Hello from Offshore Overfalls MCZ, where the team have been
working hard to finish off collection of the multibeam data. Whilst collecting
this data we have seen a few shipwrecks, which has added some excitement to the
early hours of the morning for the night shift. I have written about how some
of these ships came to be on the seafloor below. These shipwrecks were
identified as being of interest before sailing, in collaboration with Historic
England.
One of the wrecks we have seen is the SS Alaska, which sunk in
1939. The vessel sank in collision with a British cargo vessel SS Dotterel
on 15th November 1939. Two men were sadly lost in the collision
however the remaining crew were rescued by other vessels. The location of this
vessel was not confirmed until recently as a number of different positions were
given for this wreck although salvage operations directed at SS Alaska are recorded as having
occurred between 1947 and 1951.
 |
| Wreck of the SS Alaska
© Cefas/JNCC |
HMS Implacable is an additional wreck that
we have been keeping an eye out for on this survey. This vessel was scuttled by
the Royal Navy in the English Channel in 1949, but it was built in Rochefort
(France) 149 years earlier in 1800 as the 74-gun ship Daguay-Trouin. She saw action at Trafalgar in 1805 and was captured
by the British in the battles aftermath and renamed HMS Implacable.
In the 1940s she was deemed too expensive to maintain and on
2nd December 1949 she was scuttled in the English Channel. The stern
section and figurehead were removed beforehand and given to the National
Maritime Museum, Greenwich where they can still be viewed today. Finding
evidence of this wreck is very exciting as we were not sure how much of HMS Implacable's wooden structure would have survived 70 years on the seabed.
Polandia is the
third and final vessel that we have seen on this survey. Polandia was a steam-driven liner built in Germany in 1898 weighing
2,238 ton and original named Paul. She
was captured by the British in 1914 and renamed Polandia only to be sunk claiming the lives of all 30 crew members
after being attacked by a German U-boat on 10th or 11th
March 1917.
These are just a few of the wrecks we have seen on the
recent survey from the multibeam data out of the 50 wreck site records held for
this area. Having completed the acoustic survey that we had planned for
Offshore Overfalls, the team are now shifting focus to collection of
photographs and videos of the seafloor within this MCZ. Steering clear of all
known wrecks in this area to ensure our drop camera doesn’t join the many
wrecks down at the bottom of the channel, the team are ready to get a closer
view of what animal life can be found in this area.
The weekend weather is sadly looking to break the trend of
calm seas we have been enjoying so far with the wind due to pick up and so the
boat may be moving around a little more than previously. Fingers crossed my
sea-legs have kicked in and the copious amounts of ginger biscuits at hand will
keep the sea sickness at bay.
