That night, the four co-organisers hosted a team briefing in our accommodation, the fine Divers Lodge owned by Ben and Emily. As expedition leader, it fell to me to give the welcoming address and expedition overview, including the legal restrictions by which we were bound. We felt it would be too much to brief on the wreck straight away on this, our first gathering, so we had decided to restrict this meeting to the basics and let everyone get to know each other. The wreck briefing itself would be done tomorrow after the shakedown dives on the Markgraf were completed.
To build upon the detailed expedition diving plan previously issued to all divers, my introduction was followed by a safety brief by Paul Haynes, wearing his hat as diving safety officer, the purpose being to instil an expedition diving safety culture from the very outset. This included confirming the safety policy, stating the expedition organisers’ expectations, defining roles and responsibilities, and confirming the diving methodology, safety procedures and emergency protocols to be adhered to.
We wanted to stress that this was not a diving holiday – we were here to do a job. I emphasised to the team that the process of actually getting our licence had probably taken me about 20 months and it seemed unlikely that a licence would ever be granted again. We felt that a number of government bodies would be paying close attention to the expedition, our conduct and our results. We were representing our sport and if we did it right, other doors might open in the future for divers.
The HMS HampshireExplorers Club Flag No 192 expedition team in front of the starboard propeller of Hampshire at Lyness. The author (right) and Paul Haynes (left) hold the Explorers Club flag.
Left to right, back row: Ross Dowrie (crew), Russ Evans (skipper), Kevin Heath, Ben Wade, Brian Burnett, MarjoTynkkynen, Kari Hyttinen, Mic Watson.
Front row: Paul Toomer, Gary Petrie, ImmiWallin, Emily Turton, Paul Haynes, Rod Macdonald, Greg Booth, Chris Rowland. © MarjoTynkkynen
The next day, Sunday, was time for the full dress-rehearsal to confirm personal equipment functionality. This was no ordinary warm-up dive however – some divers in the team had never been to Scapa Flow before, and this was a chance to see first-hand one of the König- class battleships that fired at British Grand Fleet warships during the Battle of Jutland on 30 May/1 June 1916. It was a fitting start to the expedition, and helped shape the team’s historical understanding of events leading up to the loss of Hampshire.
The first dive was uneventful, and following a suitable surface interval, a full team dive rehearsal was next. There was no time to explore Markgraf further; the afternoon was to be a carefully choreographed procedures dive. This included decompression station deployment, additional bailout gas staging, diver tagging procedures, simulated drifting decompression stops, emergency drop gas signalling and deployment, unconscious diver recovery, basic life support, oxygen administration and coastguard evacuation protocols – a very busy afternoon indeed.
With a limited window of opportunity to dive HMS Hampshire, spending a full day diving in the Flow with a group of such experienced divers, some of whom were technical diving instructor trainers and examiners, may have appeared unnecessary. But we felt that a group of divers is not necessarily a team – and the safe and efficient running of the expedition would be reliant on everyone aboard knowing their roles and responsibilities, the safety procedures and emergency protocols. The only way of truly confirming the operational viability of any procedure is to run through it in practice in the form of a real-time dress rehearsal. By the end of the day, everyone agreed that it was only at that point that we were collectively prepared and ready to turn west into the open Atlantic and safely start the expedition proper.
With the shakedown dives now safely behind us, we met again that night and I ran over what I knew about the ship from a historical perspective and what I knew about the wreck from my own knowledge gained from diving it a number of times 15–20 years previously, before it was closed off to divers.
As it was such a large site to survey, the team objective for the first dive was to gain a general orientation and appreciation of the site. Once we collectively had a feel for the lay of the site, individual survey tasks would then be allocated to each dive pair on a daily basis.
The next day, full of enthusiasm, we all rose at 0600, and after breakfast in the Divers Lodge, walked across the quay to the Huskyan, whose twin diesels were already turning over. We were soon all aboard, ropes were cast off and we were away – heading south out of Stromness harbour before turning to the west to head out through Hoy Sound to the Atlantic.
Once out of Scapa Flow, we turned our head to the north and started to run up the west coast of Orkney, retracing the route taken by the Hampshire 100 years earlier. Slack water would arrive about 1130, so we would be arriving on site well in advance of slack, ready to safely place a weighted shotline on the seabed beside the wreck, kit up and be ready to dive at slack – as I said before, you can never be too early for slack.
The passage up the west coast was beautiful on this first day. It was sunny, with little wind and the water seemed relatively smooth; it was however a little deceptive, as a languid Atlantic swell was still rolling in gently from the north-west, the boat slowly rising and falling a few metres as the swell passed beneath us.
As we arrived on site, we soon picked up the wreck on the echo sounder. The tall Kitchener Memorial Tower stood prominently just 1.5 miles away on the high cliffs of Marwick Head – very poignantly reminding us of the tragedy that had occurred in this very spot 100 years almost to the day.
We were aware from previous visits that the wreck lay in a roughly north-west/south-east attitude, with her bow to the north. We had decided that the first day’s shot would be dropped on the seabed just off the stern, which was the most intact area.
The shotline would be floated initially with just a few rigid round fishermen’s floats. As it was still an hour or two to go until slack water, we knew that these would be swept under by the tide – that was the idea – they would rise again as the tide dropped off towards slack water, an easy visual indicator of what was happening. If we had stuck a big danbuoy on the downline it would have remained on the surface, but likely would have been dragged down current by the tide, dragging the shot away from the wreck. There was no room for error.
Paul Haynes was excellent in his role as diving safety officer, a role he has played many times, in both civilian and military expeditions. He had the trapeze completely sorted out and rigged to self-deploy using his old parachuting knowledge.
The four expedition co-organisers had already divided the team into suitable dive pairs. Each pair had one diver who had a key role such as videography, stills photography, 3D photogrammetry etc., with the other supporting. Some of the pairings had been easy and natural – the well-known Finnish photojournalist Marjo Tynkkynen had been resident in Orkney for some time, diving with skipper Emily Turton off Huskyan. They knew and understood how each other dived and naturally fell to dive together, with Emily as lighting assistant and model for Marjo to shoot. Marjo’s hi-res stills would be captured using a Canon 5DmkII camera in a Subal housing with 16-35mm LII and Sigma 15mm lenses. The camera strobes were Canon Speedlite 580exll. To light up larger sections of the wreck, two additional 300W LED Scubamafia Beast video lights were deployed by support divers.
Kari Hyttinen and Immi Wallin from Finland had worked together with 3D photogrammetry on a number of high-profile wrecks around the world, and so were another natural pairing.
To avoid congestion of the changing areas and the dive deck, to marshal all 12 divers, we subdivided them into two teams of six. Team 1 would get dressed in their thermal undersuits and drysuits in the covered dry changing area well in advance of slack water. They could then move aft outside onto Huskyan’s expansive dive deck and start prepping and getting into their rebreathers.
Team 2 would then get dressed in their drysuits in the changing area and would then assist the Team 1 divers, who were by now getting into their CCRs and clipping on bailout (stage) cylinders. Once slack water arrived and the Team 1 divers were beginning to