
The dive team
UKHO survey in the September 2015 and was listed as being 35m long and 15m wide , but stood only 1.5m proud of the seabed . It certainly was not going to be the easiest of wrecks to shot .
Discovery and protection
On 22 April Dave took a charter of two rebreather divers , Tom Stockman , and Graham Owen , to the site on a chance of diving something , or maybe to dive on nothing . Graham ( who is registered blind ) and Tom had never previously dived together , but had both dived with Dave many times , so knew that there was a chance of finding whatever was down there at 32 metres . What they did find would not disappoint .
Tom , a rebreather diver since 2009 who has dived mostly out of Brighton , Eastbourne and Dover , describes the dive as one of his most memorable . Whenever he gets the opportunity to dive on a new mark , Tom is always keen to investigate . He