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At the end of August, we will be running a trip to Swanage to dive some really interesting and rarely dived wrecks: the Netley Abbey and Azemmour on the 30th of August and the Aeolian Sky on Sunday the 31st of August.
Netley Abbey
The wreck of the large iron steamship lies four miles south-southwest of St Alban's Head on the Dorset coast; the wreck site is well known but not regularly visited. Those who have been there may know it by various names and popular dive guides refer to it as Start or Hartburn. Subsequent research has disproved these theories now as these two wrecks have since been identified. Using information gathered from both the current day wreck site and referring back to original documentation, numerous other possible candidates have been identified and eliminated. This leads to the conclusion that the identity for this shipwreck is Netley Abbey sunk by collision with HMS Surprise in 1899.
The Netley Abbey was a single screw, iron steam collier listed in Lloyds Register at 1620 gross tons, 1,012 net tons. At the time of her demise she was 21 years old.
This wreck has a maximum depth of 38 metres at the sea floor but the boilers, engine , and masts rise 3 to 4 metres off the sea floor.
SS Azemmour
The SS Azemmour was a steel freighter built in 1909 by the Short Brothers in Sunderland. It was powered by a triple expansion steam engine with two single ended boilers and a screw propeller. The vessel was 62.56m in length and 10.05m in width, and was capable of an average speed of 10 knots.
On 18th March 1918, the Azemmour departed London for Nantes with over 1200 tonnes of cargo; 716 tons of general cargo and 500 tons of steel. There were 28 crew aboard, including Captain Jean Guillaume. On 20th March, the vessel was south of the Needles when the German U-boat UB-59 moved in to attack. At 4.44 am, the crew felt a shudder as if the ship had been struck by something. Some minutes later, the periscope of a submarine was seen, and the captain ordered the ship to head away from it in a vain attempt to escape. Less than a minute later a torpedo slammed into the ship’s port quarter.
The commander of UB-59, Fritz Wassner, noted in his war diary that the first torpedo launched against the Azemmour failed, but the UB-59 pursued the ship and hit it with and with a second torpedo. The damage was extremely severe and the captain ordered the crew to the lifeboats. They had no time to use the ship’s 90mm stern gun to return fire, as the vessel slipped beneath the waves in four minutes. Some of the crew saw the surfaced submarine before they were picked up about 30 minutes later by the Admiralty Yacht Maid of Honour. Five of the 28 crew were recorded as missing.
The wreck of the Azemmour lies approximately 15 miles to the southwest of St. Catherine’s Point at the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. The wreck is at a depth of 40m and lies upright, rising six metres above a flat seabed. It is reasonably intact forward of the engine, though the area around the bow leans out towards the seabed. The engine is the highest part of the wreck, and aft of this, the wreck site is more disparate,e with the remains becoming level with the seabed
MV Aeolian Sky
The Aeolian Sky was a Greek-run freighter built in 1978, which collided with another ship near the Channel Islands and, after a failed attempt at salvage, sank off the coast of Dorset, England, in a storm in late 1979.
In late 1979, the Aeolian Sky sailed from Hull, via Rotterdam, to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Africa. On 3 November 1979, while travelling 20 miles off the coast of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, she collided with the German coaster Anna Knueppell in fog, during a storm at 4.30 a.m. A French tug based at Cherbourg, the Abeille Languedoc, went to the scene and managed to get a line aboard. Plans were initially laid to tow her back to the French port; only lightly damaged, the Anna Knuepell stood by to render assistance if needed.
At 9.30 in the morning a Royal Navy helicopter arrived and evacuated most of the crew; it then had to withdraw to its base at Lee-on-Solent with engine problems, leaving a handful of crew aboard the now sinking vessel. By this time the ship had drifted some distance and was sinking at the bows, so the initial plan was abandoned and the tug headed for The Solent.
However, the port authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton, concerned that the ship would sink, fouling their busy waterways, declined permission for her to enter either port. With the weather at gale force, the tug started to tow the Aeolian Sky into the storm to try to make the shelter of Portland Harbour. However, at 3.45 a.m. on 4 November 1979, she took on too much water and sank 5 miles south of St Aldhelm's Head, still 12 miles from the safety of Portland. She settled on her port side in 30 metres of water with her bows facing south
Since her sinking, the wreck has become a popular dive site[3] as she is accessible from Swanage, Weymouth and Isle of Portland-based diving trips. At the time of sinking,g she lay 9 metres below the surface, but salvage work, and explosives used to reduce the risk of her becoming a hazard to navigation, have lowered this to 18 metres. Her bows were blown off during this activity and lie separate from the main body of the wreck.
To join this trip, the 3 boat dives are £145, and I will need a £30 deposit to hold your space. You will need UK sea diving experience and deep diver and wreck diver certifications. The spaces are limited, so please don’t hesitate to book your space as we don’t run this sort of trip that often and the chances of us being able to do these 3 wrecks over the same weekend again are very low.
To Book on the course, you can contact us by CLICKING HERE
Netley Abbey
The wreck of the large iron steamship lies four miles south-southwest of St Alban's Head on the Dorset coast; the wreck site is well known but not regularly visited. Those who have been there may know it by various names and popular dive guides refer to it as Start or Hartburn. Subsequent research has disproved these theories now as these two wrecks have since been identified. Using information gathered from both the current day wreck site and referring back to original documentation, numerous other possible candidates have been identified and eliminated. This leads to the conclusion that the identity for this shipwreck is Netley Abbey sunk by collision with HMS Surprise in 1899.
The Netley Abbey was a single screw, iron steam collier listed in Lloyds Register at 1620 gross tons, 1,012 net tons. At the time of her demise she was 21 years old.
This wreck has a maximum depth of 38 metres at the sea floor but the boilers, engine , and masts rise 3 to 4 metres off the sea floor.
SS Azemmour
The SS Azemmour was a steel freighter built in 1909 by the Short Brothers in Sunderland. It was powered by a triple expansion steam engine with two single ended boilers and a screw propeller. The vessel was 62.56m in length and 10.05m in width, and was capable of an average speed of 10 knots.
On 18th March 1918, the Azemmour departed London for Nantes with over 1200 tonnes of cargo; 716 tons of general cargo and 500 tons of steel. There were 28 crew aboard, including Captain Jean Guillaume. On 20th March, the vessel was south of the Needles when the German U-boat UB-59 moved in to attack. At 4.44 am, the crew felt a shudder as if the ship had been struck by something. Some minutes later, the periscope of a submarine was seen, and the captain ordered the ship to head away from it in a vain attempt to escape. Less than a minute later a torpedo slammed into the ship’s port quarter.
The commander of UB-59, Fritz Wassner, noted in his war diary that the first torpedo launched against the Azemmour failed, but the UB-59 pursued the ship and hit it with and with a second torpedo. The damage was extremely severe and the captain ordered the crew to the lifeboats. They had no time to use the ship’s 90mm stern gun to return fire, as the vessel slipped beneath the waves in four minutes. Some of the crew saw the surfaced submarine before they were picked up about 30 minutes later by the Admiralty Yacht Maid of Honour. Five of the 28 crew were recorded as missing.
The wreck of the Azemmour lies approximately 15 miles to the southwest of St. Catherine’s Point at the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. The wreck is at a depth of 40m and lies upright, rising six metres above a flat seabed. It is reasonably intact forward of the engine, though the area around the bow leans out towards the seabed. The engine is the highest part of the wreck, and aft of this, the wreck site is more disparate,e with the remains becoming level with the seabed
MV Aeolian Sky
The Aeolian Sky was a Greek-run freighter built in 1978, which collided with another ship near the Channel Islands and, after a failed attempt at salvage, sank off the coast of Dorset, England, in a storm in late 1979.
In late 1979, the Aeolian Sky sailed from Hull, via Rotterdam, to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Africa. On 3 November 1979, while travelling 20 miles off the coast of Guernsey in the Channel Islands, she collided with the German coaster Anna Knueppell in fog, during a storm at 4.30 a.m. A French tug based at Cherbourg, the Abeille Languedoc, went to the scene and managed to get a line aboard. Plans were initially laid to tow her back to the French port; only lightly damaged, the Anna Knuepell stood by to render assistance if needed.
At 9.30 in the morning a Royal Navy helicopter arrived and evacuated most of the crew; it then had to withdraw to its base at Lee-on-Solent with engine problems, leaving a handful of crew aboard the now sinking vessel. By this time the ship had drifted some distance and was sinking at the bows, so the initial plan was abandoned and the tug headed for The Solent.
However, the port authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton, concerned that the ship would sink, fouling their busy waterways, declined permission for her to enter either port. With the weather at gale force, the tug started to tow the Aeolian Sky into the storm to try to make the shelter of Portland Harbour. However, at 3.45 a.m. on 4 November 1979, she took on too much water and sank 5 miles south of St Aldhelm's Head, still 12 miles from the safety of Portland. She settled on her port side in 30 metres of water with her bows facing south
Since her sinking, the wreck has become a popular dive site[3] as she is accessible from Swanage, Weymouth and Isle of Portland-based diving trips. At the time of sinking,g she lay 9 metres below the surface, but salvage work, and explosives used to reduce the risk of her becoming a hazard to navigation, have lowered this to 18 metres. Her bows were blown off during this activity and lie separate from the main body of the wreck.
To join this trip, the 3 boat dives are £145, and I will need a £30 deposit to hold your space. You will need UK sea diving experience and deep diver and wreck diver certifications. The spaces are limited, so please don’t hesitate to book your space as we don’t run this sort of trip that often and the chances of us being able to do these 3 wrecks over the same weekend again are very low.
To Book on the course, you can contact us by CLICKING HERE
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