Merchant Royal - 23rd August 2009

The Merchant Royal sits at a depth of 56m she is standing 15m off the sea bed as is still very recognisable. Her bows have been blown off but her mid section and stern are still quite intact. The hold area is sitting below the sea bed and it possible to get 60m in places. There are also a few large copper ingots around that the salvage teams missed.


The Merchant Royal is a huge 5008 ton British cargo ship which sank in 1946 after a collision with another vessel. She is located south off Portland with a heavy list to the starboard side.

After getting up at 4 am for the drive down to Portland we arrived with sun high in the sky and the temperature rising. We unloaded the van and filled the boat. We would be diving off Cutlass with Simitar for this dive. Some how we manage to get out to the site within an hour and half from leaving port so we had to sit around for half hour waiting for the current to drop off. We would be going in last on this one after the devils of a dive on the MV Ice Prince. Dropping down the line the "day light" stayed with us most of the decent, the viz dropped to about 7m on the wreck which made it difficult to figure out our location on the wreck form the amount of twisted iron around us its lead us to believe we were at the bow section. It was amazing looking at I beams that have been twisted as if there were made of plastic. There was not a lot of life on the small part of wreck we managed to see, this is one of those wrecks were you need to dive it several times just to be able to understand the basic layout. We left the wreck with a strong current picking up which meant we would travel some distance on deco. Back on the boat with a 97min runtime and smiles on our faces.

Would we go back?? Yes but its not at the top of the list

SS Unity - 8th August 2009

SS Unity Built in 1902 the 1,091 Ton she was torpedoed off of Dungeness by UB57 on 2 May 1918 whilst sailing from Newhaven to Calais with Military Ordinance Stores. 12 of the crew were killed, the Captain was amongst the survivors. Upright and intact in a max depth of 40m and a general depth to the decks of 32-35m.




This was the first time for us diving out of Dover we were diving of Neptune skippered by DaveBatchelor. This is the sort of boat we all like diving off, a catermaran powered by twin Caterpillar diesel engines giving over 700 hp so it quick and very stable.

Dave told us there should be the odd plate and shiny things around the wreck so a goody bag was required. Due to the location of the wreck the shot would be tied and we would come back up the shot. Dropping down the viz was good and we had all decided to line off from the shot, this makes it a lot easier when trying to find your way back again. The shot had landed about mid ship and we proceed to make our way to the bow. All around the bow was handfuls of solid silver spoons all in a lovely shade of green due to the amount of time in the water. Several spoons were picked out and the good back was filled. the rest of the time we spent drifts back towards the shot taking in the shear size of the wreck. In places there was some large sections of decay. and you could question the amount of time she has left in the water before she turns into a pile of timber and steel.

Back up the shot and some of us had run into deco. Most of the group was on air for back gas and some had stages of 50%. At the 15m mark the current really picked up and was running fast the shot was never cut due to a miss understanding before jumping in so "jon lines" on and a nice 20min or so deco in full current, at one point it felt like you were flying.

Back on the boat you could see the happy faces when everyone released that the mank old greenspoons were solid silver.

Just some of the spoons recovered