DEEP WRECK EXPEDITION MALTA
The DEEP WRECK EXPEDITION June 2010 on Malta was succesfull.
Due to the perfect support of Jonathan and stuart from Tec Deep Blue everything ran as planned.
The weather conditions were far from ideal, especially the wind was a problem. High seas made diving not easy.
The first visits to the wreck were two years ago, when Stuart Jones, Jonathan Thomas and Mark Powell did the initial dives on the wreck. However identification has proved difficult and the vessels identity remains a mystery.
On the 4th June Tec Deep Blue Malta in conjunction with a team of CCR divers from ANDI Europe, led by Helmuth Biechl (noted for his involvement with the famous Carpathia expedition, diving in the Atlantic Ocean at depths up to 156M), visited the wreck and on this occasion were able to obtain some excellent video footage of the wreck.
The divers Helmuth Biechl, Jordi Mateo, Thomas Heinemeyer (camera man) and Dirk Berben , using Inspiration and Megalodon rebreathers and utilising Bonex scooters, spent 25 minutes on the wreck at depths between 110/115m and concluded the dives with total runtimes between 3 and 4 hours with the first deco stops at 80m. The diluent , during the bottom phase of the dive, was a 8/68 trimix and a variety of diluent switches and bail out strategies were employed by the various divers in order to safely ascend from depth.
The dives were set up and supported by Tec Deep Blue Malta and employed over 20 deco cylinders, multiple support divers, and a team of 8, including, Bernhard Leicher and Bernard Jungwird. Due to impeccable planning and preparation the dives were completed without any negative incidents and managed to provide exactly the kind of documentary footage that is necessary to be able to identify and date this type of deep wreck. The video of the wreck is being studied intensely for clues as to the identity of the wreck, at the moment the evidence is pointing towards it being from the First World War. At the depth in which she lies, the visibility drops dramatically, she is covered in deep water corals and seems to be in a couple of pieces. All these factors add to the challenge of identifying which, of Malta’s many wartime wrecks, this is.
Tec Deep Blue Malta is still actively searching for and then diving targets that we are sure will prove of interest to technical divers from all over the world. It is hoped that the search for the identity of this ship will bear fruit and enable us to reveal her full story in due course.
We like to congratulate everyone who did the dives, and say thank you to the support team and the skipper.
Arrival at Malta International Airport
Preparation
Analysis
