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Sunk on 13 Apr 1943 by German Schnellboots (fast attack craft) this shipwreck of the Royal Norwegian Navy ship Eskdale is a war grave that is the final resting place of 25 brave Norwegian sailors.
The HMNorS Eskdale was a heavily armed Hunt Class destroyer that was broken in half when hit by two German torpedoes. It is now an outstanding technical dive in 70 metres of water and is easily reachable from the Cornish port of Falmouth.
During this dive, I highlight the badly damaged stern section including twin 4 inch gun mounts, torpedo tubes still with live torpedoes, control room and large quantities of ammunition and crockery
*Highlights*
00:00 Introduction
03:53 HMNorS Eskdale
08:08 Steam turbine (perhaps?)
14:18 Main armament - twin 4" guns
17:23 4 inch ammunition and ship's galley
22:50 Torpedo tubes
26:14 A mess of machinery
31:25 Torpedo tubes (again!)
33:49 Propellor and drive shaft
41:20 Dive profile and decompression stops
45:27 Roll of honour
*Kit I Use*
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
hi welcome to my deep wreck diver Channel this is Dom Robinson I love diving on Military
0:07
wrecks although often they're really sad as well because most of the time people
0:13
have lost their lives on these vessels today's dive is on his Majesty's Norwegian ship esdale this was a heavily
0:21
armed hunt class destroyer that was operated by the Royal Norwegian Navy
0:27
whilst escorting a convoy of freighter it was torpedoed by German ebots with
0:32
the very sad loss of 25 of the crew it now lies at 70 M off the Cornish Coast
0:41
which is a really nice depth for a technical dive hitting that sweet spot of quite a good amount of bottom time
0:49
whilst also being sufficiently difficult to get to that not many people have dived it during my research for this
0:56
video I came across this photo which was taken only a few weeks before the esdale
1:01
was sunk you notice that the crew members are sitting on top of the two
1:06
21in torpedo tubes at the esdale carry the very same torpedo tubes and possibly
1:13
even the same torpedo are still there on the seabed on the wreck today so I'm
1:19
really fortunate that I've been able to dive the esdale twice once in 20122 and
1:25
once in 2023 both Dives were off Darkstar operating rating out of Falmouth in
1:31
Cornwall and one of the particularly nice things about the esdale other than its depth is how close it is to the
1:38
shore so transit times are actually really really nice one of the things
1:43
that's not quite as nice about the esdale is because it is quite close to Shore and because you've got the river
1:49
fou El uh emptying out into Falmouth Bay it does mean that it can be quite silty
1:54
and dirty at the bottom so um and you'll see that on on the video clearly this
2:00
video is also one that's been taken by a camera mounted on the front of my scooter so because of that there's going
2:06
to be bits of the dive uh where I let go of my scooter and it drops to the bottom so it's it's a kind of different quality
2:13
of video footage to the ones that you get when I uh when I have the power lens mounted to my helmet but hey it is what
2:21
it is so uh so here I am in the in The Descent and you can already see the water starting to get kind of that
2:27
horrible green color which uh which normally means either you're going through a layer um and it's going to get
2:33
clear at the bottom or the viz is just not going to be great uh there's the The Lazy shot uh just going past and if you
2:41
haven't already watched my lazy shot video then then you might want to do that there's a few tags on there I'm I'm
2:47
just going to stop here and I'm putting my tag on you won't see me do it because this is the front of the the scooter
2:53
well that's what's happening and now I'm uh I'm kind of heading down kind of hoping that perhaps
3:00
the vi might start to improve as we get down uh bit of a spoiler that's not going to happen so this was the warm-up
3:08
dive before we headed off to do a whole load of stuff in the western approaches where which ultimately resulted in us
3:14
finding the USS Jacob Jones uh if you've not seen that video um well here's a
3:19
link to it so you can go and have a look at it so this was a this was a warm-up dive just sort of making sure that you
3:25
know everybody in the team was happy with the boat and everybody's gear was sorted and all that kind of stuff so uh
3:32
it was it was actually much much better than we thought it was going to be um I don't know why we didn't think it was
3:37
going to be great but but we didn't and uh if you want to do a brilliant technical dive out of uh out of Falmouth
3:45
then I I just can't recommend the esdale uh strongly enough it's uh the wreck is
3:50
actually in two halves so the the what you're going to see here is the dive that we did on the stern the esdale
3:57
wasn't a particularly massive ship and it got hit by two Torpedoes from the uh
4:03
from the ebots and those Torpedoes blew it in half which is probably one of the
4:08
reasons that there was such uh such a loss of life now I've not dived the bow but it is uh it's approximately 100 met
4:15
away from from from the stern as I'm coming down here now you can start to see the strobes so uh I'm I'm obviously
4:22
not the uh first diver on this wreck you can actually see that there's three strobes down already so
4:30
the uh the Darkstar procedure is that the first pair of divers in they they take in the lazy shot and they also
4:38
ensure that the uh the grapple is in the uh is in the wreck so that's what these guys have done I'm just stopping now
4:44
I've let go of my scooter clearly I'm attaching my uh my uh strobe to the
4:50
wreck and you've just seen there Rick eron go past me so it's yet another dive I've done with Rick seems like I've if
4:57
you watch my videos he's he's pretty much pretty much on all of them but he's he's a great person to dive with I'm I'm
5:04
very fortunate um and two days after this was the day that we found the Jacob
5:10
Jones and the day that we found the Bell so one of my one of my most memorable Dives but this one was great as well you
5:16
can see I'm on the uh I'm on the bottom now just under 70 mters and the great thing about uh Navy ships is that
5:24
they're absolutely full of stuff unlike uh steam ships uh cargo ships which
5:30
you know most of the time the cargo gets washed away or they didn't have any or whatever else uh military vessels are
5:37
absolutely full you can see there directly in front of me is the propeller or one of the propellers this would have had two shafts uh the blades on that
5:44
prop have been have been broken off don't know why or at least one of them has anyway might have been when it hit
5:50
the bottom may have been the Damage Done to the torpedo may even have been that at some point somebody's come and
5:56
Salvage this but definitely a military vessel definitely relatively modern you
6:02
can see that by the fact there's there's wiring absolutely everywhere um so lots
6:07
of electricity on this boat which which means it's relatively modern nice little crayfish there for those of you like
6:14
things had two crayfish uh the thing with crayfish obviously is they they're sociable animals so whenever you see one
6:20
you uh you see uh you see more of them and so undoubtedly there'll be another three or four somewhere around not that
6:26
I'm particularly interested in them they just happen to see the and that there is the uh with the chain on top of it that
6:32
is uh that is part of the prop shaft um and there's a big old edible crab down at the bottom of it there so uh I don't
6:39
know what I'm doing here in fact there's a an anchor as well just to the left of it in fact there's another crayfish I I
6:45
said that there'd be a lot of them around and there certainly are so literally I've been on the bottom you
6:50
know probably less than a minute and already there is is a load of stuff you can see why the anchor is down there
6:56
because the chain was uh was racked around the prop shaft so uh they were they were never getting that back again
7:02
so like any any dive the very first thing you got to do is try and figure out uh figure out where you are so
7:09
that's kind of that's kind of what I'm doing at the moment um you can see I've just stopped to uh to do something here
7:15
I put my scooter down um to be honest I've got no idea what that was I can't remember maybe I had something with my
7:22
gear that needed sorting out or who knows but anyway whatever it is all sorted now so uh so getting on with the
7:29
dive and as you can see here there's you know this this is really close to the shore as I've already mentioned this wreck so there's loads of stuff around
7:35
on here you've already seen loads of fishing line and loads of rope and there's bits of uh really old net and
7:41
all sorts of stuff down here so got to be relatively careful with that there's also loads of nice things as well you
7:46
probably just saw a uh pink sea fan on on the seabed there so you know get all
7:52
that sort of stuff and there's obviously fish all over the place as well um which is really nice here we go more of these
7:58
kind of cables and wires and there's bits of brass everywhere um who knows
8:03
what all this sort of stuff is but it is a nice thing about U military vessels is they're just absolutely full of things
8:09
this thing here I think might be part of the uh steam turbine system um I don't
8:16
know why I think that but you can see it's it's all brass or bronze rather and
8:22
um you know so therefore it's an important part of the ship to uh to be to be made of that so it would have been
8:28
in contact with steam or seawater or something they they made it out of bronze for a reason I think you probably
8:34
saw me there flashing to Rick who's come over to have a look at it uh he's trying to figure out what it was as well we had
8:40
a big old chat on the surface and we kind of came to a conclusion probably uh steam turbine but uh neither of us
8:47
really knows so anyway there we go we're kind of move on Rick's got his camera there no that he had some decent Stills
8:55
stills of that but you can see off to my left hand side here there just wires and and cables everywhere this sh is um
9:02
actually the starboard side of the ship so it's uh it is resting kind of on its starbo side so just kind of following
9:09
the uh the seabed up something I I tend to like to do on Rex is I um I like to
9:15
go around the edge of the ship get my bearings and then go into the middle of the ship so you'll see me uh you'll see
9:20
me do that later on and obviously on this one cuz we know it's broken in half I will uh eventually get to the break so
9:27
I'll come around in a circle um and and end up back at the props which is obviously where I started um and obviously a vessel like
9:34
this if you think about it this had um I think four sets of uh 4in guns so that
9:40
was the main Armament and it also had a load of uh 20 mm machine guns as well so
9:49
uh had depth charges it had the two massive torpedo tubes you that you saw at the beginning of the video footage so
9:56
there's there's a whole load of stuff on it here and you consider it not a particularly big ship either these
10:02
things were about 80 meters long about a th000 tons so they were designed for
10:07
kind of uh escort work anti-submarine work uh very versatile versatile ships
10:14
the esdale spent a lot of time doing Convoy Duty uh but it also was uh
10:19
involved in a fairly significant surface engagement when it sunk uh a couple of German sunk a German mind sweeper in
10:26
fact a converted merchant ship and I mean once again here you you know you can see there's there's a whole load
10:32
more brass or bronze stuff non feris whatever it is you know all sorts of interesting bits and pieces when you
10:38
consider that this uh this wreck was so close to uh so close to Falmouth it's
10:44
actually been dived a reasonable am amount but there's still uh you know interesting bits and pieces all over it
10:51
which is which is which is nice and it is because it is that depth 70 M it's
10:57
outside the range for for air diving really even back in the day also you
11:03
know outside the range for you know lots of people you know technical divers like to do 60 Mish so they would consider
11:11
this a bit deep for them so once again uh you know it's it's relatively
11:17
infrequently dive something interesting there I don't know what that kind of thing that that looks a bit like a I don't know a a lampshade or something is
11:24
one of the really interesting things about this wreck and I've I'm sort of it's real pity that I don't have a photo
11:30
is it of it but I have seen one is um a guy recovered a
11:36
bakerite model aircraft off it and uh there's that uh there's that lampshade
11:42
or whatever it is the U the bakerite model aircraft uh the view was that it was um used for some sort of
11:50
anti-aircraft either recognition or maybe some sort of anti-aircraft training I don't know but um the chap
11:56
who found it always believes or believes that that there may be more down on the wreck so um we I've both the times I've
12:04
Lo I've dived I've looked out for it in fact there we go just in front of me there just gone past it an anti-aircraft
12:10
Mount probably I think one of the 20 mm cannons that the uh that the esdale
12:16
carried so as I say there is there's just stuff all over this wreck and it's
12:21
it's really nice it's it makes it really interesting steam ships you can you know there's only certain areas where where
12:28
where you can find good stuff which is normally the bow the bridge and the stern that the cargo holds are normally
12:34
relatively dull um but this this obviously uh you know military vessel
12:40
just absolutely full of stuff uh and I think this area here you can see just in front of me some sort of um uh control
12:48
room so uh that they had um damage stations they had auxiliary Bridges all
12:55
sorts of stuff and I think this just in front of me here is is possibly uh that
13:00
that's possibly what it is second world war obviously the uh the ship carried
13:05
radar as well so you know you can see all this wiring and everything all part
13:10
of making those uh those important systems work I'm not sure why I've
13:15
stopped here but probably I'm I'm having a look at something or pulling something out obviously this camera is mounted on
13:21
the front of my scooter so it's great when I'm scootering around you can see what's in front of it but if anytime I
13:27
stop I let go of the scooter and therefore you don't NE you don't see what I'm uh what I'm always what I'm
13:33
doing or what I'm looking at but this here is this is the bit that I referred to is the kind of control room you can
13:38
see there's all sorts of uh of bits and pieces going on here in fact uh in fact there's some speaking tubes in front of
13:45
me you can see them there so that that was this was probably you know might be in the auxiliary Bridge or some sort of
13:50
uh control maybe gunfire Gunnery control or something like that um in this area actually a friend of mine um a few years
13:58
after this dive found a a telescope which is is obviously interesting I mean
14:03
you just think about who the last person to hold that telescope would have been and going back obviously to the fact
14:10
that 25 uh Norwegian Sailors died on this uh on this when it was sunk
14:16
you know maybe it was one of those ah now here we go you can just see in front of me there there are some uh there are
14:22
the guns so those are the 4 in you know 100 millim guns um it had four of these
14:27
in Twin mounts so uh that's one of the twin mounts there probably uh there was
14:33
one mounted quite High near the near the stern so uh that's that's pretty much
14:38
almost certainly what that is there you know just incredible to see that lying on the seabed and I think quite close by
14:44
to this is uh is some ammunition and you've seen the the clip of that at the beginning of it fact I think just in
14:50
front of me there yeah you can see a a crushed some crushed ammunition there uh you can see the uh the the Warhead would
14:57
have been uh would have been iron the actual uh cartridge case is is is bronze
15:03
or or brass and uh because it's there still air tight the uh the water
15:09
pressure you know eight bar at 70 M crushes the the air that's in the cartridge case so you get that kind of
15:15
really funny shape Rick's obviously I think he spotted the the gun as well so
15:20
he's he's here taking some photos there's some more of those crushed cartridge cases you can just see in front of me one just in the right of the
15:26
screen there I'm kind of giving a really good uh Tak some really good video of it and there's another one directly in
15:32
front of me that one not so much crushed or or not crushed on the top anyway uh
15:37
May well be be crushed underneath clearly these are still alive these are still armed this was a a ship at War and
15:45
therefore all the ammunition everything on here is is live there's the the breaches of the the twin gun mounts um
15:53
so this vessel was under attack by ebots so these guns would have been operated
15:59
potentially were firing back as they were being attacked so absolutely incredible to to think and you know
16:05
there's probably still shells in the breaches of these things so you know
16:10
incredible this is this is a real uh piece of of history and whenever I dive
16:18
these things I I like to think about that history I like to think about uh what was happening at the time this
16:24
vessel was sunk I mean imagine those are those are massive Torpedoes the German ones were very very similar to the
16:29
British ones in terms of of size and the amount of explosive they had on them was huge because they weren't just designed
16:37
for syncing small ships like this Destroyer they were designed for syncing really big ships like battleships and
16:42
those kind of things so they had a huge explosive punch to them and that's why when uh two of those Torpedoes hit the
16:49
esdale they you know quite literally blew it in half uh those are some more ammunition boxes in front of me there
16:56
that smaller caliber ammunition um probably for the uh the estl also had
17:02
four quad two pounder guns so those were anti-aircraft guns and and that that
17:09
we've just seen there I'm pretty certain is is the ammunition for the uh for the anti-aircraft guns carried in um in
17:15
brass uh boxes and there we go in front of us you've seen a bit of video of this already but those are that's ammunition
17:22
for the uh the 4in guns the main Armament on the ship and you can see there is there's a whole load of it and
17:29
and you can see the kind of side of the hole there as well so this is this is stored right up against the side of the
17:34
hole no doubt um in somewhere where it could be easily shipped up to uh for
17:39
useing the gun but there's a lot of ammunition there so clearly they were they were equipped for a big fight and
17:45
as I say when they uh when they sunk the German mind sweeper it was um it wasn't just a German mind sweeper that got sunk
17:52
it was I think the St was part of a a number of other destroyers and between
17:57
them they sunk a couple of the the uh couple of the M sweepers and also quite badly damaged some of the German
18:04
freighter that were being escorted by the mine the M sweepers and the wreck is off at Deep um so just in the uh on a
18:12
kind of French Coast close close to Belgium there and and is's actually quite diable I'm told now just clearly
18:19
these are this is now Crockery and you can see bottles there so this is the this must be the galley so this is where
18:27
the uh the men who who lived and died on this ship this is where they would have had their uh their their meals this is
18:33
what they would have eaten um so absolutely incredible to think uh the plates uh there's a cup there you
18:40
probably just saw it you know people who uh casserole dish just off to my left
18:45
there the people who were on this ship these were the plates that they used this was uh where they ate and uh I've
18:53
I've put the um I've put the scooter down so uh presumably I'm just pulling
18:58
something uh something out to have a look at it now you may say that's dis disrespectful to disturb some plates on
19:05
a a ship in which people died um and uh you know I can I can understand that
19:11
point of view um what I would say is this wreck is Disturbed every single day
19:17
by all the fishing that takes place on it all the other things on it all these artifacts on this wreck will ultimately
19:23
be destroyed by the action of things other than divers I I don't take
19:28
anything off these wrecks I just move it out from where it's been buried to either have a better look at it or to to
19:36
put it out where somebody else can uh can have a better look at it um there's no need to identify this wreck everybody
19:42
knows what it is um but yeah there's there's obviously a ton of uh ton of
19:47
stuff on here I mean legally by the way there is nothing to stop anybody taking whatever they want off this wreck um
19:53
it's not protected in any way and once again you may disagree with that um personally I think it probably should be
19:59
but but it isn't just in front of me there I think those were probably batteries perhaps or maybe boxes of
20:05
ammunition but but I think maybe batteries once again going back to that thing is this wreck is is you know all
20:11
these wrecks these Naval wrecks are just full of uh full of stuff because it was
20:16
a fighting ship and every inch of space on these ships had a purpose um whether
20:23
it the stuff we've seen already ammunition guns engines propellers
20:28
Radars electrics whatever it was it was all there for a purpose in fact and one of the purposes there those are rows of
20:36
toilets so uh yeah Sailors are people like everybody else they have to go to the toilet and those were the heads
20:43
that's where they that's that's where they went so yeah it's kind
20:49
of yeah basic human needs the the ship had to cater for everything um including
20:56
obviously making it um a ship in which people you know it was a fighting vessel
21:02
and ships like this were really important uh during the well all all the
21:07
world wars you know small fast well-armed destroyers like this were
21:13
were the backbone really of uh all the Navies they uh did all the Convoy escort
21:19
they did loads of uh chasing down submarines and they were they were lost in Fairly significant numbers so uh very
21:26
close to here is uh a Corvette the The Trentonian which was a uh Royal Canadian
21:32
Navy sunk um very similar time to to this one and just you know once again
21:39
with a significant loss of life as well you know really actually quite close to the shore and shows you um how even in
21:47
1943 and 44 these Waters were still uh relatively dangerous so you can see here
21:53
I've I've come round the wreck now and I I'm back pretty much at the stern you can see the strobes are there so it
21:59
gives you a feel for how much of the um the wreck there is how much of the the stern there is I mean it's not it's not
22:06
massive but I don't know so maybe there's 30 m of of the stern here I
22:12
guess there's also an absolute load of fishing line you can also see there's a
22:17
load of silt in the water as well I did talk about that the fact that you just
22:22
get lots and lots near the um near the near the river foul and and because the
22:27
wreck is relative to be small and there's you know reasonable number of divers on it a few of us using scooters
22:32
clearly it's uh it's kicked it up a bit um it's also got this kind of slightly orangey uh taint to it as well that's
22:41
not um it's not my um it's not what I'm doing it's it's just the just the um I
22:47
think it's the the stuff that's in the water oh here we go here's the here's the torpedo tubes you saw them at the
22:52
beginning I mean this is incredible these are these are bronze uh torpedo tubes absolutely massive um and uh you
23:01
know the fact that that that both Torpedoes are still in there is is incredible uh you'll see in a minute
23:06
that one of the um one of the heads of the Torpedoes has actually fallen off and is lying on the on the seabed but
23:13
the other one is in there is in there completely intact um and therefore you know potentially dangerous there's also
23:19
there's a couple of gauges in front of me there I don't know if you can you can see them so uh I I guess they would have
23:25
been part of you know the boiler or the engine probably um you know gauges sometimes quite nice
23:33
things um people uh people do take them uh you can see here I'm just kind of wiggling them out so I can have a bit of
23:39
a look at them which I'm doing kicking up a bit more silt obviously uh that's
23:45
not great but um at least uh you know they are visible I think slightly
23:50
disappointingly what I don't actually do is is get any video footage of them which is uh which is a bit irritating
23:56
but um there you go there somewhere down there in fact no there they are just seen them just at the top very briefly
24:03
um nice little nice pair of gauges and you kind of wonder who the last person to see those was before they they went
24:09
down on the ship um oh yeah no there they go there you go nice nice video of a couple of
24:15
gauges it'd be nice to see what's written underneath them actually but um uh obviously it's all concreted over so
24:22
um you know once again there's some sort of steam pipe or maybe water pipe there you know this is this is the back end of
24:28
the ship this is where all the uh all all the machinery for driving it is there also there's probably a load of
24:34
depth charges and stuff around here um I don't think I actually see any or if I do see them I don't realize what they
24:41
are but this is also uh this is also where you get them and you can see there there's just wires and wires and cables
24:48
and and stuff everywhere so um you know incredible you compare a second world
24:55
war ship to a first world warship and this is the big big difference how many
25:00
uh how many cables there are how much electricity there was around around the
25:06
ship so uh yeah there we go oh bit more uh you know pink sea fan if that's your
25:12
thing a fish quite a few fish I've had quite a lot of fishermen actually watching my uh watching my channel oh
25:19
bit bit more ammunition down there I think that's probably um for the uh uh
25:25
two Pounders for the anti-aircraft guns um so got yeah I've had loads of fishermen watching the channel um
25:32
because I think they they go in uh they go obviously fish all these wrecks and they've got no idea what's down there
25:38
and a few fishermen have have dropped me messages either on Instagram or on here going um you know do you know any any
25:45
wrecks where there's really good fish and I kind of go no I I'm really sorry I don't because you know I just don't know
25:52
what all these fish are so if you want to you want to know what um what what what fish there are on Rex you need to
25:58
find another diver I'm afraid sorry about that folks or you need to watch the uh watch the videos and you know if
26:03
you recognize what the fish are please feel free to tell me and Ed and educate me um I'm sorry it's it's it's really
26:09
ignorant I should be better should be better than that but I'm just I'm just not interested really they as far as I'm
26:15
concerned they get in the way of the wreck um and as you can see here there's just a ton of interesting things um it's
26:21
one of the things I'd love to have the uh the plans for this um so you could actually dive in and you know I'd be
26:27
you'd be able to find out what all this all all this stuff is you see there's there's pressure vessels and there's
26:33
tubes and there's cables and there's brass stuff uh just absolutely everywhere it's incredible and uh and
26:40
fascinating at the same time as well there's almost too much stuff you kind
26:46
of you're constantly getting distracted by uh by something new but but but great and and as I said at the beginning of
26:52
this this is just one of the reasons I love diving at military wrecks so I think what I've done here is I've gone
26:58
back along the top of the the wreck so so what I'm over is kind of the engine and the boiler space so some of these uh
27:06
some of these pipes and some of these tubes and some of these cables are associated with with stuff in the engine
27:11
room although uh I'll be honest I've never actually seen an engine um on the
27:18
uh on any of my Dives so I'm presuming it's underneath all of this sort of stuff um the wreck is kind of I think
27:26
broadly upright although quite heavily collapsed um so I think the engine is buried that that
27:33
clearly is is part of a boiler there the esdale had admiralty type of boilers
27:40
which are a development of a yarrow boiler so yarrow's very distinctive
27:46
vshape uh Admiral t uh very similar only had slightly different tubes um and I
27:54
think there ends a lesson on on boilers um I don't know that much about them other than say that looks like a arrow
28:01
boiler although it's not it's an admiralty boiler I found that during my research um but once again you know
28:08
these are boilers that are designed for small ships and they uh they're you get
28:14
a lot of efficiency for for not very much volume and that's obviously what the uh what the Navy wanted they wanted
28:20
these thin fast ships um so that they could Chase submarines and do all the other kind of stuff so uh that's that's
28:29
what you've got and if if you've seen my uh my video from the dive on HMS negro
28:34
which was the first world war um ship you can see very very similar boilers on
28:39
that and the HMS negro was a first world war uh Destroyer very similar to this
28:45
are these the back of the torpedo tubes or so this is the the end which has got
28:50
the uh which they I think they probably loaded them from this end so the end with the of the torpedo with the
28:56
propeller is through these doors here um the other end is where obviously the the
29:02
torpedo comes out and that's the end where the Warhead is going so you can see what I'm doing is I'm just uh taking
29:07
a video along the uh along the torpedo tubes absolutely incredible huge amount
29:13
of brass in these things um and uh you know once upon a time people would lift
29:20
um torpedo tubes and sell them from scrap um obviously you need a really
29:25
serious vessel to do that and you clearly it's nicking stuff off a
29:30
wargrave so not something I particularly approve of but it it was done back in the day uh lots of these vessels were
29:38
salvaged um and and that the amount of brass in those torpedo tubes would be worth a huge amount of
29:45
money though I'm thinking about those lads who were sat on the torpedo tubes in the photo uh you know one of them had
29:52
a cat one of them had a dog those were young Norwegian Sailors um there's no names with that photo to so we don't
29:58
know who they are and obviously we don't know if they were amongst the people who were lost when the when the SK EST was
30:07
torpedoed um potentially they were potentially that was the last photo of them so um you know poignant poignant to
30:15
think about that um and to think about these torpedo tubes and those young men I also always wonder you know if they
30:22
did survive what happened to them you know what happened to the rest of their lives I mean lots of these guys would would survive a sinking and then they
30:29
would be put straight on another ship and and go back out to um to fight you
30:34
know so maybe they survived the war maybe they they lived and went home and saw their family and you know uh had
30:41
kids or or whatever and you know potentially even some of them could be alive still today but yeah there they
30:47
are that's that's pretty much where that photo was taken at the at the front end of the Torpedoes you see the one on the
30:52
left that's the one the WarHeads falling off the one on the right uh that's still there the Warhead is down there
30:58
somewhere I'm not sure if I I see it on this dive but I've certainly seen it on one of the Dives um and you think about
31:04
how much explosive must be uh there must be left in there that is uh that's a lot
31:09
but just you know incredible to see these kind of things underwater and for me these torpedo tubes are probably the
31:17
highlight of the Dives on the esdale maybe those twin um twin 4in guns that
31:22
they're pretty incredible as well the operations room or radar room or control room whatever it is is pretty incredible
31:28
but for me it's the uh it's the torpedo tubes that I absolutely love and that's
31:34
why I'm I'm spending so much time here videoing them I think what I'm also doing here is looking and trying to
31:39
figure out where that Warhead is well that's that's definitely not it there I think it's actually down to the left
31:45
hand side somewhere um uh Rick's obviously there he's having potentially having a look around for it as well but
31:52
I mean clearly you can see there's just there's just a mass of stuff here and um it's it's it's always difficult there's
32:00
there's so much going on trying to um trying to put it together is is is is a real challenge um I would be lying if I
32:09
said that everything I've I've described on this video I saw when I was down there I didn't um it's only by going
32:15
back and looking at the video that I've been able to see it now this here is one of the prop shafts um it's kind of lying
32:20
out on the seabed which is uh which is really interesting so I think um youly
32:28
back at stern here prop shaft's out it's there's a bit of a break in it there but
32:33
it it is down on the seabed now in a minute I'm going to find a bit of the prop shaft that's absolutely
32:39
um it's bent away it's absolutely incredible and you know I always think
32:44
you know what causes prop shafts which are really you know significant bits of
32:50
um bits of metal that they're really strong what what manages to get something to bend like that you know
32:56
what sort of force do you need to apply to it but that's this is obviously right where the where the shot is there's a
33:02
strobe in fact here's the one that's bent you can just see it to the left hand side there there's some pink sea
33:07
fans on the top of it um and if youve watched my Jacob Jones video you'll see
33:13
that one of the prop shaft on that is really heavily bent as well and it's like how does that happen um is it the
33:20
explosion is it the the vessel crashing into the bottom is it something after it's been on the bottom you know maybe
33:26
some cats caught in a troll or something like that I don't know but they are they are really bent
33:31
there you go you can see that one there um there's the there's the prop the bend is off to to the right um You can see
33:38
also where this one was connected to the uh to the ship there's the bottom of an a frame just at just at the top there
33:44
it's just gone out of shot but it was in it a moment ago um so so this is a good example of something I didn't see so the
33:50
reason I'm circling this prop now is because uh I'm I'm telling Rick it's there actually you saw right at the
33:56
beginning of this video the prop was there I just didn't see it at that that particular moment so it's only now that
34:02
I'm seeing it that's why I'm videoing it so um it's it's a good example of of how
34:08
you you don't take everything in to start with there's the bit where it's broken off that would have been attached to to to the hull so that's you know
34:15
worn away or snapped off or something who knows um so yeah it's this is the
34:22
reason that I first started um carrying a video camera is just so that I could go back and and and look at stuff when I
34:28
got to the surface it's only um I guess since then that I kind of I thought
34:34
putting it on YouTube uh is a good thing to do and and when I became aware you
34:39
know actually how many people enjoyed my uh enjoyed my videos I've been trolling through my uh my back catalog and
34:45
obviously doing what I'm doing here which is was putting the uh the talk uh uh the narration on top of them so this
34:52
this dive here is from 2022 I'm recording this in uh March 2025 so it's
34:58
you know two and a half years two and a half years ago which is why sometimes I I don't remember all the details of the
35:04
dive um so yeah I'm sorry about that folks you're just going to have to uh to to bear with my uh with my memory or
35:12
what's left of it anyway so uh The Good the good thing about the esale obviously is I have dived it twice so um that kind
35:20
of helped reinforce some of the stuff I learned um on this dive which was which was the first one so I think I'm kind of
35:27
getting towards the end of my uh end of my dive here so therefore I'm I'm not going too far away from the uh from the
35:34
shotline I'm just having a a good look around in and amongst a Stern I guess you know just having a look seeing if I
35:41
can find uh anything particularly interesting and clearly uh there's not
35:47
much at the moment there's all sorts of stuff on the seabed um you know this thing here no idea what it is looks
35:54
quite interesting would have had a real purpose um no doubt you know somebody who was on
36:00
this uh on this wreck would be able to tell me what it was or it was UN served on the ship unfortunately that knowledge
36:07
is probably being lost now uh I don't think there's any of these ships a float anywhere um I don't think there's
36:13
there's been any left you know for a very long time so uh yeah I guess it's
36:20
quite sad in some ways that all that history has been lost probably saw the grapple just to my left you can see the strobes flashing away you see all this
36:27
fishing line that we've seen uh seen several times before
36:33
um and I guess I'm just just using up my uh just using up my bottom time what
36:38
I'll do is at the end of this dive is I I'll put my um decompression profile on people people like to have a look at
36:45
that I I'll kind of talk you through it you'll see exactly how long what stops I did all that kind of stuff there's
36:50
another I mean that looks like a bit of a gauge there maybe another gauge or or something something round anyway um as
36:56
you can see there's just tons and tons of different things here and what I'm doing is is just doing the thing that I
37:02
sometimes do which is just to take my mind just to sort of have a look that might be the uh the uh that thing there
37:10
that thing on the left I think is actually the Warhead for the um uh
37:15
torpedo so that's probably why I'm flashing it to Rick and that's why I'm spending a bit of time looking at it in
37:21
fact it is that is the uh the Warhead from the torpedo and probably that's what I've what I've been looking for so
37:28
the actual torpedo tube I think is is up to the right of where I am now you just imagine how much explosive is in there
37:35
that's that's a whole lot you don't want it to go bang in fact there's a torpedo tube just above me so um you know not
37:43
surprisingly it's kind of I guess it's broken off maybe rusted away or something like that and just just fallen
37:48
down there's another gauge on the right hand side there um not sure what I'm doing here hopefully not hammering at
37:54
that uh that Warhead that would be that would be a bad thing to do perhaps uh indicating something to Rick don't know
38:01
oh there's a load more ammunition in there as I say uh yeah there's there's gagee on the right hand side there's
38:08
just a whole load of stuff I mean I've seen a couple of Port holes if you're watching the video you've probably seen
38:13
them as well just uh in fact there's torpedo tubes so you can see how close the Warhead was to them it just shows
38:20
you uh how much there is on this and I you know I've said it a few times I'll say it again just a really interest
38:27
interesting dive those are gauges that I that I pulled out earlier on with the with the writing underneath and no doubt
38:34
those those would have told the the crew you know what what the uh the pressure
38:39
was of the the the item they were looking at and a ship like this would have had a whole load of those gauges
38:45
absolutely everywhere there's that steam pipe or water pipe or whatever it was again um so you can see there's a whole
38:52
load of stuff that you've seen through this video that's you can see how close everything is how small uh the ship was
39:00
there there's a t top of the torpedo tubes loads of fish you've seen the um
39:05
the strobes over the other side uh there's Rick he's I think he's probably getting some good photos of those those
39:11
torpedo tubes um I'm lighting it up for him like the good bloke that I am you
39:17
see that I'm right on top of the wreck here so so the wreck you know is probably what 5 m 5 to six meters off
39:22
the seabed maybe not much more than that so relatively flat now this dive has
39:29
gone on quite quite a long time um so I'm absolutely starting to think about
39:34
getting back up to the surface and I guess that's probably why I'm on top of the wreck it is a bit shallower so just
39:42
making the most of my uh of my time down here I'll be looking at my uh my sheer
39:47
water which is what I use to control my decompression I I've probably thinking I've got about uh two hours of Deco to
39:55
do I know that if I uh that will reduce when I accelerate my decompression but
40:01
that's kind of normally um about my queue to to start getting back to shot and start ascending so you can see
40:07
that's exactly what I'm doing here I'm coming up there's my uh there's my strobes you see they're mine which is
40:13
it's a double strobe if you've if you seen my video you know that's one of my kind of hallm marks yellow gloves double
40:20
strobes uh that's that's a good sign that Dom's on the wreck but I'm I'm going to take those strobes off now and
40:26
that's why the the uh the scooter is kind of dangling in the midwater and then I'm going to uh start accelerating
40:32
up you can see uh Ricky Rick is around me as well so the two of us are together
40:38
we've uh we both it's a really nice thing we both think the same way we both
40:43
uh know uh what we're going to do and uh we're sticking together which is which is which is quite important you know
40:51
particularly obviously if something goes wrong and there he is Rick is Rick and is Rick is coming up at the same time as
40:57
me and we're uh we're both on our way so dive is over well it's not over we've
41:02
got all we've got all the Deco to do but the bit of the Dive Dive that we're really interested in is done and uh
41:08
we're heading up to the surface there all seems to be quite a high level of interest in my decompression profile so
41:15
this is the usual downtop download sorry from the sheerwater cloud desktop you
41:21
can see there I'm running the uh the cursor along the the uh the dive profile and you can see uh in the little
41:27
information box um you know my current depth my TTS I.E how long I've got to go
41:33
to the surface as you can see the maximum that gets to on this dive is about 96 minutes so you know about an
41:40
hour and a half which is entirely you know that's quite nice actually often on
41:45
the longer and deeper Dives that will be two and a half or maybe three hours for a really deep one so it's uh that's uh
41:52
that's quite nice uh the other thing uh and obviously the other thing I know is that once I get to to uh My Deco stops I
41:59
will increase the P2 to 1.5 and that TTS will come down if you can see there I've
42:04
just done there and it goes from 80 something minutes down to about 79 so I gained 10 minutes uh by accelerating The
42:11
Deco the other thing that I'm uh I've going to do on here is I'm I'm going to turn on more data and you can see there
42:17
it is it's just come on there's the uh some additional lines there's a kind of zigzaggy orange line that goes up from
42:23
left to right that's the uh the CNS the other that I've got on here is is the
42:28
green line uh that's my P2 set in the computer you can see there the step from
42:34
1.3 to 1.5 and then it stays at 1.5 pretty much for most of the Deco um
42:41
right uh when I get 6 M I actually change it down to 1.4 again and the
42:46
reason for that is at 6 M with 1.5 P2 it
42:51
can be uh quite difficult just to maintain buoyancy so uh you know 1.5
42:57
doesn't really make any difference to The Deco just makes it a bit easier on the buoyancy and then right at the end there you can see when my Deco is
43:03
cleared I change it down to7 again um that's just in order to get it to the
43:09
surface if you leave it 1.4 or or 1.3 then the unit just keeps firing and you
43:14
ditch loads of o2 and in fact the unit won't let you do that anyway the other thing to mention on these graphs are the
43:20
the kind of zigzaggy lines that come down from the uh the top left where they're quite High to the bottom right
43:25
where they're quite low those are the the po2 of helium and nitrogen
43:30
respectively obviously they uh they reduce when you get to shallow depths because the unit essentially gets full
43:37
of oxygen so it's an interesting bit of a bit of a thing to see and the CNS line
43:43
which comes from bottom left to top right CNS is a measure of oxygen toxicity and in theory the uh the
43:51
maximum you want on a dive is 80% um I think I I finish this one on on 90% And
43:58
this is a not a shallow dive but but according you know by the stands of some of the ones I've done is a relatively
44:03
shallow dive um and routinely you know on the bigger Dives we'll get heading
44:10
towards 200% CNS maybe more than 200% I'll be honest I I don't I don't pay any
44:15
attention whatsoever to CNS but people do like to people are interested people do like to see it uh for me far more
44:23
important is actual the po2 in the breathing Loop so I personally wouldn't
44:28
go much more than 1.6 um although you know once again that's that's an area that's open to
44:34
debate and it's all about uh what you're doing when you've got those high p2s and what level of risk you're you're happy
44:40
to accept and all those kind of things uh probably outside the scope of this video anyway I thought I'd finish up
44:46
with a bit of video from the second dive unfortunately I had problems with my video camera so I didn't get the the
44:52
video the whole dive but this is uh this is obviously uh that's the Warhead off the torpedo tubes and up there you can
44:59
see the uh the torpedo tubes again and and obviously uh you know I came
45:04
straight here on the second dive it was uh it was a really memorable bit from the first dive and um you know when I
45:11
see these I obviously think about those young Lads with that photo with their dog and their cat on the um on top of
45:19
them and I think it's probably a a poignant moment to remember the uh the
45:25
people who lost their lives on the esque day not only uh when it was sunk but also during the battle with the Mind sweeper
45:32
that I talked about uh you know we all we all owe them a debt of gratitude so I
45:37
think it's uh it's worth just taking a moment to think about them all those young Brave Norwegian Lads a long way
45:44
from home uh fighting to uh you know in the hope that their their country would
45:50
be free and you know great news great news that it that it did eventually happen although very very sad that they
45:57
never live to see it so uh I hope you've enjoyed my video of the the dive on the
46:04
esdale or a bit of both Dives on the es esdale I hope you've liked the story I
46:10
hope it's uh like me you you'll think about those those brave men and um as
46:15
always with my videos it would be great if you would uh you would leave me some feedback uh if you like or comment or
46:23
subscribe or turn on the notifications or or any of that sort of stuff tell
46:28
your friends and uh yeah well I hope to see you on the next one thank you very much
Diving & Underwater Activities
Diving & Underwater Activities