THE
SHIPWRECK
HUNTER
A Lifetime of Extraordinary
Discoveries on the Ocean Floor
DAVID L. MEARNS
For Sarah, Samuel, Alexandra and Isabella
Dedicated to the survivors and the families
who preserve the memories of those lost at sea
Contents
Prologue
Introduction
1 MV Lucona: MURDER AND FRAUD ON THE HIGH SEAS
2 MV Derbyshire: LOST WITHOUT TRACE
3 HMS Hood and KTB Bismarck: SEARCH FOR AN EPIC BATTLE
4 TSS Athenia: THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WORLD WAR
5 HMAS Sydney (II) and HSK Kormoran: SOLVING AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST MARITIME MYSTERY
6 AHS Centaur: SUNK ON A MISSION OF MERCY
7 Esmeralda: VASCO DA GAMA’S SECOND ARMADA TO INDIA
8 USS Indianapolis and Endurance: WAITING TO BE FOUND
Illustrations
Afterword
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
Prologue
For seven days the shipwreck, lost for fourteen years and lying broken somewhere on the abyssal plain over four kilometres beneath us, had eluded our new-fangled sonar: so brand new it was still on its first full operational dive. This was to be the last of nine search lines covering the 430 square nautical miles where we thought the best chance of the wreck being located was. If this line, like the eight we had already searched, was negative, we would be left with one simple question: was the shipwreck we were trying to find hidden within the mountainous terrain that occasionally cropped up throughout our search box, or were we simply looking in the wrong location?
I was doing my best to hide my uncertainty and inexperience from both my team and the clients, who were on board the small support vessel with us, but I could feel the pressure rising. It would make no difference to anyone that my company had performed amazingly well to design, build and mobilize in the ridiculously short period of five months all the specialist equipment we were using, or that the actual search operation had gone remarkably smoothly, without a second of lost time. Unless we found the wreck, our work would be deemed a failure. We had won this important and potentially lucrative search contract in the face of fierce competition from two far more experienced companies. When they vigorously protested the award and predicted that we would fail, in part because I personally was too inexperienced to lead such a challenging project, it put even more pressure on us to succeed.
Yet even the huge gamble my bosses had taken with the company’s future and reputation in tackling this complicated project paled in comparison with what was at stake for our clients. For them it was quite literally a matter of life and death. The life in question belonged to the man who was being criminally prosecuted for sinking the ship, while the deaths were those of the crew he was accused of callously causing. There are a number of reasons why someone might be compelled to spend several million dollars to find a shipwreck lost in the deep ocean. To solve a multiple murder case is arguably the most sensational.
I wasn’t sure what made me more nervous: that we still hadn’t found the wreck despite having nearly completed our search box; that having been appointed the expert witness for the search I would be held personally responsible should we fail; or that the trial judge was actually at sea with us monitoring every move and decision I was making. To make matters worse, I was getting on badly with the judge. We spoke different languages, and a dispute about how my company was being paid meant our relationship had been fraught with tension and distrust for the past several days. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he lost all faith in the search, and us, and terminated it when the current search line was finished.
At the extreme depth at which we were working, it took four seconds for the sonar’s acoustic wave, travelling at about 1,530 metres per second, to emanate sideways and scatter off mud, rocks and any man-made objects before returning to the sonar to be electronically converted into brightly coloured images displayed on the computer screens in front of us. At the end of each four-second cycle I would tilt my head closer to the screen to get a clearer look at the latest strip of sea floor revealed, hoping for the distinctive signs of wreckage to appear. After seven days, the constant tilting of my head forwards and backwards like the slow beat of a metronome was so ingrained in me it happened without conscious control. But while my body was stuck on autopilot, trapped in the tempo of the ongoing search, my mind was racing ahead with the possible repercussions of failure. As much as I hated admitting defeat – and I was careful to keep such negative thoughts to myself – I felt I had to be prepared in case the worst happened. And then the next four-second cycle changed everything.
Without warning, a bright yellowish-white rectangle appeared on my screen. The target was unlike any others we had seen during the search, mainly because it was sitting alone in the expanse of orangey-red that depicted the soft muddy sediment cover of the flat abyssal plain. In the time it took my heartbeat to accelerate, another ‘ping’ from the sonar illuminated what was undoubtedly a very hard object. Was it the start of a geological rock field, or just one of the countless pieces of marine trash that littered the seabed? Or would this target justify my quickening pulse?
A minute or two passed before I could sensibly assess what we were seeing. The images scrolled down the screen like a multicoloured waterfall, revealing what lay below as if the ocean had been magically drained of all its water. This god-like power was what had first attracted me to working with sonars. In my mind nothing could compare with the excitement of deciphering previously unexplored expanses of the sea floor like this. Radiologists could use X-rays and MRIs to peer into the body, but I could do pretty much the same with no less a subject than the earth itself.
Not long after the hard target appeared, it petered out and with it my hopes that we had found something significant. There were still a handful of faint yellow pixels scattered to either side, indicating that the target wasn’t a solitary object, but soon enough the seabed became as flat and featureless as before. By now, everyone in the twenty-foot container that served as our operations control centre was crowding my screen and weighing in with their opinions of what we had detected. My rough measurement of the target’s size showed it wasn’t even close to the 140-metre length and 18-metre breadth of the ship we were after. This wasn’t our shipwreck, but could it be a piece of it?
Our wreck had supposedly been sunk by a large bomb hidden in one of the two main cargo holds and timed to explode far away from any land mass, so we were expecting at least some of the hull to be blown to pieces. While it was disturbing to think of the shipwreck as a crime scene and the grave site of six innocent people, that was exactly what it was. All the available research indicated that no other modern ships had sunk in this area, but I also needed to recognize that our search box was situated along a major east-west shipping route, so the potential for unreported shipping losses to have occurred here was high. I believed I had designed a conservative search plan to give us the best possible chance of distinguishing our shipwreck from other targets, but after seven days of no results my initial confidence was seriously waning.
I waited in anticipation for more targets to follow the initial scattering, but none appeared. Slowly my head stopped its forward-and-back motion and began to drop. Was that it? A brief flutter of excitement and promise, followed by the empty feeling of failure? Was my career as a deep-ocean shipwreck hunter destined to start in disappointment, from which a second chance might never materialize?
Suddenly the screen began to glow brightly again with not one but a string of hard targets stretching across the starboard side of the line we
were searching. Whatever the identity of these targets, their number and spread was about right for the dimensions of our shipwreck. This appeared to be the debris field of the exploded cargo hold section, but without a single large target representing the aft superstructure of the ship, there was no way to be positive. By now my face was just inches from the screen and I was praying for more targets. Finally my prayers were answered and one large beauty appeared.
I jumped up and felt a surge of exhilaration course through my body. ‘We’ve found it!’ I shouted. ‘That’s got to be our shipwreck! Look how it’s been blown to smithereens by the bomb!’ I threw both arms in the air and began to physically grab everyone in the container, although it was clear they weren’t as convinced by the images as I was. Quickly I started measuring the main targets to prove to them what I intuitively sensed: that the combined dimensions matched the ship very well. Whether they were persuaded or not, they all began to feed off my excitement.
Word began to filter through the ship that we had found something, and pretty soon our small container was heaving with people, including the judge and his three advisers. I repeated my explanations to the new arrivals, using zoomed-in views of the targets to reinforce my interpretations. Unlike photographs or video, sonar images are not visual, so they rely on experts to explain exactly what they represent. As I was one of only two people on board with any real experience interpreting such images, everyone had to more or less accept what I was telling them.
In truth, an additional higher-resolution sonar image of the wreckage would have to be produced to show that we had found the wreck, and even then only a photograph or video taken by an ROV would be acceptable in court as proof of the ship’s identity. I knew that the judge and his advisers would want a systematic investigation of the wreckage, and that several more weeks of hard work lay ahead, but now we would have all the time we needed to produce this evidence.
The search was not destined to end in failure as I had once feared. Instead it was to be a technical triumph and an enormous success for everyone involved. We had found one of the world’s deepest and most notorious shipwrecks, a wreck that was at the heart of an extremely high-profile murder trial with national importance in the country in which it was being held. We would no longer be viewed as novices amongst the small band of companies that operated in the deep ocean. We had proved that our equipment was superior and that our team was one of the best in the business. With this success under our belts, a string of clients would line up to hire our services and keep us in constant work for the next two years, thus transforming the value of our small company.
After all the excitement died down, I walked out to the fantail of the ship to have a moment to myself and appreciate what we had just achieved. I was elated by our success but also extremely relieved. Many months of hard, stressful work had paid off in the few minutes it took our sonar to reveal the shipwreck, leaving me with a feeling of satisfaction unlike any I had ever experienced before. If this was what it felt like to find a deep-ocean shipwreck, I was determined that it would not be the last time for me. In fact I was dead set on doing it again and again.
Introduction
‘How do I get a job like yours?’ Of all the questions I’m asked when I speak publicly about my work as a professional shipwreck hunter, this is the one I know will occur every single time. Invariably it comes from a young man, mid twenties at most, and by his tone of voice I can tell that he seriously thinks I might have advice that will change his life forever.
It’s a tough question to answer. For one, I never plotted out a path to this most unusual of professions myself, so I have no sure-fire strategy to offer. Secondly, I know of no school or university anywhere in the world that teaches all the skills needed to be a successful shipwreck hunter. Finally, and most importantly, there isn’t a ready-made industry out there looking to hire prospective shipwreck hunters.
My own story starts in Union City, New Jersey. Lost in the shadows of Manhattan’s skyscrapers across the Hudson River, Union City seems an unlikely location to inspire a future marine scientist. In fact its only claim to fame is that it is the most densely populated city in America, with nearly 60,000 people crammed into an area of just over one and a quarter square miles. To make matters worse, the nearest body of water is the Hackensack Reservoir Number Two, a man-made lake of 69 million gallons ringed by a two-metre-high fence to stop kids like me scaling it for a sneaky dip on a hot summer’s afternoon.
Not that New Jersey doesn’t have water; it is a coastal state with over 200 miles of seaboard fronting the Atlantic Ocean. But in the 1960s, when I was growing up, you hardly ventured beyond the three or four blocks that made up your immediate neighbourhood. When you weren’t in school, you were playing with your friends in the street between two long rows of parked cars. It might have been touch football, stickball, or skully – a game in which players shoot soda bottle caps along the road surface in between the passing cars – but whatever the game, it was generally within a few yards of your own front porch.
For lower-middle-class families like mine, holidays were a week or two each summer in a rented cottage down on the Jersey shore. These were great times with my brother and two sisters, when nearly every hour of the day was spent on the beach or in the water. We would body-surf on cheap Styrofoam boards until the skin on our chests was rubbed raw, or until our mother had to drag us home for dinner.
Occasionally a dorsal fin would be sighted just off the beach and the lifeguards would hurry everyone out of the water, but more often than not the offending beast was just a harmless sunfish. Sometimes, on a very clear day, a passing ship might be spotted steaming into Port Elizabeth to offload its cargo. Other than these moments, I would hardly ever think about what lay beyond the horizon or beneath the pounding surf. Despite my love of the ocean, these holidays weren’t the inspiration that drew me to a life working at sea.
Ironically, it was trips inland to my grandmother’s house in Honesdale in north-eastern Pennsylvania that were the real catalyst for my decision to study marine biology at university. As the youngest of four children, I would be packed off by myself on the bus to spend a week each summer visiting my cousins and uncles. Although Honesdale was barely a hundred miles away from Union City and could be reached by car in about two hours, it was the complete opposite of the city and like a whole new world for me. It was spacious, green, uncrowded and filled with lakes and ponds where I learned to fish and appreciate the natural beauty of the countryside.
My mother’s parents had emigrated to America from southern Italy around the turn of the twentieth century and eventually settled in Honesdale, where they had ten children, although two sadly died as infants during a diphtheria outbreak. They were a family of shopkeepers. First there was a general store and candy shop; later on, when my uncles were older and could help with the business, they ran a bar and restaurant that was widely known for making the best Neapolitan pizza in that part of Pennsylvania. The family was well respected within the tight-knit community, and when the call came to serve in World War II, three of my uncles fought on various fronts with the army and navy.
After the war ended, my two eldest uncles, Pete and Vince, together with some friends, bought 350 acres of private woodland to form the Bucks Cove Rod and Gun Club, where they could fish on several lakes and hunt for deer. Over the years, they bought additional land, nearly doubling the club in size, and added another lake, which they constructed themselves. These lakes were where my uncles taught me to fish for bass, catfish and the occasional toothy pike. We’d take a small rowing boat and stay out all day, releasing most of the fish we caught but keeping a few of the biggest catfish for supper. I loved those days with Pete and Vince. I never wanted them to end and would stay at the water’s edge deep into the night, casting my line to land one more fish, leaving only when the bats and the swarming mosquitoes forced me inside.
It never occurred to me then that something I loved doing so much could form the basis of a ca
reer, or that working in a natural outdoors environment was an option for me. My father was an antiques dealer who travelled in to Lower Manhattan every day to sell furniture to shops in Greenwich Village, while my mother was a registered school nurse looking after 1,200 students in a large city high school. Watching them go to work each day, I naturally assumed that I too would wind up working in a big city; probably Manhattan, where most people from across the river in New Jersey gravitated.
This mindset was forever changed, however, when I was sixteen and Vince took me to see a large freshwater fishery. I loved looking at the fish, of course, but mostly I was struck by the scientific approach that was used to produce the largest number of healthy fish possible. I remember leaving the fishery that day with the distinct idea that this was something I would enjoy and was capable of doing. When I came to think about what I would do after graduating from high school, I was torn between becoming an antiques dealer like my father and going on to university to study science. While I had become quite adept at the antique trade, having helped my father for many years, the people who inspired me the most were the astronomer Carl Sagan and the heart transplant surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard. I found Sagan to be amazingly eloquent and passionate when speaking about the cosmos, while in my eyes Barnard was a bona-fide hero for being the first surgeon to successfully transplant a human heart.
My teachers had always marked me out as someone quite bright, but I wasn’t the best student because – in their words – I needed to apply myself more in class. Basically they all said I wasn’t working to my full potential. Not long after visiting the freshwater fishery, I went to the local library and began investigating careers that would allow me to work outdoors and ideally in conjunction with water and fish. I found information on becoming a fisheries biologist, which was immediately appealing, but the job that really fired my imagination was marine biology.
The Shipwreck Hunter Page 1
