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Egypt 2001 Technical diving Expedition
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Diver magazine article
Richard
Stevenson during the 2001 project about to dive Egypt 420ft.
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Expedition leader Chris
Hutchison stands on the foredeck of the search vessel Loyal
Watcher closely watching the activity, today he will oversee
diving operations, he wears no diving equipment and will not
see the wreck today either. With no error to spare here in the
Atlantic his concerns of the first day lie in his colleagues
and not the wreck that lie 125m below 25 miles west of Ushant.
For this is the location where the famous 'Egypt' was lost,
and with it the beginning to one of the greatest feats of salvage
in known history. Lost in 1922 'Egypt' carried 1,083,527 sterling
in gold and silver bullion and specie approx. 10-tons of silver
and 5-tons of gold! Today's equivalent of over thirty six million
English pounds! Flying the Cis-Lunar Mk 5 electronically controlled
closed circuit rebreather; team member David Wilkins is set
the task of securing the grapnel to the wreck. Accompanied by
Richard Stevenson
between them they would indicate to the surface when the route
to exploration was open for the remainder to follow. Richard
& David's dive runs smooth other than the fact that David's
CCR computer is surprised to find itself 125m deep in the Atlantic.
His unit is quick to the point; 'should he wish to dive a little
deeper will of course need addressing back in the US'! |
Company crest markings gave an early indication
as to the identification of the wreck. |
As a color-coded marker appears a distance over
to port systems are go and with a beehive of surface activity
the remaining 5 divers are deployed. The very success of deep
'Starfish' dives lies much at the center of a team effort. Who
better to have in support than in fact your diving colleagues
themselves, the people that really know what is required. As
it happens on site today the team's deep wreck experience adds
to over 140 years. Today just 7 divers will see the wreck; their
remaining colleagues will work incredibly hard for them to do
so only to listen to their exciting tales at the end result.
They made clear their dives had been conducted on the upright
bow of the wreck. The shot line had cozily draped its self into
a trawl net suspended off the bow tip. The wreck appears very
clean in that she is not heavily encrusted within marine growth,
certainly an advantageous point to the team in that features
could easily be distinguished. From commercial reports we knew
that the wreck lie upright with a section missing from the Sorima
project. "We were also told that the wreck is home to some
extremely large conger, although we were unaware how true this
could be, indeed it was. Even to the fact that several took
more than a welcome interest in our presence". |
| Progress was made good along what can be described as a very
intact bow foredeck then without warning the wreck simply dropped
away to seabed level. Her port side hull however remains very
much intact with all interior deck levels along its internal
structure broken away again down to seabed level. What remains
when looking up from the seabed is a bellied hull suspended
of its own free will clearly displaying the internal side of
those typical P&O portholes. We saw numerous portholes all
with drip trays and square fastening dogs a |
| trademark of P&O liners similar
to those seen on the ever-popular wreck Moldavia. Visibility
on our visit was exceptional infact when asked those first divers
repeated, "Well how far do you want to see". As the
eyes settled into the dive ambient light became acceptable clearly
displaying the upper outline of the wreck from the seabed. The
seabed itself was made up of clean sand and pebble, which most
probably constituted to the good visibility, with depths reaching
approx., 127m over on the outer side of the port hull. From
the bow the bridge was unclear if there at all, infact past
a distance of where it should have been the deck dropped down
a level where a short distance the diver meets a cargo hold.
The holds hatch combings appear intact, as were small oblong
brass windows alongside. After this hold the wreck clearly broke
down! Geraint-Ffoulkes-Jones swam a distance beyond here although
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Another early identification was obvious and
typical P&O class portholes complete with drip trays.
These were identical to the ever popular sister class P&O
liner Moldavia that the team had dived extensively.
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On the bow section of the wreck was a corridor
leading internally, within the wreck the divers could explore
many of the internal rooms that were once alive back in 1922.
Here a small sanitary system remains in a room that has collapsing
compartment walls. |
reported that the wreck did not change
in character. On the dropped deck level was a spare prop blade
upright and intact quite an unusual sight, and then to the far
port side was clearly the lamp locker. Several lamps that could
be seen showed their age, as were the surrounding compartment
walls in that sections have now begun to both rot and collapse
away. Central to this deck level was an internal companionway
leading back towards the bow, however located on the deck below
and inside. Swimming along this passage and now totally within
the wreck itself the divers could see rooms leading off either
side. Some obviously sanitary areas with rust stained and broken
ceramics, others were clearly cabins with what consisted of
their makeup now slumped to the floors. In several rooms large
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| amounts of crockery were easily distinguishable. After the
initial dives Deep Blue Diving's skipper Steve Wright established
that the wreck infact did not quite lie in a position across
the tide but more so NNE by SSW with her bow located at the
far north west end of the site. |
David Wilkins enters the Atlantic Ocean for
a 420ft dive over the decks of the famous treasure ship Egypt |
With such precious little bottom time, a dive
of this nature is over all too soon. Maximum times ran up to
20 mins actually on the wreck and when the contents gauge needle
moves with each breath, time is of the essence. Convinced he
was carrying enough gas in his twin twenties Chris was openly
reminded of his depth after assessing his gas consumption only
to find that he still had 230bar remaining 10 minutes into his
dive! The pressure was so great the glass of the gauge forced
upon the needle prevented it from actually operating! Diving
with him, Christina Campbell would set a new record for the
deepest wreck to be visited by a female, a record she gained
during the Britannic dives of 1998. Although modest of |
| her ability Christina openly admits she's not in the game
to claim records or be the first, like the lads she simply enjoys
exploring wrecks "It just so happens some of them are a
little deep". Egypt 2001 was incident free with no decompression
problems or break down in expedition logistics. Chris Hutchison
had his work cut out from the word go although kept the flow
to finish a historic expedition for the team. With famous shipwrecks
such as the Lusitania, Britannic and many more the Egypt was
indeed a creditable wreck to add to a long list of classics.
The wreck proved itself with logistical problems which the team
overcome with their experience in the deep wreck exploration
field. At one time it was a question of 'when' the team would
break into the 330ft/100m+ depth to explore shipwrecks never
seen before by human eyes. Now its a reality in every true sense
of the word, the team will now go into the future to explore
deep shipwrecks and on top of that Bring home the images and
stories for all to see and read. |
Read more of the gas choice and rig set ups of the divers on the Egypt
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Read more of how the safety logistics were put into place
Safety
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About Deep Blue diving technical diving instructors click
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More about technical diving instructor Richard Stevenson click
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CDNN
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TITANIC
Two and a half miles below the Atlantic Ocean lies the most
famous of shipwrecks RMS Titanic. DeepImage now brings you the
2003 scientific expedition to the site.
Read
the full story here
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