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HMS Untiring - Diving a WW2 Veteran Submarine
Jul 27, 2025
When deep shipwreck diving, things don't always go to plan and this video records some of the realities of underwater exploration. Before eventually ending up on the wreck of the British WW2 submarine, HMS Untiring, we visit a rock and our procedures for the lazy shot system don't work as planned! A diver also requires assistance with their drysuit inflate system. *Support me* If you'd like to support what I do then please consider joining my channel 👉 http://bit.ly/4kMVqCB You may also wish to buy me a coffee! 👉 https://buymeacoffee.com/d33puk ☕☕☕ *Highlights* 00:00 Introduction 03:30 Suit inflate problem 05:34 Possible wreck! 08:00 DSMB Deployment 13:00 Attempt #2 16:39 Tying in with the waster 21:37 HMS Untiring Bow 26:00 Conning tower 32:07 Props 40:14 Bronze casing for conning tower 46:14 Start of ascent 51:54 Deco profile
View Video Transcript
0:00
Sometimes on dives things go really really well and sometimes on dives you
0:05
get all sorts of other things happening. This uh this dive today or this actually
0:10
two dives today is is one of the latter ones. So it's not the most exciting dive
0:16
in the world. It's uh a wreck in 50 odd meters. It's a World War II submarine.
0:21
Although it's you know the submarine's quite interesting. What I think you're going to really enjoy about this dive is a load of the stuff that happens in and
0:28
around it. So, we've got a to start with, we got a dive on a rock. We've got our procedure for the lazy shot going
0:35
wrong. We've got uh diver who needs help with his uh suit inflate. And then we've
0:43
got a lovely dive on a veteran World War II submarine, HMS Untiring. Had quite a
0:49
decent uh World War II record and is now sunk in Big Brew Bay, which is close to
0:54
me, and is a lovely 50 odd meter dive. So, um, yeah, I hope you'll enjoy the
0:59
video. As always, if you want to kind of give us a like, if you want to subscribe, comments always brilliant,
1:04
really appreciated. And of course, you know, you're welcome to join the channel if you want to support what I do. This
1:10
dive is quite unusual um, in in a few different ways. And one of the ways it's unusual is because this is on a weekend
1:17
organized by a chap called Steve Green. He organized a ton of diving weekends through through the year, but he's not
1:24
on this one, which is which I don't know why. He must have had a diary clash or something. Um, so what that means is he
1:31
normally goes down the shot line first with his long-term buddy Dunk, but today he's not here. So, uh, I'm getting to go
1:39
in first, which is really unusual on a Gro trip. And I'm going down with uh with Steve, who you can see in front of
1:44
me there. Not sure what happened to Dunk, but I think uh we we relegated him. His uh his with Steve not being
1:52
around, he got chinned off from his opportunity to go in first. The other thing I think is because I'd been given
2:00
this potential target by a guy I know who does a lot of um studying the seabed and everything and he'd found um
2:06
something that looked like a wreck that wasn't marked on the chart and he said, "You guys should go down and have a look
2:12
at it." And you know that's clearly you don't want to miss an opportunity like
2:17
that. And seemed as though the mark had come to me. I think that was how come I uh you know I got to kind of I guess
2:24
jump the queue and get myself to go in first. So So that was what was happening. Steve and myself were going
2:30
to we were going to go in first on this unknown mark and go and have a look and and see what was there. So you can see
2:36
we've uh we've just got in. There's Steve in front of me. We're just kind of checking. Okay. You can see he's got that big yellow um thing sort of on the
2:44
front of him. That's the the pellet. And when we get to the bottom, we're going to release that to say there's a wreck
2:49
down here. And that will be the cue for everybody else then to get in and put in the uh put in the lazy shop. So that's
2:55
the plan. That's the way that we do it. Steve's got the plet. Uh I'm going uh down first and we're going to we're
3:02
going to see what we find. I've also got a small piece of string, the waster, which I'm I would tie the uh the shot
3:07
line into into the wreck when we've got down there. So anyway, I think round
3:12
about now I become aware that there's uh there's something wrong with Steve. Um
3:18
so you can see here we've we're about 13 or 14 m deep. So, you know, 2 and 1 half times ambient pressure there. And I look
3:25
around to see Steve and I can see he's still up there. I'm like, "Oh, okay. What's going on there?" Now, one of the
3:31
slight problems with this uh uh this setup is that my my camera is actually tilted a little bit down. So, my ey line
3:38
is a bit higher than the camera line, but you can see there Steve is sticulating and saying there's something
3:43
wrong. And he's pressing he's pointing to the inflator on his uh on his dry suit. And what I'm doing there is that
3:50
kind of scissor symbol is my um is my symbol for open. I'm asking him if his
3:56
suit inflate is open. and he he's not probably doesn't understand my signal, but I've just checked it's on there and
4:03
he's tried pressing it. There's me asking him again. Yeah, he's pointing to
4:08
his suit inflate. So, clearly his uh his suit inflate, although it's fitted, has not turned on. You can see he uh I've
4:15
just inflated it there. And um let's see how he is. Um yeah, looks as though
4:21
Steve is good. So, so there we go. And that is that is one of those things that happens. uh sometimes can be um can be
4:30
really dangerous actually if your suit inflate isn't done up is isn't on and
4:35
and working. So you know what what can happen is you can go down and obviously
4:41
you you get compressed um so it's very difficult to move in your dry suit. You
4:46
uh obviously don't have any buoyancy and you know it's you know potentially you
4:51
know if people panic it it can you know turn into something really nasty. Anyway, the good thing is Steve, you
4:58
know, contacted me and I came and helped him. I mean, the other thing you can probably see with with Steve is that the
5:04
over pressure valve on his is activating on the regulator for that for that suit inflate bottle. So, that's why there's a
5:10
little stream of bubbles. So, uh you know, he probably needs to go and have that serviced cuz otherwise all his suit
5:16
inflate gas is is going to is going to uh is going to go. Not so much of a problem really. I mean, that kind of
5:22
level of of leakage, it's I don't think it's going to empty on on a dive, but um
5:28
you know, definitely you don't want kit to leak. You don't want um stuff not to work. So, um he needs to get it sorted.
5:34
Now, I've already shown you this, but this is the uh the information that I was given. You see untiring is at the
5:40
bottom of the screen, but up at the top is uh something there, a shadow on a a multi-beam image of the seabed. And you
5:47
can see there it's got a bit of scour. It's got a bit of um stands up a bit. So there and it's kind of long and thin. So
5:52
it, you know, it does look wreck shaped. And the guy who gave this to me is somebody who is is an expert in this
5:58
kind of field. I trust him a lot. I mean, it came with caveats. You know, couldn't say for certain it was a wreck. There was no magnetometer data with it,
6:05
for instance. But, you know, does look like a wreck and, you know, wrecks do get missed. A wreck was found relatively
6:12
close to here. Um, you know, only in fact, I think maybe even the same year as as as this. So, you know, there is
6:20
there is still stuff down there and and things that are small, you know, are the sort of things that get missed. So, I'm
6:26
always up for a dive like this where there's a possibility you may find something.
6:32
You probably heard that cry from me as I've spotted something and then
6:39
it's me saying it's a rock. And in fact, for good measure, I say it
6:44
again because I've realized that is in fact a rock. Really unfortunately, Steve
6:51
um all was just behind me coming down the shot line. He heard well he probably started to see something coming out of
6:57
the gloom, he heard me uh when I said it's a rock, he heard me saying it's a
7:03
wreck. And at that point, what he did was he uh he let go of the pill. So,
7:09
what's now happened is the uh the signal has gone up to the surface telling everybody on the surface that we found a
7:15
wreck. So, clearly they're super super excited. And the next thing that happens
7:21
is so classic communication failure going on here. We on the uh the bottom
7:27
uh are expecting to abort our dive and our plan if we didn't find a wreck was to do exactly what I'm doing here, which
7:33
is to get out at DSMBB, bag up from the bottom. It's only 40 odd meters and then
7:39
we would ascend, you know, clear what what limited deco stops we had. And if you're having a look at my computer, you
7:44
can see that I haven't actually gone into decompression yet. The 5minute TTS is purely based on the 10 m a minute to
7:52
get up to uh to the surface. So for anyone who's not seen me put up a delayed SMP before, this is uh exactly
7:59
what I'm doing. You see I roll over the neck of the uh the AP one there. And
8:04
this is another good reason to have an autoair on your rebreather. You can see there uh the autoair which is
8:11
effectively well it is a second stage regulator. You can see I'm I'm using it to fill up my delayed SMB there. And
8:19
that's great because it's attached to the air cylinder that's on my back. And you can also see me uh telling Steve
8:26
that he's forgotten his uh his strobe on there. So um he he'd put it on the on the shot
8:32
line. You see, I didn't put mine on as soon as I realized it was a rock. I just clipped it to myself. So, going back to
8:38
to what's happening here. So, the plan was if we got to the bottom and there was no wreck, we would put up delayed
8:44
SMBs as we are here. We wouldn't let go of the pill, which I sometimes refer to
8:49
as a plet. They mean the same thing. So, therefore, the surface cover would see
8:55
no pill/ pellet and two delay SMBs. they would know that the shot wasn't on the
9:00
wreck and therefore once I delayed SMBs were clear of the the shot line they'd be able to recover it and then the plan
9:07
was to go to the untiring which is really close by and we would dive the untiring.
9:13
Unfortunately, the surface cover are now really confused because they have the pellet which is the signal that there's
9:19
a wreck down there and they've also got two delayed SMBs which is the symbol
9:24
signal that there isn't a wreck down there. So, they don't know what's happening. They've also um dropped in by
9:30
this point actually the uh the set of divers with the lazy shot who were obviously keen as anything to get in. So
9:36
uh we've we've got you know the plan is going uh going wrong. And so what we
9:42
need to do is uh we're going to need to do some more communication and you'll see that in a little bit. The first
9:47
thing I'm doing here is I'm gonna I don't know why Steve has decided to leave his his strobe on, but I'm uh I'm
9:53
gonna take it off for him and and I will take it up. And leaving strobes on the bottom of uh shot lines is is in my view
10:01
not a good idea because especially if they're going to be recovered, you end up potentially then with the
10:06
um you know with it getting snagged or ripped off or something. So, the other thing that's happened is you've you've
10:12
probably seen on my uh SMB, I also carry uh the yellow core for gas SMB as well.
10:18
It's kind of it's clipped on there, so it's really easy to access if I need it. Unfortunately, what's happened is that
10:24
it's unfurled. It's kind of it's got a little bit of elastic that keeps it together. It's it's unfilled and it's
10:30
kind of flapping around in the uh in in in the breeze, which is which is not great. But um you know what I'm going to
10:37
do is I'm going to get up to my um to my deco stops and then I can sort it all out and put it together. Much better be
10:43
to be doing that sort of stuff, that sort of admin shallow than it is trying to do it um at 50 m where you just kind
10:50
of incur decode. So you see I'm not hanging around here either. I am ascending at a reasonable rate of knots.
10:56
You you know, one of the things with my camera pointing down is you can see my computer. Oh, and there's the next divers coming in. And that's in fact
11:03
Rick there. tell by the camera underneath him. And you see I've just given him the signal there to to tell
11:08
him that he needs to uh to go back up. Rick uh and his buddy there you go. There's another another well-known
11:15
British diving signal which uh that hand gesture means that there's no wreck down here and you need to come back up. So uh
11:22
so that's what these guys are going to do. And I think they uh they end up bagging off as well. So, it's uh it's
11:28
it's been a bit of a cluster, but on the plus side, because we were close to the
11:34
um close to the shot line, we could catch the divers as they were coming down. I think there might even be
11:40
another set of divers. Um I'm not sure if I've got that on the video or not, but once again, we we catch all the
11:45
divers, we tell them. Uh so, nobody else gets to the bottom, everybody gets out the water, and we all get back on the
11:52
boat. And the decision then of course is uh is is what happens next. I mean you
11:57
can see there that I've ended up with 1 minute of mandatory stops at 3 m which
12:02
which isn't really which isn't really very much. Total run time I think by the time I get out of the water it's going
12:08
to be 10 11 minutes. So really not very much at all and and therefore that
12:14
brings in brings into question the debate about you know whether you you know when should you go in again? how
12:20
much uh surface interval do you need and all those kind of things. Now, all I can tell you is what we actually did, which
12:27
is which is there was about um I guess 20 minutes from getting out of the water
12:33
till we got back in again. And that time was mainly spent with with making sure
12:38
all the other divers were on board. In fact, they probably got out before us, moving to the site, getting a shot in on
12:43
the new site, and then just, you know, checking our gear and make sure it was all it was all ready again. So, you can
12:49
see this is back on the boat. We haven't even bothered to take any of our gear off. So, we just kind of kept it all on,
12:56
sat back down again. Uh, remarkably, we didn't get charged for a second dive. Even more remarkably, perhaps we're
13:03
trusted to do the plet again. So, there you go. You can see Liz obviously helping uh Steve up there. She's uh
13:09
yeah, she's brilliant, Liz. I'm sure many of you will have seen her on on our other videos. So, another kind of cold,
13:15
blowy day. I think this is uh 2023 uh maybe July. And uh yeah, she's
13:22
dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. Everyone else is in. Obviously, we're all in our dry suits and everything, but
13:28
um yeah, there we go. Let's see if we can uh have a have a have a better second dive and it will go a bit better.
13:33
So, Steve's gone in. Hopefully, he's got his dry suit on this uh his dry suit in
13:39
flight on this time. I I follow in after him. You see there he's he's heading
13:44
over towards the uh the shot line. Conditions actually uh quite nice actually in terms of visibility and
13:50
everything. Surface viz is pretty decent. So um you know I've done the untiring before but I've I've never done
13:56
it in decent viz. So I'm quite looking forward to this. Not least because I've I've heard things about it in terms of
14:03
uh what's down there. I mean, we all know it was purpose sunk for um as a as
14:08
a target for Azdic, which is the old uh Royal Navy sonar system. They they sunk submarines all around uh the UK where
14:15
they would be used by, you know, mine uh sorry, by submarine hunters and presumably other submarines um as
14:22
targets. So, this was uh the fate, alas, of HMS on tiring, which which is a real
14:28
pity because it had had a really decent World War II service record. It served
14:34
mainly in the Mediterranean. Sun sunk a load of um German ships. Had a go at a
14:39
German submarine. Um missed unfortunately. Um was then after the Second World War was loaned to the Greek
14:47
Navy actually. And when the the Greek Navy gave it back in the in the 1950s,
14:52
the Royal Navy descent then decided to sink it as a sonar target. I mean to be fair, it there could have much worse
14:59
things could have happened to it. vast majority of um its contemporaries. I think there was 59 in the in the Uclass
15:07
submarines and they all have you know you they all have names beginning with a U basically but um you most of them yeah
15:15
ended up the ones that survived got got taken to the breakers yard and and turned into scrap which is which I I
15:21
guess is is quite sad but I think people in those days were much less sentimental
15:27
about stuff than they are they are these than we are these days. I mean, you know, they they salvaged ships on which
15:34
lots and lots of people had died. You know, they sent them to breakers or they they kind of raided them for for, you
15:39
know, non-ferris stuff and everything. You um this day and age, obviously, that would be uh that would be considered
15:46
absolute heresy. But anyway, there you go. We are the beneficiaries of the decision to sink HMS on tiring uh and
15:53
not take it to the breaker's yard. And and that's brilliant. And one of the interesting things about, you know, when I get down there is you will see
16:00
actually how much uh they left on it, which is a is a real surprise to me as
16:06
well. You'd have thought they'd have taken off valuable stuff, but they haven't. And here it is. You can see it's uh it's coming into sight, and it's
16:12
not a rock, which is which is brilliant. So, you can see there, that's actually the uh the conning tower, and that's
16:19
that's part of the periscope. Um one of one of the periscopes. So the the shot line has been put in brilliantly by the
16:26
skipper. Submarines notoriously difficult to shot, but that one there, I mean, you couldn't ask for more than that. And my job um in this is to put
16:34
the waist in. You can see there, that's that bit of blue string that I've just pulled out. And it's going to be really
16:39
easy for me to tie that in. You know, I tie it in like this. And it means that the um the shot line is not going to
16:46
come off the wreck. So it guarantees that the other divers are going to get onto it, get on. Okay. And when the the
16:53
all the divers are clear of the wreck, then the skipper will be able to lift the shot line and and that uh he's got a
17:00
decent winch on his boat. That that bit of string isn't really strong enough to to withstand his winch. So that will
17:05
break and he'll be able to get his shot line up and back on the boat. And that's that's the system that we use. And it's
17:11
a system that's also used by an awful lot of other um charter boats who who do
17:16
this kind of deep diving. It it works really well. It means all your divers get on the wreck, which is what what you
17:23
want fundamentally. And it's it's a relatively simple system to use. Well, I
17:28
guess it's a relatively simple system to use, provided that you don't send up the uh the pellet when there isn't a wreck
17:35
there. But uh you know what? Uh sometimes stuff goes wrong, and it's it's often how you react to these things
17:42
rather than the uh the fact that something goes wrong. And clearly, you know, it was all okay. So, this is me on
17:47
the top of the uh the pressure hole. now of the untiring and like so many other
17:52
submarines the casing which is the outer skin of the submarine has rusted and
17:57
rotted away. So when when we look at wrecks of submarines we often think that we should be looking at the casing when
18:05
what we can see is the pressure hull. So photos of submarines obviously show the
18:11
casing, not the pressure hole. So it's it's a really important thing to kind of get your head around when when you look
18:17
at these kind of wrecks. So the conning tower for instance, you know, as you came down there, you saw it wasn't one
18:22
single thing. It was a load of different things. So there's kind of the pressure hull bit of the conning tower, which is
18:28
the bit that people would would come in in and out of. That's that's one thing that sticks up from the submarine. And
18:34
the kind of tube that had the periscope or the periscopes are other things that stick up. So all these things are um you
18:41
know, just make uh Rex submarines look very different to uh to what people expect. And it's because of that fact
18:49
that we're used to looking at the casing, this thin outer skin, rather than looking at the pressure hull, which
18:54
is inevitably what remains on most submarines. All you occasionally get is, as you could just see up in the top left
19:01
there a moment ago. In fact, there you go. You can see it there. There's some kind of fixtures or fittings. So, so they would have been welded to the
19:06
pressure hole. They would have partially stuck above the casing or maybe been attach the casing would have been attached to them. That kind of thing.
19:12
So, that's uh that's what's going on there. Now, what what I'm doing on this dive, you've probably seen, is is I'm
19:18
turning on my video lights and I've got my camera with me. And um this is one of
19:23
those dives that I'm doing where I'm trying to get some photos and I'm trying to do some videos. These days, I do much
19:30
I take far fewer photos um than I used to, but at this point I was kind of I
19:35
was really uh transitioning from being a photographer to being a a videographer.
19:40
So, uh that's what I've I've got both I've got both things going on there. And through the dive, you're going to see me
19:45
me doing this, taking quite a lot of of of photos. And you can see there some
19:50
sort of uh fitting. And then there's a whole load of netting draped on it. You probably saw how close this wreck is to
19:56
the shore. And therefore, not really a surprise that it's covered in um in sort
20:01
of nets and fishing gear and all those kind of things. And in fact, you can see there's quite a lot of fish around as
20:06
well. The kind of those small fish that like to um make their home in and around
20:12
wrecks. Obviously, they're they're great. They offer the sanctuary. They offer loads of food and all those kind of things. And uh you know, great for
20:18
divers. You may have heard me on previous um videos say if you if you're doing a dive and you miss the wreck and
20:25
you spot small fish, chances are you're really close to it. So, thank you small fish. I really appreciate your
20:31
contribution on actually quite a lot of occasions to me finding Rex. So, that's
20:37
uh that's been really good. I'm I'm not 100% what sure what that thing that I'm taking a photo of was you probably
20:43
recall that I um I I explained that what's happened here is my uh my video
20:48
camera is pointing not quite in my ey line. So, it's pointing just a tad below
20:54
my ey line, which is fine for stuff that's close to me like the camera and those kind of things. But anything that's a little bit further away, uh you
21:01
kind of you're almost kind of wishing that I would get my head up a bit more. So, that is one of the things that's a bit frustrating about this video, but um
21:09
hey um I'm sorry. Um what what I've kind of done to sort it out now is I um I'
21:16
I've balanced my one of the problems at this time is my helmet only had one camera on, one video on and the weight
21:22
of it would tend to tilt the the camera off to the right hand side and therefore force it to point down. What I've got
21:28
now is I've got a uh a paral lens on both sides and I've also got a way of kind of leveling it so it's looking
21:35
directly in front of me. So provided I remember to do it, it's okay. Now now what I'm looking at here, this is this
21:40
is the bow and actually is really good because you can see that is a bit of the casing that is left. It's not the it's
21:46
not the pressure hole. You know, obviously you can see through it which you wouldn't be able to, you know, pressure holes are very very thick to to
21:52
withstand the uh the ambient pressure and everything. So that's the that's the the kind of casing the the bow and that
21:59
that would obviously have cut through the water and you know provided the the kind of streamline shape and what
22:05
they'll also be somewhere in and around here is is the torpedo tubes. In fact that might be one you can see on the
22:11
right hand side there was probably what I'm taking a photo of is the the hatch on the front of a torpedo tube. In fact
22:18
there you go. You can see I've uh I've put the photo in it. You can see clearly two torpedo tubes there. Top one and a
22:24
bottom one. So that's the uh the photo I was taking. And I always think it's
22:29
interesting to look at those kind of things and you uh you think you know that out of those hatches would have
22:35
come torpedoes that sunk a number of ships. Probably saw I just took another photo there of of Steve and the bow. And
22:42
uh yeah, once again I think all things considered, you know, given the conditions and my limited skill as a
22:48
photographer, I think they've kind of they've kind of come out okay. But
22:53
what's happening now is I'm still in and around the bow area, but I'm starting to uh to kind of focus in a bit. And you
23:00
can see there's that's the uh the hatch again. So, I'm getting another closeup, I think, of one of those one of those
23:05
torpedo hatches. And yeah, those video
23:10
lights pretty decent. They're they're lighting up the area. There's also a few bits and pieces on the seabed. Nothing
23:16
uh particularly spectacular. I I don't think nothing that kind of you really grabs you. Certainly not in this bit,
23:21
but later on in the dive, I'm going to find uh the bit that's really interesting, which is the the bronze conning tower. Um seems to be something
23:28
that was um only British submarines did. I I don't know why German submarines
23:33
don't have this, but British ones do. The the the casing of the conning tower is made out of bronze, and I don't know
23:40
why they did that. I'm presuming it was a for magnetic signature, but in the particular case of the untiring that has
23:46
fallen off and is on the seabed. And frankly, given how much stuff around here has been salvaged over the years,
23:52
you know, it's amazing that hasn't been taken because it must be worth quite a lot of money. I mean, the props are also
23:59
on this as well, which we will we will see later on as well. So, so absolutely incredible that nobody um for whatever
24:06
reason decided they could salvage it. Maybe it was because it is Royal Navy property and you know they thought that
24:13
if they they took it in they would they would get done. Having said that, other Royal Navy ships in the area were
24:18
salvaged. For those of you who've seen my foil video, uh HMS foil World War I
24:23
uh motor torpedo destroyer um really really heavily salvaged and it's in a
24:29
very similar depth to the untiring actually uh closer to Plymouth, but um frankly I don't think that would have
24:35
that would have made much difference. So, you've probably seen already that untiring is lying on its starboard side.
24:40
And what I'm doing here is I'm swimming back along the port side. So, what I'm seeing really is um kind of the
24:47
underneath of the hull is just off to my left hand side or or there's those kind of um I don't know what you would call
24:52
them, fins or something, I guess. You know, maybe they they stopped um the pressure hole banging on the bottom, you
24:58
know, if they wanted to rest the sub on the seabed for whatever reason. But, um I'm swimming along the port side. Not a
25:04
100% certain why I'm doing that because obviously most of the interesting stuff is on the upside which is over the other
25:11
side of the submarine from where I am. You can see though I've just seen the strobes there so I must be getting back
25:17
relatively close to the coning tower. I guess you know what I'm probably thinking is I swam to the bow on the
25:24
other side. In fact, there's there's some of the other divers and so maybe I've swam back from the bow on this side
25:30
just to see if there was anything interesting. And you see I spent quite a lot of time looking at the seabed. So
25:35
maybe I was expecting something to be on on the seabed. Um obviously turned out
25:42
to be disappointed. But what I have done is I think I've spotted with the um with
25:47
the strobes and everything that it's it's uh you know there's quite a lot of natural light and with a bit of ambient
25:52
light. So I think uh you know using that as an opportunity to take a photo. And as you can see I don't think that turned
26:00
out too badly. um you know it's not super great but then conditions aren't super great either. So I kind of I feel
26:07
that was uh was okay all things considered. Um so this time I tried it with the video lights and uh you know I
26:16
think that one turns out okay. Actually I'm not entirely sure that's that's the photo I took at that point cuz there's a
26:21
diver in it and my photo doesn't have one. In fact, this is it. This is the photo I took. I think the one with the
26:26
uh with the diver in it just didn't turn out uh particularly well. So, I probably bended it, which is why I don't have it
26:32
anymore. Um, I think the diver, probably Steve, actually, was was shining his torch at me. And if someone does that to
26:39
you, uh, under water with a camera, then you are you're really stuffed. Now, this is really interesting here cuz you can
26:44
see what I was talking about about the pressure hull and the, um, the casing. So, you can see, you probably saw there,
26:50
there was the big tube on the left and then all the stuff that was on the right. Um, all of this would have been
26:55
encased in the in the casing. And because the casing is no longer on the
27:01
submarine, it's all exposed. So you actually, you know, saw the innards, which is which is quite unusual on a
27:06
submarine. I mean, the other thing you can see here is there kind of loads of fish. This has got to be some sort of uh
27:12
aerial or something uh on on the back uh just behind the the conning tower. So
27:17
presumably if they needed to get long range coms, HF or whatever, they would uh they would put that up. And there's me, you know, once again looking at the
27:24
kind of what's left of the coning tower with a diver on the other side. And you know, once again, I think that's
27:31
uh that's come out reasonably nicely all things considered. You know, not great conditions for photography. You know, I
27:38
don't have the world's best camera. Inside there is a uh a little uh Canon
27:43
uh compact camera and, you know, it's it's got a decent sensor and all those kind of things, but it's it's definitely
27:50
not designed for taking photos in really low light conditions like we we've got
27:56
here. So Rick was also on this uh on this dive and he his photos um I don't
28:03
have them that they'll be stunning and they'll embarrass mine. So So apologies.
28:09
You don't get to see Rick's photos. You just get you get to see mine. So uh there you go. You can you can see Rick's
28:15
another time. He's on plenty of my other videos. Um so there you go. That that's once again is you can see what I've
28:22
spotted here on the seabed is the uh the culling tower which is which is really
28:28
interesting cuz you can see how smooth and sharp and non-furry that is. And
28:33
that's obviously the the clear indication that this is that this is bronze. And if you look at some of the
28:39
photos of the uh untiring that kind of curved bit at the front of the conning tower is is really prominent in lots of
28:47
the photos. And just for good measure, what I'm doing is uh you know, giving it a bit of a tap and I'm going to scratch
28:52
it. And uh that will that will reveal, you know, really clearly that this is that this is bronze. And I guess this is
29:00
the thing. I've been told that there was um the bronze conning tower down here. And I just wanted to go down and check
29:07
and confirm for myself that it was it actually was because I just couldn't believe that given the amount of salvage
29:14
that has taken place off Rex in the kind of ' 70s '60s '7s that anybody had left
29:19
something as big as this still down here cuz it will be you loads of of wrecks
29:24
have had their props blown off and you know that's quite a lot of hassle. lifting this would have obviously been a
29:30
almost trivial task for a for a beam troller or or something like that. The kind of things that they use to uh to to
29:37
salvage things. Oops. You can probably see there I've managed to get my camera. In fact, I think I've dropped my camera on it. Um I'm going to pick it up again.
29:44
I'm going to uh to get a load of photos. Now, you've seen some of the photos already, but you can look inside. So,
29:49
this is the this is the top of it. I'm looking kind of into so it's resting on its on its starboard side. But you can
29:56
see in there there's uh speaking tubes. There would have been a compass. There have been more speaking tubes. There
30:03
have probably been uh you know things for putting binoculars on. There's all sorts of switches and you know maybe a
30:09
little helm there and all sorts of stuff. None of that stuff is there. So I assume they they took that all off
30:15
before before they went and uh and sank it. But it kind of it's still there's
30:21
still a lot there and it's still it's kind of interesting to see. Once again, you know, no divers have taken those
30:26
speaking tubes. They're quite attractive items, it's um it's a bit of a surprise that they're still there, but but they
30:32
are and great, you know, nice nice to see. And once again, you think you during all those patrols in the Second
30:39
World War and these submarines would have spent a long time on the surface. who would have think about the men who
30:45
spent time in this conning tower and the kind of things that they must have have seen and the kind of I guess the fears
30:52
that they would have had and you know all that kind of stuff. I just um I love
30:57
those kind of links with history. I mean obviously they're all they're all dead now but it would have been they would
31:04
have been young men and so some of them would have you know been around until fairly recently. I'm I'm absolutely
31:09
absolutely certain of that. So, I don't know. Maybe maybe it's one of those things. Maybe I'm getting a bit old or
31:15
whatever, but I do I do always uh think about the people involved in in, you
31:21
know, who were who were part of this and and also the people, you know, this submarine sunk lots of ships and will
31:27
have killed people and, you know, I guess that is that is war, but and now
31:32
it's just down here as a kind of artifact. um I guess you know to kind of
31:38
a bit about waste and all those and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, sorry I'm getting a bit mortal in there. There's
31:43
also tons and tons of fishing gear. You probably saw the pots that were back there that some poor fisherman has lost.
31:49
Um you know fishermen like to put pots close to wrecks. Obviously there's that sweet spot, isn't it? You don't want it
31:55
too close otherwise you're going to get it snagged as has happened there. Now this is the other thing we can see here
32:00
of course is uh is is one of the the props. So this is the on the starboard side. So this is the the starboard
32:07
starboard prop. And you know once again that is that is bronze and kind of or
32:13
brass. And you know amazing to think it's uh it's still down there. That would have be relatively easy. You know
32:19
back in the day they used quite a lot of underwater explosives for salvage. Would have been easy for them to blow that off
32:25
and to uh to recover that prop up to the surface, weigh it in and it would be worth a reasonable amount of money. Once
32:32
again, I've been told that the props on the uh the untiring are are bronze. So,
32:38
I'm going in. I'm giving a bit of a tap. And you can always uh you can normally tell from the uh from the sound whether
32:44
something is bronze or not. And uh I can tell you that those are and there's another one on the other side. I think
32:50
we're going to we're going to see in a bit. The other thing with the untiring, as you can see, is actually on a really nice seabed. So, it's not it's not a
32:57
dirty seabed. It's it's that kind of broken shells and sand and everything. So, you know, I don't think we're diving
33:04
this on the best viz that it's possible to get on the inter on the untiring, but it's certainly uh it's certainly, you
33:11
know, pretty decent and uh and that's at least partly because of the seabed. Probably see there, I'm just kind of
33:16
keeping an eye on my on my decode because I'm I'm used to doing much deeper uh much deeper dives. So, I think
33:24
this one was sam sandwich. I think it was after a trip to Malin. So, I've been doing, you know, 100 meter dive or
33:31
whatever and you come back and you're doing a 50 m dive and uh I just kind of I've been down 20 minutes so I'm kind of
33:38
I'm starting to to get a bit twitchy, but actually I don't need to be. I've only got half an hour of TTS.
33:44
So, uh you know, it's the great thing about what I'm going to describe as shallow dives. Although 53 m is clearly
33:52
not shallow, but the shallower dives you do get far longer. So, you can probably just see there the the rudder. I think
33:59
one of the differences between uh British submarines and German submarines
34:04
is that ours tended to only have one rudder. I have no idea why that's uh why that's the case or why it's a good idea.
34:11
Um or you know what the advantage or disadvantages of doing that. I'm sure uh if somebody will tell me if if you know
34:17
it'd be really interesting. Maybe it's kind of bigger smaller submarines. I don't know. That's that's a thing as
34:22
well. But these ones these uh you know Uclass submarines were actually really you know quite small um by comparison
34:30
you know for the time. So these were kind of similar size to kind of World War I submarines. Most second world war
34:36
submarines were were much bigger than these. I mean the other thing with these is they they suffered really heavy
34:42
losses with them. I think they in the Second World War they built something like 49 and about a third of those were
34:48
were lost either to enemy action or you know just vanished or you know hit a
34:54
mine or or something else. Um but you know really really you know terrible and and I think what you can see here is
35:00
this is me taking a photo of the uh the other prop now. So this is the uh the the one on the port side. In fact you
35:07
can see the rudder there off off to the right as well really clearly. You see it's it's a big old big old rudder.
35:14
Um maybe that was you needed a bigger one if you only had one of them. I don't know. But there it is anyway. Um yeah.
35:21
So so these things, you know, really heavy casualties. They built them in in different batches. And I think the later
35:28
batches were more successful in terms of survival. You know, maybe it's cuz we were winning the war by then. I don't
35:33
know. Maybe they were better. Maybe they'd incorporated some of the lessons. Don't know. but they they tended to do a
35:39
bit better and and survived longer. And obviously untiring is is a good example of that. This was a batch three one. So,
35:45
one of the um the really late ones and
35:51
as I already think I've said it, it you know served I think it was uh commissioned in 1943, went to the
35:57
Mediterranean, served in the Mediterranean 1944, 1945, sunk a load of
36:02
stuff and then was uh was handed over to to the Greek Navy before coming back
36:08
here to to be sunk as a as a target. One of the other interesting things about
36:13
untouring is it actually was fitted with a a gun. Now
36:19
given the fact this was built towards the end of the Second World War and lots of, you know, the German submarines by
36:24
then had all had their guns removed. They they considered them no longer useful, I think they were they were
36:29
worried about the threat of Allied um air attack and and those kind of things. interesting that we were still fitting
36:35
our submarines with guns and actually untiring quite a lot of the ships it sunk were sunk with with its with its
36:43
gun. Obviously that would have been forward of the calling tower. Um it's not um it's not present on the wreck. So
36:49
I guess you know maybe after the second world war they decided that the guns were no longer useful or the Greeks
36:54
decided they didn't want it with a gun or maybe it was just taken off before they decided to go and sink it. Anyway,
37:01
there's no gun on there's no gun on and tiring. Although uh there definitely was one at some point. You can see probably
37:09
see here I'm uh I'm going past some of the other divers that that looks like Rick who's just gone past me. Um I think
37:15
he's giving me a friendly kick with his fin as well. Um he's obviously you probably saw his uh his big camera there
37:22
and everything. So, and this is this is bit I'm a bit frustrated here by the lack of uh you know the fact that my camera is just point my my my video
37:29
camera just pointing a bit down. I'd prefer it to be pointing up there. You can see that's me uh taking a video of
37:34
one of the other divers there who's in fact making his own video. That's uh that's James. He was diving a red bear
37:40
at the time. Uh which stands out really well in the photo. And there you go. You can see um that's quite nice. Taking
37:47
photos like this is great when you've got somebody else who's further away from you with a set of video lights like
37:52
that. It always um it all, you know, works really well in in photographs. I'm
37:58
not sure what he's what he's taking what he's looking at there. Um but James does like his um his marine life. I presume,
38:06
you know, I remember one particular dive where dolphins swimming around us on deco stops and he'd spotted this really
38:13
small fish in and around the um in around the shot line. And he was he spent so much time looking at this small
38:19
fish that he completely missed the the dolphins. But hey, uh you know, it' be boring if we were all the same, wouldn't
38:26
it? And we all uh we all like the same stuff. But so I guess this is back um
38:31
just after the coning tower. That that looks to me like a hatch there. So given where it is on the wreck, I would say
38:37
that probably the engine room is underneath there. That looks that pipe, the big pipe to the right. I I think I
38:43
misidentified it as a an antenna or something earlier on. I actually think that is got to be an air intake for the
38:49
uh for the diesel engines. So um and presumably there have been another bit of pipe there and then it' have kind of
38:55
curved up and they'd have got it up high. So the air intake was was well above any any potential water that would
39:01
have would have come on the submarine into the sub. I don't think British uh British submarines of this era had
39:06
snorkels. Um I'm not, you know, I don't know whether we fitted them at all. Once again, I'm sure somebody will will tell
39:13
me. But you can see here I'm I'm back at the uh back at the coning tower. This is
39:19
um you know, I think it shows just how small the the wreck of the untiring is. The fact that I managed to swim, you
39:24
know, I've been to the bow, I've been to the stern, I've got all the way back to the coning tower, I I've been down on
39:30
the seabed. You can see here just me having a look at all the the bits and pieces that there are there. There's all sorts of cables and pipes and and all
39:36
those kind of things. Um there's, you know, whatever that thing is there. Maybe another periscope. In fact, you
39:42
can see there a some sort of gasket, I think, on the end of of that pipe. Maybe that was part of the ceiling system for
39:47
the uh for the air intake. Once again, you know, who knows? I'm sure that
39:52
somebody out here who knows a lot more about submarines than me will be able to will be able to say exactly what that
39:58
that is. As for me, what I've realized is that I
40:03
still actually have quite a long a lot of time left. So, 25 minutes on the dive, I've got 40 40 minutes of um of
40:11
deco to do, which which is not really very much by the by the standards of the kind of the diving we do. So, it's
40:18
opportunity to go back and have another look at this uh this conning tower. I don't know if you saw there, but at the
40:23
front of it, so on the left hand side, there's a load of steps there. So, so this would have been the way for people to get up. um off the you know to to get
40:31
up from the the deck level onto the conning tower. Um you can see that I'm I'm returning. I don't know why I'm
40:36
doing it to do this to go and have another scratch of it, but um clearly I didn't trust myself the first time
40:41
round. Maybe it's I'm just still amazed that there's such a big piece of brass lying there there on the seabed. Anybody
40:48
who's watching this, please please leave it there. Don't don't take it cuz it is, you know, so rare to see these things. I
40:54
mean there is a museum in Denmark that's got the coning tower from the E50 which
41:00
is a World War I submarine that is also bronze. I mean it's not identical to this but it's you know very similar and
41:07
you get a sense of kind of the um the design paths and you know um you know
41:13
the heritage and all those kind of things. But it is a thing of absolute beauty and they've they've polished it
41:18
up and everything. So it is you I'm sure it wasn't polished when it was originally on the submarine. it would have been painted. I'm sure this one, in
41:24
fact, you can see this one was painted as well when I scratched it there. But, you know, the fact is underneath that that um paint is bronze and it's a thing
41:32
of stunning, stunning beauty. As you can clearly see from from it here in the
41:38
museum in Denmark, it was uh the E50 hit a mine in First World War and was found,
41:45
I think, in 2011. The damage that you can see uh done to it there was was
41:50
basically caused by uh by fishing gear. I think over the years getting snagged on it and kind of pulling bits of it off
41:55
and everything. So me, I'm, as you can see here, I'm just using the rest of my time to take uh photographs of fishing
42:03
gear in and around the uh the bottom of the submarine. I have no idea what these these bits and pieces are. I mean,
42:08
there's other other things there. That thing there, you know, maybe that's part of that pipe for the um for the air
42:13
intake. You can see certainly looks as though it's got a a fitting at that that left hand end there. You can see there's
42:19
some plastic pots in and around the conning tower. You know, I'm just
42:24
just using my time really. Um just getting a few photos, you know, interesting bits and pieces. I've
42:31
somebody no doubt will tell me what those fishing pots are for, but there's all sorts of other bits of rubbish in there as well. You know, like all
42:37
wrecks, as the tide moves stuff in and out, stuff just gets snagged up in Rex.
42:42
It's why, you know, we find all sorts of modern detritus in and around in and around Rex, whether it's fishing gear or
42:49
just kind of general rubbish that the uh the population have of uh have chucked out. I mean, you can see there's like
42:55
there's bits of rope and there's um you bits of fishing line. There's all sorts
43:01
of stuff in and around uh in and around the uh the conning tower here. So,
43:06
there's something interesting that I think I've spotted down there. You can see I'm putting my torch on it. It's on the seabed, that long thin thing. But
43:13
whatever it is, it's clearly I've decided it's not all that interesting. So, I'm coming up onto the onto the top
43:19
now here. And you can, you know, I think it's another interesting perspective to look at. You can see uh that voice tube
43:25
there. I'm sure there must have been other voice tubes there at some point. um don't know where they are, whether
43:31
they've been removed by people or whether they were taken off or whether they've just sort of fallen off during
43:36
the process of time, but you would imagine that there's more than one that would have I guess one to the um control
43:42
room, you know, maybe one to the engine room, maybe one to the torpedo room, you know, no idea. Don't know don't know how
43:47
they worked, but every other time I've seen voice tubes has always been more than more than one. And they were always
43:54
piped through to, you know, different departments on the ship. You can see there though I'm I'm having a good look
43:59
in and you know there's there's clearly there would have been other instruments and and things in this in this area
44:05
here. I'm sort of taking a photo of it and uh you know if nothing else it kind of records records what was there. And I
44:13
guess this is the nice thing about a wreck of this depth is that you just have the time to spend as I am doing
44:19
here just sort of taking it really chilled and relaxed and um I don't feel
44:25
I don't feel under pressure even though you know I've been down for for half an hour now even though you know let's not
44:31
forget this is my second dive of the day. I had that earlier bounce one which
44:36
um you know will have will have impacted you know my computer will be aware of
44:41
that. it will have increased the amount of deco that I'm doing. Um, don't know what I'm doing here. You know, looking
44:47
on the seabed, you know, you see part of the the conning tower is uh is buried.
44:52
So, you know, maybe I'm kind of wondering if there's something uh sticking up there. And maybe that's what I'm doing there is I've There you go.
44:58
I've just picked something up. I think it was probably it was probably a shell. There's no doubt as in the sort of thing
45:04
that something lives in rather than a military thing. So, I kind of maybe I just had a bout of wishful thinking
45:10
there. Maybe I was kind of expecting to find the submarine's compass or something like that, but hey, not not to
45:17
be. I think that's quite nice. Looking up at the coning tower, you can see how uh how thin it is. You know, go back to
45:23
that thing I've mentioned several times now about, you know, pressure holes and casings and the fact that the inards of
45:29
submarines look very different from from the outside. And that took me a few dives on submarines to kind of figure
45:35
that one out. I mean, the other thing with this one compared to the lots of the other submarines I've done are are
45:40
First World War ones, and you know, although a lot of what we can see in front of us there is rope, a whole load
45:47
of it isn't rope as well. You know, some of it is, you know, I'm pretty certain there are electrical cables in there,
45:52
for instance. Um, I'm sure there may be some hydraulic stuff. I don't know. There's Rick. So, I'm taking a photo of
45:59
Rick, which uh doesn't happen uh very uh very often. most of the time he's on the
46:05
the other side of the camera, but you know, I think he's also realized what I've realized, which is that, you know,
46:11
this bit of the wreck is is really interesting and photogenic. It's also quite nice as well because it's, you
46:16
know, we're getting shallower. I mean, it's not it's not massively uh different, but it's, you know, five or 6 m, so 10% of the dive from from the
46:23
seabed up to kind of where we are now, but you can see the amount of uh rope and stuff that is wrapped around the um
46:31
that conning tower there. And you know, I think what I'm probably doing is just looking on in there to see if there there is a periscope, but I can't see
46:38
one. And and that's not really a surprise. You would imagine they took um the actual periscopes out before they uh
46:44
before they sunk it. It would seem, you know, a real waste to send a submarine to the bottom with a periscope in. Even
46:51
today, I think periscopes are items that can be removed from submarines and replaced or taken elsewhere to be fixed
46:58
or or whatever. So, I'm sure at this particular time you could do exactly the same thing. So, if a periscope for
47:03
whatever reason didn't work, you would just take it out and you would you would put another one in there. And I think that really clearly shows the two bits
47:10
of the or bits of the the submarine there. You've you've got the two uh masts for periscopes. Uh one on the
47:17
right, one on the left, and then in between them is that that cylinder which is the kind of the would have taken the
47:23
crew into the the interior of the submarine. And obviously wrapped around this whole lot would have been that
47:29
bronze casing, the thing that's that's on that's on the seabed. And on the top there, you know, no doubt is is a hatch.
47:35
Um it would seem to be seem to be closed. And you know, nobody's nobody's
47:40
getting into the untiring, but um that would have been how it would have been done a long time ago. So, for those of
47:47
you who are watching my uh my profile, the kind of the lovely graph on the bottom and and the sheer water on the
47:53
left, you can see how I'm uh how I'm stepping up my uh my dive here. So, I'm
47:58
I'm, you know, doing that thing. I'm I'm slowly getting shallower and, you know, while still being on the wreck, which is
48:04
which is really nice. Kind of multi-leveling dives like that is is a really nice thing if you can do it.
48:09
really rare actually to be able to do it on the most of the wrecks I do cuz they're they're normally so deep. But on
48:15
this one, it's definitely definitely something we can do. So, if I was diving open circuit for instance, this would be
48:21
this would be a a great thing. You'd be using less gas. Um you'd still be looking at the wreck whilst, you know,
48:27
incurring less deco and, you know, almost starting your ascent. You can see there that I'm I'm starting to sort
48:33
myself out now. So, everything is getting turned off. I'm turning off my video lights. Um, I've I've actually
48:39
picked up my strobe and uh it's it's time to to kind of
48:45
start the ascent. I'm going to clip my camera back to me. Uh, you can see with all the lights off that it's gone really
48:50
dark, but actually you uh you know, there is ambient light down there. It is
48:56
relatively clear. And uh you can see I think that's probably um that may well be Steve's
49:03
Steve's strobe there or certainly it's one of the other divers anyway. So, um I'll be honest, that doesn't look like
49:09
the greatest strobe in the world to me. Uh you know, if you want decent strobes,
49:14
um they are definitely things worth spending money on. And uh in the link in my uh in my description, I tell you the
49:21
uh the the strobes that I use, which are which are actually better than the ones that I was using on this dive, and they
49:26
are absolutely brilliant. I am I'm a big fan of decent strobes. And the great
49:32
thing is these days they're available really, you know, quite cheaply. So Chinese strobes um you know are much
49:39
much better than that that they once were. Relatively cheap and they're they're brilliant. So here you go. You can see you know 30 m back at the lazy
49:46
shot. Um only you know maybe 15 m above the wreck or whatever. There is my tag.
49:51
You can see I'm uh I'm just kind of removing it there. And the uh looking
49:57
down you could probably still see I could see strobe still on the wreck. So so that's really nice. A good sign of the visibility. And I'm just checking,
50:03
you know, my um my my deco there and everything and what depth I need to be. Just kind of clipping my torch back up
50:10
there. So, just kind of sorting myself out. I've got about an hour of deco, but once I um change my P2 to 1.5, that will
50:18
that will that will chop down a bit. And um yeah, so that's my kind of that's my
50:24
dives for the day. You know, the exciting bit is done. All there is really left to do is the is is the deco.
50:32
And you know what? I've done 36 minutes or 35 maybe bit less. 34 minutes on the
50:37
bottom. I got 54 minutes of uh TTS. That's not a bad That's not a bad um
50:43
equation, is it? So, um you know, it is really nice to do these kind of uh
50:48
shallow dives every now and again. So, you can see that I've skipped forward a bit um at 20 m. And what I'm doing here
50:55
is I'm uh I'm changing the P2. Um I've already done it on my handset, so I'm going to do it on my sheer water. Going
51:01
to upper it to 1.5 and therefore accelerate the deco. I'm sure lots of people have seen me do this uh lots of
51:08
times, but I think one of the nice things about this one is because you can actually see me um the camera's angled
51:14
down a bit. You can see me operating the buttons and and actually doing it on my on my sheer water. This is a function
51:21
lots of people don't know you can actually do this on a sheer water. um always surprises me. But yeah, there you
51:26
go. You can see I'm I'm just uh changing it up to to 1.5. And as I do that,
51:32
you'll see that the the TTS goes down um you know, pretty rapidly. Although,
51:39
there is one little gotcha with this is you have to remember to change it back again. Otherwise, the next time you get
51:45
in the water, it will still have the same P2, which which could catch you out. Now this is the dive uh the
51:52
download from the sheer water cloud applications for those of you who like viewing it in a different way. You can
51:59
see the max depth right at the end when I was on the seabed but other than that you know it's a fairly um you know
52:05
reasonable dive profile. You can see you know all the stops and all that kind of stuff. So um and then did a few extra
52:12
minutes of deco right at the end probably just cuz I felt I needed it after the uh the bounce dive. So, cut to
52:20
the end. You can see it's a bit lumpy. That's probably why we didn't go too far. There's a Seeker with its famous
52:25
teeth coming in to get me. And that is the end of a uh you know, really
52:31
interesting uh day of diving. All sorts of uh you know, bits and pieces happened on it. And I hope you've enjoyed it. As
52:38
always, I hope you will uh do all the usual kind of stuff. Most of all, what I hope you will do is watch another one of
52:45
my videos. So, thank you.