Last day on LST 507

Final day on LST 507 - the gas station is busy at Scimitar Diving http://www.scimitardiving.co.uk/

                                                Paul Burgess joins the team - and adds style....

Andreas takes in the view around Portland Bill

The team get ready for their final dive this year on the LST

Chilling out while Smudge sorts the shot and the lift

                              Paul finally gets out of his pyjamas and into something more appropriate...

Help always on hand in an instant from Smudge and Una

Rich Walker organised the project and gives a happy smile after a successful filming dive on LST 507

Many thanks to Richard Bass...

An excellent evening many thanks to Richard T Bass, author of Exercise Tiger.

The 2012 LST project team (minus Gareth lock, Joe Tidball, Graham Blackmore and Richard Whalley who were here earlier in the week).
Jerome 'Smudge' Smith - our excellent skipper; Paul Burgess; Kata Kuit-Nagy; Christine Grosart; Jack MacLoughlin; Andras Kuit; Darren Morley, Richard Bass (author); Dorota czerny; Paul Duckworth; Richard Walker.

All head for the stern...

Day #3 of Project Tiger got underway a lot earlier - 9am ropes off.
Jack and paul did a good job of lining the stern section and we all dropped onto the stern section.

Todays team was Graham Blackmore diving with Jack Mack - Paul Burgess dived with Darren Morley - Andras and Kata together again and Rich and I shot some video.


     Snapshot of the 'sticky up thing' from yesterdays dive on the bow section, by Andras Kuti

                                                   Stern section - screen grab by Andras.

Richard Bass, historian and author of Exercise Tiger and narrator in a recent documentary about Exercise Tiger, is here in Portland at the Breakwater Hotel and will be talking to us this evening about his discoveries.

Project Tiger Dive #2

Dive #2

Jack and Paul dived the stern to lay line around it – they managed to cover one side. Meanwhile, Kata and Andras investigated the ‘sticky up thing’ which is covered in fishing net.

Jack & Paul knot line.....ready to go to the stern

Chris analyses and labels gas

Rich and Dorota looked into the break at the back of the hull section – described as pretty much empty cargo holds. They swam up the starboard side and spotted a DUKW chassis inside and further in, possibly a bulldozer.

Around that area is also a door/hatch which may have a plate on it – heavily encrusted.

In the same vicinity were some telephones in a ? comms room. Dorota shot some video of the dive.

Joe, Darren and Christine had 25 minutes beginning on the bow section. Darren confirmed holes in the large doors(?) which may be shell holes. The divers swam around the bow and Joe investigated inside and the divers returned to the area of the shot line and turned right towards the break, with the upturned hull on their right. Joe and Darren had a brief look inside but found nothing of any interest.

Evening work....

                               The gnomes discuss tactics for getting up onto high benches.......

 Gathering at the breakwater to draw up sketches, compare notes and sort out video and stills.

25th June, 2012, Dive 1

Today we put 5 teams into the water. The way we like to work on these projects is to take a simple overview of the wreck first, and then build up a detailed picture of the wreck as we work through the week.

The first goal is to "surround" the wreck in a perimeter of line.  This gives us a good idea of how big the wreck is, and allows us to navigate easier on subsequent dives. This normally takes two teams - the first goes down and secures the shotline, ties in a line and runs along the side of the wreck.  The second team ties into the first teams line and then heads the other way. All being well, they meet at some point and the wreck is then "contained".

Subsequent teams then follow these lines, and mark items or areas of interest. If we have photographers, then they also start to shoot as well.

I'm really happy today, as the dives went exactly to plan. We have completed the line, have a few points we want to return to, and also have 30 or so great pictures by Gareth Lock at various points around the wreck.

The dive was 50m deep, and teams spent between 25 and 40 minutes on the bottom.  All are well and enjoying dinner in the Royal Breakwater Hotel in Portland.

We've spent the past couple of hours recreating what we saw, and have put our first sketch map together. This map will evolve over the duration of the project, detail and accuracy increasing on each dive.  We have a great team of GUE divers on this project, and superb support from Smudge and Sarah at Scimitar Diving.

Heading home......

First shots from the project, courtesy of Gareth lock http://www.imagesoflife.co.uk/

First shots from the project, courtesy of Gareth lock http://www.imagesoflife.co.uk/

                                                            So what did we see then??

Dive #1...

The team all just stepped off the boat after a cracking dive on what we believe is LST 507. The viz was about 10m - great conditions and plenty of life - large edible crabs, huge anemones, bib everywhere and some saw congers and lobsters.
The wreck is upside down - Rich and I saw a big flat door so we are pretty convinced we finished the dive on the bow.
Jack and Paul laid line one way around the wreck and I laid line in the other direction from their tie off, while Rich took some survey video.

We are pretty sure that we have dived the large section which is likely to be the bow section. The stern is about 25m away and we need to look for this next.

                                    
                                                                  Gareth Lock

                                                                     Joe Tidball

                                                                  Skipper Smudge

                                                                      Darren Morley

                                                              Paul Duckworth

                                                                 Andras Kuti

                                                               Kata Kuti-Nagy

                                                                Richard Whalley

                                                                  Jack McLoughlan

Snoozing on the way out...it's a long 2 hour boat ride...

Tall ships enjoying the breeze

Rich Whalley. No style.

Getting ready...

Sun sets over Chesil beach on Sunday 24th June 2012. The team meet up for dinner at the Cove House.

Ropes off isn't until 12.30 the next day, so we have a good sleep and the sun greets us while Rich gives everyone a dive briefing and introduces some of our foreign guests to the customs of UK diving.

 The team on Monday are all Global Underwater explorers divers: Two instructors (grown ups) to keep us in line - Richard Walker and Dorota Czerny.
We have Jack MacLoughlin and Paul Duckworth diving together first to tie the shot line in and lay some navigation lines. Rich and I will follow and lay line and take stock video in the other direction.
Andras and Kata are over from Hungary and are having a fun dive, noting what they see and getting used to British waters for their first day on the project and in the UK.
Dorota and Gareth Lock are shooting stills and recording what they see.
Darren Morley, Joe tidball and Richard Whalley are recording what they see and marking anything interesting. Rich is our navy expert so he'll hopefully be able to recognise the mashed, upside down vehicles!

 Rich Whalley at Scimitar with his cutting and sticking effort.

Rich Walker and his whiteboard......You can take a man out of work but......  Dorota studies the vehicles we are expecting to find.

Project overview

Welcome to the Project Tiger blog. This project has been running since 2010, and we though that it was about time we entered the modern world and made a blog for it.

The project aims to document and record the shipwrecks from a World War 2 exercise which was practicing for the D-Day landings.  9 LST's (Landing Ships for Tanks) were in convoy in Lyme Bay, Dorset on the night of 27th April, 1944 when they were attacked by 9 German Schnellboots from Cherbourg. 

Two LST's, LST507 and LST 531 were sunk, and over 700 men lost their lives. It was a huge tragedy, of course, but the lessons learned ultimately helped make the real D-Day landings on the Normandy beaches a success.

We will post more of the history, our dives on these wrecks along with photos and video records of what we find as the project progresses.

To follow us on facebook, catch up with us on our Project Tiger page...
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/ProjectTiger1944

On Wednesday 27th June at 19.30 Richard Bass, author of Exercise Tiger and narrator in the TV documentary about the disaster http://www.channel5.com/shows/revealed/episodes/the-secret-d-day-scandal-revealed will be talking at the Breakwater Hotel. everyone welcome - finger buffet and bar available.