'The Laurentic - Gold In An Emerald Isle'

Travelling through Ireland in search of Deep Shipwrecks photographer Leigh Bishop took time out for some relaxing shallow water diving on the Ocean Liner 'Laurentic', as he soon found out with gold still amongst the wreckage the dive makes for a little more excitement than expected!

A maximum depth of 39m/130ft meant that for a change I was perhaps going to see more on a single wreck dive than I had in as many years as I could remember. Usually a maximum of twenty-five minutes is enough on any deep wreck dive but now I was expecting a heavenly forty-five minutes and more if I wanted!

At 15,000 tons, the wreck of the White Star liner Laurentic sunk at the mouth of Lough Swilly, Donegal, Ireland has far more to offer than my planned forty-five minute bottom could throw at me. Ocean liners present arguably the best calibre of shipwreck that you could possibly wish for and in the case of the Laurentic the depth means this particular one is accessible to the majority of open water divers. Interestingly enough gold bars still remain hidden amongst the broken wreckage from her once huge 35-ton bullion cargo which if your like me will play on your mind throughout the entire dive! Having said that; the possibility of actual finding any such gold can be classed as slightly less than slim if only due to the heavy salvage attempts the wreck has seen over the years.

Laurentic stuck a mine almost a hour after leaving Buncrana in Lough Swilly in January 1917 taking almost fifty minutes to sink, her cargo included 3,211 gold bars each weighing 10.6lbs. This was part of Britain's payment for munitions supplied by the United States government. The Treasury could not afford to loose so much gold and so the Admiralty approached Captain Guyban Damant to assist in its recovery. He accepted the challenge and recruited some of the leading Royal Navy divers of the time under a “Class-A Security” salvage job. The first divers to descend found the ship lying unevenly and had great difficulty in moving across the steeply sloping decks. Little would the divers realise that as they began their task it would become a seven year salvage epic that would set a new record for quantity of gold recovered from a wreck.

The divers began what was regarded as a strange combination of diving and underwater mountaineering as they slowly negotiated the starboard rail 18m above the seabed. After a series of demolition explosions the strong room was finally located by diver E.C. Miller who forced it open with a hammer and chisel. As the door opened it is reported he literally feel into a room full of boxes of gold. Approx nine inches long each box contained six bars. It was now a case of carefully retrieving them from the wreck. Damant confidently expected the entire haul to be recovered that year but one thing he hadn’t bargained for was the harsh weather that can strike this vunrable coastline at any time. As the weather came in the wreck began to collapse and over a period of several weeks the passageways in which the divers worked reduced in height to some 18inchs. Patience and persistence would become the norm as the divers were forced away to return the following year. As the weather turned in September 1917 approximately £800,000 of gold had been recovered but there still remained £4,200,000 worth of bullion buried within the wreck.

When the divers returned the following year the action of the sea was taking its toll on the wreck and a substantial amount of debris now covered the gold. During the next seven years the divers made a staggering 7,000 dives to the wreck recovering a total of 3,189 ingots, amazingly in seven years there were no serious cases of the bends during any of the 7,000 dives!

In 1972, John S. Potter’s "The Treasure Diver's Guide" indicates that the remaining 25 ingots were still amongst the wreckage. In 1950 the salvage company Rison Beazley Marine Ltd using explosives recovered her propellers. In 1965 local divers purchased the wreck from the Admiralty and she has since been dived by sport divers hundreds of times. In 1986 a four point mooring system was once again set up over the wreck and working form the Holga Dane commercial divers went in search of the remaining gold. The divers returned in 1987 but pulled out due to costs, as no gold was recovered and it was now accepted by many that the remaining gold would be well buried underneath the wreckage.

Swanage diver Adam Ridges wrote of his account working on the Holga Dane soon after the salvage. When I caught up with him he told me in detail the story of a single eight- hour dive in which he practically walked around the entire wreck! Since hearing Adam’s story Laurentic was a wreck that was hovering around the top of my “to dive” list, even after, finally getting round to dive her myself it was well worth the wait. The wreck has collapsed substantially over the last eighty -five years and today her double-ended scotch boilers mark the highest point of the wreck. As if there couldn't be any more a dive could offer yet another added bonus of a dive on this wreck is the fabulous visibility, which averages 15-20m often more.

Ambient light alone is impressively efficient, even on an overcast day it is unlikely that you will need a torch although if you do it would only be for a tantalizing peek for a glint of gold beneath hull plates and twisted steel. Ireland is often referred to as the Emerald Isle and if the coastal waters are anything to go by it soon becomes apparent to the visiting diver why this is rightly so. The water here and particularly on Laurentic is quite literally emerald green! Not till you get offshore is there a notable change in colour as well as an amazing increase in visibility.

The moment I first saw Laurentic I was instantly reminded of the time capsule this wreck belongs to. The wreck was permanently buoyed during my stay and the shotline was secured fast to a single 4.7"inch gun pointing sky bound from the forward port section of the wreck.

The Laurentic had been commandeered as an armed merchant cruiser by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the Great War and specifically selected as one of fifteen auxilliary cruisers that were initially equipped with such guns. There are four guns still to be seen on the wreck today two exposed the remainder substantially camouflaged by the collapsed wreckage. Lying in a position that is exposed to the worst that the harsh Atlantic winter weather can throw at her and with all the subsequent salvage attempts using explosives, the passage of time has left the wreck badly broken up and scattered over a wide area.

However several key features assist in underwater navigation and it is possible to swim around the entire site without it being too disorientated. The most recognisable and substantial section of the wreck has to be the very bow tip lying to the north on its port side and amazingly intact. Cut clean off aft of her fo'c'sle navigating along the southern port side of the wreck it cannot be missed. Passenger safety railings still remain fixed in position as does the teak decking that has a light covering of anemones and marine growth. The bow is very impressive and with an abundance of marine life present very photogenic, the exposed starboard anchor remains housed within its hawser and mooring bollards are easily distinguishable.

Immediately beyond the bow the diver will see the foredeck capstans and deck winches, the chain locker has rotted away and you can see a huge pile of chain splitting into their respective brake and screw slip directions. In this area you can also see another reminder of her wartime service as boxes of ammunition litter the wreck.

Swimming back from the bow and heading due south is over 550ft of wreck to explore that lies over to port although in places this will not become immediately apparent. Along the eastern starboard side of the wreck 303 rifle and point five 0 rounds can still be seen in the remains of their wooden boxes, close by a large stack of 4.7inch shells lies undisturbed.

The entire wreck rests on a reef that perhaps provides for the areas good visibility as well as the home to a huge amount of marine life that seem to cope with the ever present swell. Pollock, pout and cookoo wrasse swim aimlessly around bollards while lobster and crab hide within ceramic toilets in an effort to avoid the continuing movement. On one occasion I dived the wreck the day after a storm that had left a monster swell over the Laurentic from the northwest. My attempts at taking hand-held time exposure photographs was simply not the order of the day as I felt the swell continually picking me up from the seabed and placing me wherever it felt like!

After my initial dive that was largely taken up photographing the bow my VR3 in conjunction with the rebreather gave me a measly 12 minutes of decompression! I was beginning to reminisce about the dives we used to have before our “twenty-five minutes bottom time and an hour and a half’s deco” became the norm of deep wreck diving. Boarding the Loyal Watcher was particularly comforting as within half an hour we would be back on land, not to mention copious amounts of hot chocolate and freshly made flapjacks. Local slipways used by Irish divers provide Ribs a short distance out to the wreck, which is practically less than a mile from the mouth of Lough Swilly.

Divers need to know that permission to dive the Laurentic must be sort from the local Cossum family that today own the wreck, however if you visit the site on one of the commercial charters such as Loyal Watcher or Salutay your permits are covered.
Port Salon is almost in sight of the wrecks location and it is here that the charter vessels drop customers to sample local Guinness after a dive. Alternatively you could take a short walk to the local church where Laurentic's bell now resides for all to see and also hear, in the high tower above.

Laurentic makes for a great second dive for those heading home from one of the many offshore deeper wrecks although coastal charters easily squeeze in a second dive of the day on the wreck as well. It wasn't long after my rebreather electronics had dried through & the camera was re-prepped that we were under steam back out to the wreck.

Understanding photographic models are far and few between but once again Metropolitan policeman Tim Bradley would accompany me on the dive and was happy to strike a pose. This time we planned to work our way from around amidships south towards the stern and as tempting as may be, avoid a repeated dive around the bow. Each hull of the wreck has fallen across the stone and gravel reef and holes from the numerous explosions and salvage can be seen. Many of the portholes and artefacts have long since been taken by souvenir hunters, though several rows of securely fixed portholes indicated that the wreck wasn’t quite ready to give everything away.

The boilers were silhouetted against the emerald green water in the ambient light. They remain in roughly in position though one has rolled out slightly to the east. The remaining wreckage has collapsed significantly down to seabed level, the ships ribbed construction is fairly obvious although there is a huge amount of steelwork, flanges and pipes present, now home to several resident conger. Laurentic's engines are of particular historic interest, being built during a time when turbine technology was still very much in its infancy at Belfast’s Harland & Wolf yard.

The ship incorporated an experimental combination of two triple expansion engines as well as an additional low-pressure turbine. Her sister ship the Megantic was driven by two quadruple -expansion reciprocating engines and after they both entered service in 1909 it was became obvious that Laurentic was outperforming Megantic both in speed & economy. Today these examples of fine engineering dwarf visiting divers and rest tilted to port, tidy little oil boxes can be seen attached to there sides. The prop shafts leading from these huge engines appear broken in strategic sections and exposed which in turn leads the diver to the stern. Disappointingly the props themselves have long since disappeared through salvage although the rudder quadrant and pin assembly gear becomes an obvious landmark if you begin your dive at this end of the wreck.

The wreck diving off Donegal was so good I decided to extend my trip, I could enjoy another week with my good friend Antonello Paone one of Italy's leading underwater photographers. Antonello had flown in to dive the deep untouched wrecks Donegal has to offer but like me he also found photographing Laurentic to be more than a match for any wreck. The Laurentic is a memorable dive and truly holds its place in history as the largest haul of gold ever recovered from any shipwreck. Estimated at over £250 million at today's value the amazing story of its recovery is documented in almost every treasure book written on the subject. When I first read of her story be sure to make this wreck at the top of your list should your club book a holiday along this stretch of Irish coastline.

For more information try a simple search engine on Laurentic for diving information & charters visit www.salutay.com or www.deepbluediving.org . More images of the wreck will be posted in time on Leigh Bishops shipwreck website www.deepimage.co.uk