Setting the Standards
The decade began with serious plans to explore the German Battleship Ostfriesland a wreck that lie a long way offshore in 380ft of water. During a milestone wreck diving operation Gentile, Pete Manchee and Ken Clayton made a single Heliox dive each to the wreck using custom decompression tables designed by Dr Bill Hamilton. The way now had been set; Gentile had shown that these previously inaccessible sites were now slowly becoming a possibility. In 91 the late Captain Bill Nagle and John Chatterton led a team of experienced amateur shipwreck divers on an expedition to explore an unknown wreck at a site approximately 60 miles east of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Upon descending to the wreck, the divers discovered what appeared to be the remains of a submarine in approximately 77 meters of water. The general appearance was that of a World War II era submarine wreck. On subsequent dives it was discovered that there were human remains aboard the wreck, but the identity of the mysterious "U-Who" would not be confirmed as that of U-869 until nearly six years later.

The mix gas divers now had reasons to remain at depth.
Famous historic wrecks

August 2nd 1993 and the fishing trawler F/V Mistake had snagged her nets on an uncharted wreck. The wreck turned out to be the remains of the Spanish brig of war El Cazador 'The Hunter' lost in 1784 with a cargo of 450,000 pesos of newly minted coins on board. Marex embraced the latest deep diving technology available mixed gas scuba and hired Billy Dean's owner of Key West Diver & Deep Sea Technologies to conduct the salvage. The team conducted 22 dives in the 83-92m range over a 10 day period logging approximately 11 hours of bottom time before the operation was closed down by the coast guard whom found that commercial diving standards were not being maintained as free swimming divers were being utilized as opposed to the set commercial regulations.
During the summer of 1994 British wreck diver Polly Tapson led the first sport diving expedition to the wreck of the Lusitania, sunk off the old head of Kinsale in Southern Ireland during the First World War. The question of whether the Lusitania would become a popular site for technical divers was opened during Tapson's expedition whom conducted more than 100 dives to depths in excess of 90m. In November of 1995 Kevin Denlay and Terrence Tysall made the first visit on open circuit to the WWII wreck USS Atlanta sunk in the Guadalcanal to a depth of 130m. Later during the summer of 97 both Tysall & Denlay would use Aquazepp DPV's to completely survey the wreck certainly an outstanding feat for its time. Back in the UK during the same summer members of the Starfish Enterprise now an established deep wreck diving team after the success of the Lusitania expeditions of 94/95 became the first sport diving team in European waters to explore a wreck in excess of 100m. Expedition leader Leigh Bishop had teamed up with skipper John Thornton to locate and survey the wreck of the King Edward VII, found sunk in 116m of water of the North coast of Scotland. At the same time as the King Edward dives both Kevin Gurr and Nick Hope had each secured that long awaited sort after License from the Greek authorities granting access to dive Titanic's big sister HMHS Britannic. The success of Both expeditions conducting numerous dives as a team to depths of 120m proved that techniques and decompression theory currently available, meant that the worlds most spectacular and deepest wrecks were now available to the experienced free swimming sport diver.

As the decade draw to a close more and more significant lost shipwreck finds were making headlines around the world, in the UK the starfish enterprise team continued to focus attention to historic discoveries on home shores such as the lost British Submarine HMS Affray and many more before welcoming the new decade in with explorations of the Deep Treasure ship Egypt. On route back from the Egypt expedition the first historic sport dive was made on the famous Flying Enterprise lost in 1952 after a strong battle to save the ship by a stubborn captain Carlsen. The wreck was discovered in some 280ft dept. Also in the UK the active 'Northern Gas Team' made decent's down to the Dasher a WW2 aircraft carrier suck off the North west in a depth of 460ft.

Contrary to popular belief with the current climate as it was proof that the wreckers could work in conjunction with survivors of sensitive war losses veteran London diver and mix gas pioneer Keith Morris led teams to the wrecks of HMS Charybdis & Limbourne. Both these milestone expeditions were significant in there own right bonding relations with divers & hero's of past alike. Quickly followed up by Simon Bennett's expedition out to film HMS Manchester off the waters of Tunisia.

2003 saw perhaps one of the most definitive wreck expeditions to date when Englishman Carl Spencer led a team of closed circuit divers to unravel the mysteries of Titanic's sister ship Britannic. The wreck sunk in 119m depth saw the first true deep penetrations inside the ship to answer questions historians had been asking for decades. Click here

Deep Image sets out to collectively bring together some of the most significant expeditions in Deep Shipwreck explorations carried out by technical divers. Keep watch as we also bring latest information and links to expeditions, including quite possibly the largest shipwreck expedition of its kind planned for Sept 2003. Be sure to keep an eye out on Deep Image for a forthcoming announcement.

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