banner

What's it all about?

The driving force behind the shipwreck project is Grahame Knott. Grahame has owned and operated several charter boats in the Weymouth area, the most famous being the Wey Chieftain.

After many years locating and diving Channel shipwrecks Grahame has become more and more involved in the research and history behind them. Diving in Grahame's eyes has become a little stale; the same format of a wreck and reef dive on the popular tourist wrecks has not changed over many years. Some divers dive for diving's sake and although there is nothing wrong with that Grahame sees diving as the vehicle to get him where he wants to be namely a wreck and then a whole world beyond diving exists in discovering the wrecks identity, how it got there, who built it, who was on it, are there any survivors or relatives with a story to tell etc. etc.

Beyond this again he sees a necessity to record, document and monitor sites many of which are of historical importance. Grahame has set up the shipwreck project to share his knowledge and experience with others and give them the chance to help undertake essential research before history is lost forever.

 

 

The shipwreck project

Objectives

The overall project aim.

This is to record and investigate shipwreck sites that may be lost forever due to trawling, dredging or natural deterioration and to document, record and identify known sites involving amateur divers in marine archaeology and research work.

 

To raise awareness of our maritime heritage.

The Lamlash when quayside will be open to visitors, information sheets detailing project progress will be available free of charge. Shipwreck artefacts will be on display at various times.

 

To promote diving in the Weymouth and Portland area.

There will be talks and presentations onboard and shore-side aimed at encouraging people to take up the sport of diving enthused by our adventures.

 

To act as a catalyst.

It is hoped to bring together amateur historians, researchers, and archaeologists that have acted alone for many years in an extremely professional manner with little recognition of their work.

 

To attract like-minded divers. We wish to bring together individual divers from all over the globe with a common interest in our activities. We have considerable experience in this area from our early days of deep diving. One became two, which became a small group which then became a larger group and so on.

Primary objectives

To locate pre-twentieth century wreck sites using sidescan sonar, dive and record. Depth range 20M plus.

 

Over the last twenty years we have dived several sailing ships that have so far defied identification. Work will continue with further diving and research. Depth range 40M plus.

 

The nineties was in this part of the world the hay-day for diving new wrecks even charted wrecks had never been dived mid-channel. On our travels we left many wrecks unidentified. These wrecks are seldom if ever dived. We shall be returning in an effort to identify them. Depth range 60M plus.

 

Over the centuries the area between Stennis Ledges and Chesil beach has seen the loss of literally hundreds of ships. Apart from a small, dedicated band of local enthusiasts very little work has been done to locate and document the sites. Depth range 15M / 30M.

 

During the Second World War many aircraft were lost at sea. We have discovered a few and intend to try and locate more. In recent times we have learnt much more about identifying various types of aircraft and the individual aircraft itself. We may be able to provide some answers for living relatives. Depth range 20M plus.

 

The battle of Portland. This is a huge undertaking to try and find evidence of ships sunk during the first Anglo Dutch war. We have already spent much time researching this and initial sidescan data needs to be investigated. Depth range 50M plus.

 

Photograph and document the condition of wartime and modern day wrecks and carry out a sidescan survey of each site. Depth range 15M plus.

 

Oceanic Imaging supports the Ship Wreck Project

C- MAX supports the Ship Wreck Project

Webmaster - DGWebs

 

© Crown Copyright 2008 - 2018 all rights reserved.