2005 Diving Season - Page 2 of 7

28th September

Work during the westerly tides continued on the north end of the stem trench where the stem is narrowest and closest to the surface, concentrating on looking for the area of contact with the end of the anchor. As this is being written, I can hear Peter Ewens over the diver communications stating that in enlarging the stem trench at the north he has found one of the anchor flukes at an area deeper than the stem. Hurrah, at least we now know one is there!

On the easterly tides the rest of the anchor has been uncovered by removing the remaining sandbags and membrane material and the entire shank is now exposed over its upper face. We are aiming to excavate a rectangular trench between the anchor and the stem in order to try and understand the orientation of the anchor relative to the stem and the port side frames found in 2004. Two large anchors were recovered from beneath the bow in 1982 on the starboard side, and a third anchor on the starboard side at the bow is not expected. It is therefore possible that this is a port side bow anchor, fallen towards the starboard side. This scenario could account for all the degraded and collapsed structure we found overlying and around the anchor in 2004. Our only chance at understanding where it may have originated is by recording its orientation relative to the exposed structure as much as we can before removing it.

The wind is increasing and the vessel is beginning to roll. So far we have been lucky with the weather for this time of year. It is 8pm and we have one more pair of divers due to dive tonight, two more hours work. Perhaps the second fluke will be found tonight.

Alex Hildred and everyone onboard Terschelling.

 

Back to top