The weather was looking good, no wind and the sun was out, perfect conditions to go and dive the UC-41 submarine. Everyone managed to arrive at Broughty ferry harbour and get ready quite quickly and soon we were on our way to the site of the wrecked sub.
When we got there we had a little trouble finding the sub at first. Dave was watching the sonar trying to find the remains on the sub and James was at the ready with the shot to drop it and mark where the sub was. Once the shot was in it was decided that Dave and I should go in first, Dave was the most experienced diver that day so he was paired with the least experienced(me). As soon as we both rolled in we realised this wasn’t going to be easy as there was a strong current taking us away from the shot pretty quickly so the boat had to assist us in getting back to it.
Once we were in things weren’t much better and it was hard work just getting down the shot. We reached a sandy seabed at around 26 meters but the visibility was terrible. It was sort of like an underwater sandstorm while still being quite light. We stayed down and looked around for a few more minutes but eventually we had to admit defeat and head back.
We plan to try and dive this wreck again during slack tide, I think everyone was disappointed but we still had fun out on the boat. Well, everyone apart from me as I felt a little seasick and spend most of the journey back to shore looking a little grey!
The UC-41 was a German U-boat that wrecked after suffering an internal explosion of one of her mines which forced her to suddenly surface. She was spotted and depth charged by British naval trawlers. All 27 crew members were lost and possibly some British prisoners of war.
Click here for more information on the submarine.
What happened that you didn’t dive it on the slack water times?
We were assured it could be dived at any state of the tide..and we had a second wreck we wanted to do nearer slack.
We were never going to get both wrecks on slack water, it was probably a bit close to springs to try the sub before slack but at least we’ll know for next time. It was disappointing, especially since we couldn’t even find the Sophron, but it was still a nice day and lesson’s learnt 🙂