Scapa Diary Day 6 - SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm and YC21

By Jane Wilkinson on 27 September 2008

Today was to be the last day that we would officially be Scapa virgins (as the trip had been called) and on the agenda today was the awesome Kronprinz Wilhelm.

Incredible battleships

With sister ships the Konig and Markgraf, who also lie in the watery grave of the flow, these are some of the largest dreadnoughts that the world has seen. Coming in at around 25,388 tons and over 570ft long the Kronprinz is a massive ship by anyone’s standards. Her array of firepower was equally awesome having ten 12in guns, fourteen 5.9in guns and eight 3.45 anti aircraft guns.
I was a bit in awe of this wreck having heard so much about it and decided not to take my camera with me on this particular dive. Whilst not having a suitable set up for taking wreck pictures at this depth and knowing that there would probably not be a great deal of growth on it I felt I would prefer to dive without it.
She lies upside down tilted over to her starboard side. Going down the shot that lay towards the stern we paused briefly near the top of the hull at around 12m and then carried on down to the seabed at 34m. Like her sister ships the Konig and Markgraf the weight of the superstructures made them all turn turtle as they sank, resulting in parts of the wreckage being buried in the seabed.

Awesome guns

Keeping the hull on our left we moved forward. As I had predicted there was not a huge lot of life around. A few Pollack speedily swam by and pieces of the wreckage were dotted with the usual varieties of sea stars and urchins that we had become familiar with in the flow. Your eye was occasionally drawn by the size of the odd cup coral looking very lonely growing in the middle of some of these huge plates of metal. We continued moving forwards and found what a few others and I had been hoping to see, the huge barrel of the 12inch gun. We were diving as a three and as each of us gradually realised what the others were looking at you saw the torch beams slowly moving up and down its length taking in the huge size and massive girth of this gun. So large, it is easily mistaken for something else such as a mast or funnel. Working our way forwards once again and checking the time I realised I would have to start ascending slightly as my no deco time had rapidly disappeared. So still working our way forwards towards the bow and up at the same time there was still plenty to look at until we were back up on the top of the hull with enough air left for a nice slow ascent.

YC21 Salvage Barge

The Barge was to be our final dive at Scapa Flow and lying at around 16m she makes an ideal scenic or third dive. Ironically she was being used for salvage operations on the F2 when she sank in a storm in 1968. Lying only 100m from each other the two are now linked by a rope making navigation from one to the other easy. She sits on an even keel and descending to the seabed we did a circuit of the hull where we spotted a lovely ling, which then tried to hide under the keel. We then dropped into the middle; this was possible due to the gradual decay of the planks that were once there. Pointing upwards and easily identifiable, (even by me), was a twin 20mill anti aircraft gun. This had been salvaged and stowed in the hold of the barge just before she sank. Also in her hold was another single barrelled gun from which a velvet swimming crab watched our progress and adopted a very defensive stanch waving his claws in the air when I tried to take photos off him in his hidey hole. Towards the back of this hold are also lockers and a workbench

At last a conger!

Whilst the sound of diving a barge doesn’t sound very exciting, certainly not as exciting as diving a battleship, it was a super dive for me. When we had finished looking round the inside we swam onto the top for a look around and suddenly there appeared a free-swimming conger! I was so excited I didn’t even bother to try and take photos. Bearing in mind that I had wanted to see a free swimming conger for some time, having only ever seen conger heads sticking out of holes and pipes, I was absolutely delighted and could hardly contain myself. This gorgeous creature that was the most beautiful shade of blue swiftly swam along the top of the barge only to dart into another hole further on. Deciding that he had gone I carried on, only to hear some strange noises coming from behind me and turning round saw by buddy pointing to the conger that had reappeared elsewhere. Once again we watched as it rapidly swam along the top then once again disappeared down another hole. I waited for a minute or so hoping that it might once again reappear but looking at gauges realised that our final dive in Scapa Flow was over. So for the last time this week the blob went up and we slowly began our return to the surface

I had a fantastic week on Stormdrift and the fact that I have already signed up for the same gig next year is testament to that.

Contact

Author: Jane Wilkinson
Email: info@travel-dive.com

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