1. Rod Macdonald, expedition leader
2. Paul Haynes, diving safety officer
3. Emily Turton, expedition organiser, stills photography lighting support
4. Ben Wade, expedition organiser, survey diver and videographer
5. Brian Burnett, survey diver and videographer
6. Prof. Chris Rowland, survey diver and 3D imaging support
7. Gary Petrie, survey diver and diving support
8. Greg Booth, survey diver and diving support
9. Immi Wallin, survey diver and 3D photogrammetry imaging
10. Prof. Kari Hyttinen, survey diver and 3D photogrammetry imaging
11. Marjo Tynkkynen, survey diver and stills photography
12. Mick Watson, survey diver and diving support
13. Paul Toomer, survey diver and diving support.
A further chain of emails with Navy Sec-3rd Sector resulted in the Navy’s legal department sending me a draft licence from the Secretary of State for Defence for approval. The draft licence was adjusted between us and approved – and then went for signature. A change in the legal team at the MOD however resulted in a tense wait, as the new legal team wanted to review what their predecessors had done before signing off. Could the expedition be killed at the very last moment? Thankfully the new team were happy to proceed.
After their review was completed, the signed Licence Ref No C/001/2016 was sent to me, granted under Section 4 of the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. As expedition leader, I was appointed sole licensee and authorised, subject to conditions, to conduct a visual survey of the wreck over a specified period of 30 days between 30 May 2016 and 1 August 2016. The 30-day period straddled the actual day of the 100th anniversary – 5 June 2016 – and it was made clear to us that diving operations could not be conducted on 5 June itself as there would be a Royal Navy warship above the wreck for a wreath-laying remembrance ceremony.
A number of very reasonable conditions were imposed by the licence. The team must not:
a) recover any artefacts from the wreck site
b) tamper with, damage, move, remove or unearth any human remains
c) film or photograph any human remains
d) enter any hatch or other opening in the wreck.
It was also provided that although any film or photographic material taken during the dives would remain the property of me as licensee, it could not be used for any commercial purposes without the prior approval of the licence signatory, the military authorities.
Having received the licence, we fixed the dates for the two-week exped and reserved the Huskyan for the duration of the expedition. We then got around to sending out formal invitations and the necessary paperwork about insurance, liability and diving methodology to the selected divers.
Our general goal was to make this expedition the most advanced survey of a British warship that had ever been carried out. To achieve this we would be adopting and utilising the rapid advances that are currently being made in the development of underwater imaging technology and in particular 3D photogrammetry and virtual reality (VR). Specialist highresolution video cameras would be used to capture suitable footage for the photogrammetry and VR, the video camera operator using two LED 100W video lights and a single LED 1000W specialist video light. The camera operator would be supported by two lighting assistants, each of whom would carry a 300W video light. 100W is roughly 10,000 lumens so in total 180,000 lumens would be used to capture the photogrammetry and VR footage.
In photogrammetry, the camera operator very slowly pans over sections of the wreck or an individual object. Each one of the hundreds of frames that make up the moving picture images would be taken from a slightly different angle. Once the underwater imagery was downloaded topside into powerful laptops, specialist computer software takes frame captures from the video footage and produces a basic point cloud within a few hours of processing. The point cloud image of the wreck begins to appear on the screen as literally thousands of points – but as the processing goes on, the points become more defined and the shape of the wreck begins to appear. Further computer processing of the point cloud raw data is then carried out whereby the software triangulates between recognisable points of data in each frame and is able to refine the raw image to give a lifelike 3D image that a viewer can ‘fly’ around on a computer and explore in detail. We aimed to make the 3D photogrammetry model available online for the public good so that maritime archaeologists, historians and other interested folk can study it in detail in the future, without having to physically dive it. I will be interested to see what information can be brought out by such specialists from our work in due course.
Going beyond 3D photogrammetry, we also planned to render the whole wreck on a 1:1 aspect ratio, that is at full size, in virtual reality. By putting on VR goggles, viewers would be immersed in the water, standing or floating beside a life-size image of the wreck. The wreck would tower some 50 feet above you from the seabed. Our plans were nothing if not ambitious.
In addition to photogrammetry and VR, hundreds of high-resolution underwater photographs would be taken and we would blitz the wreck with video cameras, getting as much imagery as we could of this never-to-be-repeated opportunity. We expected that some 100 hours of video footage on the wreck would be taken.
As we began to get going, sorting out the full logistics of the expedition, we began to get a distinct feeling that we were representing our sport, and that the expedition and our results would be closely studied from a number of angles. We believed that with our technical diving abilities and the underwater visualisation techniques we were employing, if we did a good job, the military authorities might realise just how good modern diving and underwater imaging techniques were. We hoped to bring results that the military themselves could not achieve – believing that this might open a door for better cooperation between military authorities and civilian divers on other projects.
There was little imagery of the wreck in existence before our expedition – just a few grainy still photographs of objects and a few bits of shaky underwater footage. Although I had dived the wreck several times in 1997 and 2000, anything could have happened to it since then. The current condition of the wreck was unknown – it was possible that it had totally collapsed.
We formalised the aims of the Hampshire 2016 Expedition as being:
1. To ascertain the present condition of the wreck
2. To undertake a detailed survey
3. To compile an extensive catalogue of stills and video imagery
4. To produce a survey expedition report for future historical reference
5. To raise public awareness of the historical significance of the sinking
6. To foster positive relations with government and shipwreck heritage bodies.
The Explorers Club is based in New York and is a multi-discipline club dedicated to promoting and encouraging exploration in all aspects. I was inducted into it in 2015 for my work with shipwrecks.
It was founded in 1905, and its members have a number of illustrious firsts in exploration. Robert Peary was a member when he was first to the North Pole in 1909. Roald Amundsen, was a member when he was first to the South Pole in 1911. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, first to the moon in 1969. Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing Norgay, first to the summit of Everest were members, Thor Heyerdahl in Kontiki – the list of firsts for members goes on and on.
At The Explorers Club HQ in New York, there is a humble granite plaque which reads:
WORLD CENTER FOR EXPLORATION
| First to the North Pole | 1909 |
| First to the South Pole | 1911 |
| First
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