NAS submarine research course

Well what would you do? You get an email offering you the chance to dive the wreck of the first submarine ever to be commissioned into the Royal Navy – you jump at the opportunity, of course you do!

So there I was in the middle of August 2005 on the dive boat Spartacat in the middle of Pevensey Bay off the Sussex coast getting ready to dive the Holland V, a designated historic wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. This was the culmination of a 3-day course run by the well-known submarine expert Innes McCartney under the auspices of the Nautical Archaeology Society.

Day one was held at the NAS headquarters at Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth, itself a site of significant historic interest, as the name suggests. This consisted of Innes running through the history and development of the submarine, from the early “pioneers” (I’m not sure that you could call Mr Day’s vessel the Maria which was submerged in Plymouth Sound in 1773 a submarine as it never re-surfaced, thereby failing to meet one fairly essential criteria – the ability to rise as well as sink!), through the pre-WWI British A & B Classes to the German U-boats of WW1 and WW2 (calm down Richard!) and then the post 1945 British S & U Class boats. After this we had a talk on the sinking of HMS M1 in 1925 and HMS Affray in 1951, two peacetime submarines losses with all hands on board, the Affray being the last British submarine to be lost at sea; and then Innes gave us a break with a show of his photographs from his dives on the Operation Deadlight U-boat wrecks off Ireland and Scotland. The day was rounded off with a submarine photo ID session, just to prove that we’d been paying attention during the day!

The next day we had a tour of the Navy’s submarine museum at Gosport, which has had a significant new addition since the last club trip some 5 or 6 years ago. When we were last there the Holland 1 was in a conservation tank, as she had been since 1994, but now she’s on display and housed in an impressive new building, which means you can walk around and even go inside the boat. This was excellent as we were to dive the sister ship Holland V the next day and it was tremendously useful to get a feel for the vessel without the limitations of English Channel visibility! After visiting the Holland, we did a tour of HMS Alliance, which is also on display at the museum, and then had the rest of the day free to wander around the other exhibits.

So, back to the Holland V! I was fortunate enough to be first in, buddying Innes, and tasked with trying to get some photographs of the wreck (not too successful) and the other NAS divers who were to measure various parts, draw sketches, and the like (better), which meant there was reasonable visibility for our dive. It also meant I had some freedom to roam about the wreck with the camera (whilst keeping my buddy in sight) whilst Innes spent most of his dive cutting netting away from around the main hatch.

So would I recommend the course to anyone else – I certainly would, but only if you’re interested in history and old wrecks!

Allen Murray