tube, where the prop shaft had broken off – or been cut off – just as it emerged from the shaft tunnel.
Kari Hyttinen and Immi Wallin spent their days filming the wreck slowly and meticulously in hi-res for photogrammetry with Prof Chris Rowland, the Director of the 3DVisLab at Dundee University, acting as supporting light. Chris is at the leading edge of underwater imaging with the company ADUS Deep Ocean, which was brought in to image the Deep Water Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Costa Concordia. Chris would assist with the photogrammetry and go on to do the virtual reality 1:1 aspect ratio, actual-size modelling of the wreck. Emily supported Marjo Tynkkynen in taking hundreds of hi-res still images and fully cataloguing the wreck. As the days went past, so our knowledge of the wreck increased – and so Emily’s whiteboard became more and more full.
Week 2 of the expedition was soon upon us – and whereas the first week had been blessed with benign seas and awesome underwater visibility of up to 50 metres, during the second week the seas blew up and a plankton bloom closed the vis on the wreck down to a black 5 metres. This was frustrating but not a significant problem, as we had already filmed the wreck in detail and knew the wreck so well by then that we could still easily navigate our way around it to spend our time finding and mapping the smaller details.
The Daring-class Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan was scheduled to be moored in Kirkwall for the 100th anniversary commemoration event above the site and the simultaneous ceremony at the Kitchener Memorial on Marwick Head. She is the sixth and final Type 45 destroyer to have joined the Royal Navy in 2010. She is 152 metres in length, just a little longer than the 144-metre long Hampshire. Despite being slightly longer, the unarmoured Duncan displaces 8,000 tons as opposed to the 10,800 tons displacement of Hampshire.
As the conditions of our licence prohibited us diving on the actual 100th anniversary of the sinking, 5 June 2016, the whole team was kindly invited for a tour of Duncan the night before. The four expedition co-organisers were also invited back for lunch aboard on the 100th anniversary itself by her commander, who warmly welcomed us and was very supportive of what we were trying to do. After a very pleasant lunch in his private rooms, we were able to show him some of our underwater footage and stills photographs, and explain how our buoys were laid out on the site; he would be going out to the site that evening for the ceremony.
That evening, 5 June 2016, the 100th anniversary commemoration event took place at the Kitchener Memorial atop Marwick Head at 2045, the exact time that the Hampshire hit the fateful mine. Our whole dive team attended the ceremony – and it was particularly moving for us to see offshore in the distance, silhouetted against the late summer’s setting sun, HMS Duncan sitting above the wreck of the Hampshire. It was a powerful and moving image – and it was slightly strange to be in amongst so many interested people and officials to think that we would be diving down to the wreck the following day. Representatives of the Metropolitan Police from London were present as their man, Matthew McLoughlin, was Kitchener’s personal body guard and was lost as the ship sunk. The Met would subsequently approach me to indicate that a suite of offices in their Royalty and Specialist Protection Command centre was going to be named after the late officer, who was the last Met officer to lose his life on protection duties. They asked for some imagery of the wreck to display in the new Matthew McLoughlin Suite. We were of course happy to oblige for such a worthy cause, and forwarded a number of stills. The suite was subsequently opened by the Princess Royal on 19 October 2016.
In the days following the 100th anniversary ceremony at Marwick Head, the commander of HMS Duncan sent me a note to say that the buoys had been very helpful in positioning his vessel at the correct site and in the correct orientation for the ceremony.
From our examination of the wreck, it became clear that with a length of 144 metres, as the Hampshire sank by the bow, her bow struck the seabed as her stern lifted out of the water 65 metres above. She then rolled to starboard and capsized on the surface. Everything that wasn’t secured to her fell from the upside-down ship to create a debris field on the seabed to the east. Her four deck-mounted 6-inch secondary armament guns fell from their mounts and dropped through the water column, two impaling themselves like darts into the seabed.
Her two towering masts struck the seabed on the eastern side of the wreck and broke in several places. The small Yarrow boilers for her steam pinnaces fell through the pinnace roofs and landed to the east; the pinnaces themselves, still secured to the booms were pinned to the side of the wreck.
A drifting decompression on the trapeze on the final day was a chance to fly the Explorers Club flag inwater. Rod Macdonald on the left – Paul Haynes, right.
Over more than 100 years since her sinking, the wreck has sagged and collapsed in places, but she is very much recognisable for the fine ship she was. An armoured ship, strongly built, she has stood up well against time, tide and the fierce Atlantic storms.
As at the date of printing we have our 120-page-long Explorers Club Expedition Report almost finalised. It will be kept by the Explorers Club along with all the other reports of expeditions going right back to its genesis in the early 20th century. The report will also be circulated to other interested bodies such as local museums and national institutions such as the Imperial War Museum and the National Maritime Museum. The 3D photogrammetry and virtual reality modelling is well under way, but will take some time to finalise. I subsequently went down to the University of Dundee to visit Chris Rowland in the 3DVis Lab. Putting on the VR goggles, you are immediately transported to the wreck of the Hampshire, which at full size appears to tower 50 feet above you. The level of detail is incredible, and once the VR model is finalised I will be interested to hear what maritime archaeologists will say about being able to walk around the wreck of the Hampshire.
The wreck is designated as a Controlled Site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (Designation of Vessels and Controlled Sites) Order 2012 and no diving has been permitted on it or within 300 metres of it since 2002. With our survey under licence now completed, it is unlikely that another licence will be granted to survey the ship in the foreseeable future. I wonder what she will look like on the 200th anniversary of her sinking and how our 2016 results may be pored over then?
5
St Vincent-class British dreadnought battleship Destroyed at anchor in Scapa Flow on 9 July 1917
On the evening of 9 July 1917, the British St Vincent-class battleship Vanguard lay at anchor in Scapa Flow, less than one nautical mile to the north of the island of Flotta. The Revenge-class battleship HMS Royal Oak lay at anchor nearby.
Without warning, at about 2320, a series of cataclysmic magazine explosions suddenly took place in Vanguard’s magazine. She sank immediately, and all but three of the 845 men aboard her at the time were killed. The loss of life was greater than either of Orkney’s other two famous war graves, HMS Hampshire lost in 1916 with 737 men, and the nearby Royal Oak, which would herself be lost in 1939 with 834 men.
Vanguard was laid down by Vickers Armstrong at Barrow-in Furness on 2 April 1908. She was the eighth ship to bear this name – a name that is enmeshed in the history of the Royal Navy. The ninth to bear the name Vanguard was launched in 1944, but only completed in 1947, after the war had ended; she was the biggest and fastest British battleship ever constructed, with 15-inch guns and a speed of 30 knots. But the era of the battleship was over and when she was scrapped early after only 13 years’ service in 1960, she was the last British battleship afloat. Today the eleventh Vanguard is the lead boat of the UK’s Trident ballistic missile submarine fleet based at Faslane.
