Sink!

Anyone who runs a retail business will tell you that they are regularly approached for donations to a variety of charities.  It’s a common thing for businesses to choose charities that reflect their employees’ interests or even to have an annual pitch from the employees to pick a charity of the year.  In our dive centre we have collecting boxes for the local Hyperbaric Chamber and the RNLI, both close to divers’ hearts and interests. 

The reality is that I’ve never been to the chamber for anything more than a planned visit and I’ve never called out the lifeboat.  In fact we’ve responded to several emergencies at sea and reduced the times that Port St Mary lifeboat has been scrambled.  So although we actively fundraise for both these charities, we definitely count in the low/no user group.  But it’s reassuring to know that they are both there if we ever need them.

I have come to the conclusion that the RNLI isn’t always the diver’s best friend.  With improved navigation aids and communications, excellent training and really powerful pumps our local lifeboat has been involved in many incidents.  We know many of the crew, in fact we taught several of them to dive.  The Isle of Man is blessed with numerous wrecks, many still unidentified.  These are the product of two World Wars and, in the past, considerable navigation errors.  Stick a lump of rock in the middle of the Irish Sea and it seems like a considerable number of vessels will manage to run into it!  But all these wrecks are gradually deteriorating, leaving just the boilers and maybe the prop shaft behind amidst a collapsed mess of plates and ribs.  As time marches inexorably onwards, the decay takes its toll and within the next few years several of these sites will all but disappear.  So my big dilemma is this, where will the next generation of wrecks come from?

I can’t have been the only diver who watched the Riverdance drama unfold in 2008.  Once the crew and passengers had been safely lifted off and she was adrift towards the Blackpool coast, I admit I was willing her, telepathically transmitting a “Sink. Sink. Sink” message.  The seabed between the Isle of Man and the North West of England is rarely more than 40m.  Just imagine a wreck of that size as a dive site.  The Zenobia of the North West.  But oh no!  A conspiracy between the RAF, coastguard, ship owners and RNLI meant that they had manoeuvred her towards the shore until she was abandoned and by then she was so far inshore that she ran aground.  She rapidly became a big tourist attraction, but after several failed attempts to refloat her, the owners sliced Riverdance into scrap metal and carted her away to an ignominious end.  What an utter waste of a brilliant dive site!

So much as I love the RNLI I have come to the conclusion that they are not really a diver’s best friend.  All this pumping out boats and towing them back to harbour malarkey is not good for maintaining a decent number of wrecks to dive.  A recent faulty fire alarm panel in a neighbouring building saw the fire brigade arrive at 7am outside the dive centre.  The building was locked up, but having established that no-one was in the building and there was no fire, they all accepted a cup of tea (in our DDRC mugs of course) and left with the alarm still ringing.  I want the RNLI to take the same approach – if there’s no one in danger then just leave the ship to become a wreck.  Don’t worry about where it’s going to end up, we have sounders and towable cameras to find it.  A last known position will do and we’ll take it from there.
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Sir William Hillary lobbied for the inception of the RNLI after witnessing the destructive power of the Irish Sea around the Isle of Man.  He took part in commanding a volunteer crew in the heroic rescue of all the passengers of the St George as she struck Connister Rock outside Douglas harbour in 1830.  The Isle of Man is proud of our longstanding association with the RNLI and Douglas boasts the first Life boat station.  But in the early days the rescues were aimed at saving lives, the saving vessels part came later.  All I’m asking for is the crews to be a little more pragmatic…..the next generation of wrecks lies in their hands!