Bored? Let's have a heated wreck debate!

What about the Rainbow Warrior in NZ?

Now I know it was towed & sunk at the final resting place, but surely the reason she ended up there was because of Le Frogmen et Le Espionage avec les mines du limpet?

Bit of cloak et dagger?

It's a good story....

Hi Guys

It's not a question of "tragedy" - although that is exactly what keeps the Titanic story alive, it's a question of how she came to lost. Such stories are often far more riveting than the more famous losses - even when no lives were lost.

My apologies here, I seem to be missing something - 1600 lost? Take me back two spaces and remind me.

Point me towards the flying boat tender.

Rainbow Warrior will be mentioned in the intro to NZ wreck diving although the main featured wreck for that country will be the Mikhail Lermontov.

You keep coming back to aircraft. They are by their very nature much smaller than ships. Perhaps I should look for aircraft along the way and consider a separate book. Tell me I am wrong, but I just don’t see something like a large WW2 aircraft with 4 props comparing to, say, a wreck like the Sanfrancisco Maru or any of the others I have mentioned.

Point me to a website with images and I really will give the matter serious consideration.

Ned

so Ned, what's your take on all that controversy surrounding Mr X and the red sea bottle scuffle earlier in the year? Is he still banned?

Ned - see post 45 on the Oryoku Maru Hell Ship.

I think only 300 POWs out of 1600 survived the attack & sinking - they were UK & US POWs apparently...

Coron Bay - 'large, sheltered body of water that has become the wreck diving capital of the Philippines. In September 1944 Ad. 'Bull' Halsey's fleet was heading north towards Luzon. Having no accurate charts of the area he sent rec planes ahead to map out a route. As they flew over Coron Bay they discovered an aux. Jap fleet at anchor in the bay.

He immediately ordered an air attack & several waves of bombers sunk many of the vessels. (over a 2 day period - H) To date, 9 of these wrecks have been discovered & are regularly visited by divers, but according to US naval records, several more were destroyed & await discovery.'

Gunter of Discovery Divers who opened up Coron to divers discovered the wrecks by a process that culminated in dragging an anchor along the bottom of the bay, & diving down when it went 'clunk!', & had hit something big

Wrecks are;

1.Tae Maru (Concepcion wreck)
2.Akitsushima
3.Lusong gunboat
4.Olympia Maru
5.Mamiya Maru
6.Kogyu Maru
7.Tangat wreck
8.Irako
9.Tangat gunboat

I've dived all except 3, 5 & 8

Akitsushima is the Daddy there - 18 - 40m down, 150m long

It was my first dive after I completed my wreck course, but the 7 hardcore Brit wreckies told me it was 'something special' - well I knew that, but obviously they had a lot more wrecks on their logs to compare it to, so I suspect their assessment carries a bit more clout than the new boy on deck

Vis is not great although you can dive it year round.

I had 8m - 10m in March 04

You can see a shot of a lionfish (& some backscatter) over the gunboat with lots of coral on my web site

www.hesawyer.com

page 5, bottom row

hey Ned, you could always come to HK and help fin Cheung Po Tsai's old pirate ship. It sunk somewhere off the east coast (they think) and no one has been able to find it yet.

and then there is the Lisbon Maru which got sunk by the yanks with about 800 alilied pows on board. Not sure how deep it is though. Maybe a wreck too far?

Lisbon Maru

correction - 1800 POWS, but 'only' 800 were killed in the attack.