Coron Bay Wrecks

DIRdudes Andrew and Richard have just returned from a week of wreck diving in the Philippines. We teamed up with the guys at Living Seas in Singapore and headed off on a 22 hr travelthon via Manila to the island of Busuanga.

Our hosts for the trip were Discovery Divers and their purpose built dive facility at their Puerto del Sol resort certainly met our expectations of a good dive operation. In preparation for our arrival they had arranged for seven sets of manifold double cylinders to be ready, they had arranged for our exclusive use of a dive boat large enough to take all our gear and laid on dedicated dive guides for the duration of our stay.

History

September 1944. The US Third Fleet, under the command of Admiral "Bull" William Halsey aboard the USS New Jersey, began moving toward the Philippines Islands. 

Task Force 38 was involved in carrying out air strikes against Japanese targets in the Philippines. 

In the early morning, 0550, 24. Sept. 1944, the TF 38 took off towards a  target area some 350 miles away from their carriers. A total of 120 aircraft consisting of  F6F HELLCAT fighters and SB2C HELLDIVER bombers were on there way  to CORON BAY. 

At the time it was the longest range air raid in history. At 0900 the Planes reached Busuanga Island, found 15-18 large enemy ships anchored in CORON BAY. 45 minutes later it was all over, the planes returned home leaving behind a hell of burning oil, explosions and sinking vessels. 

By way of an introduction to our dive videos for this trip we made this trailer covering the background. Enjoy.

The Wrecks
We dived six wrecks in total, some multiple times and we also visited Barracuda Lake with its haloclines and geothemally heated depths. Follow the links below to read more about each wreck.

1. Okikawa Maru
2. Olympia Maru
3. Ekkai Maru
4. Koygo Maru
5. Barracuda Lake
6. IJNS Akitsushima
7. IJNS Irako

Our Videos

You can watch all of our videos for this trip in this vimeo album.

DIRdudes in GUE's Quest Magazine

The Sinking of the TT Seven Skies, 

Quest Vol 11, No 3, Summer 2010

The DIRdudes have had an article published in GUE's quarterly publication Quest. Quest is a quarterly magazine published by Global Underwater Explorers that seeks to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of the underwater world and of its component parts. Composed of articles submitted by supporters of GUE's mission—both lay and academic—Quest's subject matter ranges from accounts of exploration from around the globe, to equipment, training, exercise, physiology, diverse aquatic environments and ecological considerations. Often showcasing the work of internationally recognized photographers and scientists, Quest seeks to help grow a global community that shares GUE's commitment to education, conservation and exploration. 

 

The article, written by Richard Walkland, details the extensive research he did prior to the dives carried out in 2009 on the 40th Anniversary of her sinking.

You can read a copy of the article here, posted with Quest's permission by our good friends at Living Seas.

Lake St Clair, Tasmania

Recently DIRdude Rich teamed up with GUE ITC Candidate Matt White from Sydney to dive Australia's deepest lake, Lake St Clair in Tasmania.

View Larger Map

Lake St Clair is located at the southern end of the world famous Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park and is part of the Tasmanian World Heritage Area which covers a significant proportion of the South West and Central Highlands of the state.

The Lake has an area of 11 square miles (28 square km), measures 9 miles by 1 mile (14.5 by 1.6 km), and lies at an elevation of 2,417 feet (737 m) on Tasmania’s Central Plateau. Filling a valley carved out by ice during several glaciations over the last two million years and then dammed with a moraine, the maximum depth approaches 700 feet (215 m) along the west-side, making St. Clair Australia’s deepest lake. It is also the headwaters of the Derwent River. It is ringed by some remarkable mountain peaks which are frequently covered in snow for much of the year. Lake St Clair is also known by its Aboriginal name of Leeawuleena which means "sleeping water", an apt description, although this often tranquil lake has many moods which seem to change constantly.

It is also the end point (or the start) for bushwalkers tackling the Overland Track which runs between Lake St Clair and Cradle Mountain, the track much beloved by bushwalkers from all over Australia and the world.

The area around Lake St Clair offers a wealth of walks, ranging from leisurely strolls to overnight bushwalks, with beautiful forests and alpine moorlands to explore. But relatively little is known about the aquatic environment in the lake itself and it has only ever been infrequently dived and never (to our knowledge) documented. Likewise the lake has never been bathymetrically surveyed in any detail.

Logistics

We flew our gear into Tasmania and hired O2 Clean S100 cylinders and weights from the guys at Southern Tasmanian Divers in Hobart.


We were diving EAN32 which meant at 730m elevation we had a MOD of ~27m (ie. less ~3m fto compensate for the altitude), more than deep enough for the reconnaissance dives we were planning for this trip. Later trips were we'll require Trimix are going to be more complex and will require partial pressure mixing of gas on site.

The DIRdudes chartered the lake's ferry the 'Ida Clair' from Lake St Clair Lodge where we stayed. This ferry, whilst not specifically designed for diving or water entry and exits, was more than adequate for our needs, and certainly made accessing some of the more remote parts of the lake easier.

Accommodation

We stayed at the Mimosa Cottage, a heritage listed cabin on the banks of the Lake, which offered simple self-catering accommodation, plenty of room for setting up the dive gear and fantastic views of the lake.

The Diving

Heres an vimeo album of the dives we did on the lake.

Dive 1: Submerged Islands

Lake St Clair is a deep U-shaped channel for much of its length with a pronounced shelf along its eastern flank. Towards the southern end the lake shallows rapidly as the valley is dammed by glacial moraines which have been folded up into distinct and unique ridges. Historically there were a number of isolated vegetated islands along this southern coastline which likely represent the crests of further morainal ridges descending into the lake. These photos below (courtesy of the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office) are from circa 1900 and clearly show this small islands along what is now know as Frankland Beach.





In the 1930's the decision was taken to build a weir at the outflow of the lake and established a pump-house to provide Hobart with emergency water. The construction of the weir artificially raised the lake by approximately 3m and inundated these small islands and permanently changing the character of the southern part of the lake and the headwaters of the Derwent River.

The objective of our first dive was therefore to attempt to relocate and document these islands and get a feel for the character of the lake in terms of visibility, water temperature, aquatic flora and fauna etc.

Dive 2: Pump-House

In 1933 the HEC drew up plans to develop a large Hydro Electric Scheme in the upper reaches of the Derwent River. The scheme was built between 1938 and 1940 and involved the erection of a controlled dam on the Derwent River and a pumphouse and substation at Pumphouse Point.

The pumping station allowed the lake to be drained below its original level. In order to stop the river from draining back into Lake St Clair when the lake level was low, a weir was constructed at the northern end of St Clair Lagoon. This resulted in the permanent inundation of the northern end of the Derwent River. The pumphouse was built out on the Lake allowing the pumps to draw water from 6.5 metres below the surface. This water was then discharged along a 245 metre concrete flume connecting the pump house to the shore. It then flowed via a short canal into St Clair Lagoon.

More coming soon...

Dive 3: Cynthia Bay Jetty

Our third dive was off the Cynthia Bay Jetty which acts as the home mooring for the 'Ida Clair'.
More coming soon...

Rich & Matt at Echo Point

DIRdudes become GUE Affiliates

DIRdudes are proud to announce that as of January 2010 we are now an Official GUE Affiliate Group.

This status is available to organizations who seek to support GUE divers with resources, services and training. We have our own gas mixing facilities and our team has access to a sizeable and comprehensive collective resource of dive equipment and scooters which we regularly make available to visiting GUE divers from around the world (with prior arrangement).

Increasingly, we are receiving requests from visiting divers interested in diving with us or new divers interested in GUE training hence our official affiliation. As local GUE ambassadors we are proactive in our promotion of the GUE organization and the desirability of GUE dive instruction.

If you are a GUE trained diver living or visiting Perth, or if you are interested in GUE training or just finding out more about it, feel free to contact us at mailto:info@perthdivers.com.

DIRdudes 'Dive Porn' goes Hi Def

For a few years now the DIRdudes have been recording all our major dives with J's Hi Definition video camera. Unfortunately, until now, we have only been able to publish significantly degraded 'Low Def' versions of our finished edits on the Internet because of the limitations of free hosting sites like YouTube.

However, recently we discovered Vimeo, this is a fantastic community that supports and promotes HD videos. Over the coming months we will be dressing up some of our best videos and reposting them on Vimeo in their full Hi Def glory.

To begin with here are some of our more recent videos, whilst these are not in full HD yet they are significantly better quality than the equivalent versions on our YouTube page.

Enjoy!

Key Biscayne

A 4:30am start is always tough, but the wreck of the Jack-up Rig Key Biscayne is usually worth the effort. Our team's 'good weather fairy' Justin delivered again and provided us with great conditions despite being called off the dive at the eleventh hour due to work commitments.

That said, and despite the good weather, the trip out to the wreck had everyone on board dropping their breakfast over the side before we got to the wreck and there were some distinctly yellow faces as people geared up and dropped in.

The Dive

We motored down the shot line and then took a wide swing around the perimeter of the wreck enjoying the good (15m) vis to get a rare overview of the wreck site. We then hung around the central section of the wreck which is littered with meters of scattered drill rods and other oil rig paraphernalia exploring the crevices of the up-turned superstructure. Unsurprisingly the Crays were out in force, knowing as they do that this was the last day before the season begins. Its a given that by tomorrow they will all have vanished.

As we got into the latter half of our 30min bottom time we headed off down one of the three triangular legs now laying splayed out on the sand in 40m water. These legs are massive, 10m high and at least 200m long and make for a great scooter ride.

Once back at the main superstructure we took our time ascending to the shot line and into a slightly nauseous deco; the seasickness having not totally worn off on the dive.

Date: 14/11/2009

Max: 40m

Avg: 21m

BT: 30mins

RT: 60mins

BG: 21/35

Deco: EAN50

Ratio: 3,2,2,2,2,8,5

Heres some video and photos from the dive.

Colourful life on the upturned deck

A diver ascends the shot line

Scattered winch at the end of a leg

Part of a crane

Into the distance

Crushed Superstructure

An encrusted motor

GUE Extravaganza 2009

GUE Wrecks of the South China Sea trip 2009
In this photo: Gideon Liew, Alvin Javier, ZJ Wen, Eriko Jonsson, Andy Dyer, Thomas Jonsson,

Takashi Tayama, Richard Walker, Andrew Robertson, Justin Martin,

Richard Walkland, Leon Boey, Dagomir Dag Kaszlikowski

For the past three years Gideon Liew and his team from Living Seas have been running a GUE sponsored dive trip to the numerous wrecks around Tioman off the coast of Malaysia. October in the South China Seas is a period of calm and warm weather perfect for running extended open ocean diving expeditions. Each year the trip has grown in popularity and and the calibre of the diving has improved from what was essentially a Fundamentals level trip in 2007 to a full Tech 1 & Tech 2 level expedition with scooters etc in 2009.

Word of these trips has certainly got around and this year the trip was over subscribed. The trip also attracted a prestigious number of GUE Instructors from around the world; along for the trip with Gideon and Leon was Thomas Jonsson, his wife Eriko and Takashi Tayama representing the Japanese Underwater Explorers (JUE); and from the UK Rich Walker GUE's Technical Training Director joined the trip as part of a four week diving tour of South East Asia.

The rest of the team was made up of the technical divers from Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, both regular faces and some new blood, and of course the DIRdudes were there again to lend our own distinct form of credibility to the whole proceedings!

THE DIVING

HMS REPULSE

DIVE 1

TT SEVEN SKIES

MARITIME FIDELITY

Technical Diver Level 2

PURPOSE

The GUE Technical Diver 2 (Tech 2) course is the second in a series of three courses designed to develop technical diving excellence, building upon previously learned skills with a focus on extending essential technical diving skills Tech 2 training focuses on building diving proficiency at increasing depth using Helium diving gases with Oxygen enriched decompression gases. These skills include:

• the use of multiple stages
• the use of Trimix
• the use of greater percentages of Helium
• gas management
• Oxygen management
• decompression
• accelerated, omitted and general decompression strategies
• dive planning
• technical equipment configurations

Course participants will gain experience working with a variety of different gas mixtures for use as bottom mix and multiple decompression gases.

PREREQUISITES

• Must meet GUE General Course Prerequisites as outlined in Section 1.6
• Must be a minimum of 21 years of age
• Must be GUE DIR Fundamentals and GUE Tech 1 qualified
• Must have a minimum of 200 logged dives, with at least fifty (50) dives on double tanks/cylinders; twenty-five (25) of these should have utilized a single stage
• Must have a minimum of twenty-five (25) dives beyond Technical Diver Level 1 qualification
• Must be able to swim a distance of at least 60 feet/18 meters on a breath hold
• Must be able to swim at least 500 yards/457 meters in less than 14 minutes without stopping. This test should be conducted in a swimsuit and, where necessary, appropriate thermal protection.

COURSE CONTENT

The GUE Tech 2 course is normally conducted over a 5-day period, and cumulatively involves a minimum of forty (40) hours of instruction, designed to instill in divers a working knowledge of extended range diving; including physiology, tables and logistics. Special emphasis is placed on extended exposures and on their associated considerations (gas consumption, DCS, Oxygen toxicity, and thermal concerns).

Course requirements include a minimum of six (6) hours of academics, and eight (8) dives, four (4) of which will be critical skill dives and four (4) will be experience dives. Four (4) dives must utilize Helium.

Technical Diver Level 1

PURPOSE

The Technical Diver Level 1 (Tech 1) course is structured to prepare divers for the rigors of technical diving and to familiarize them with the use of different breathing and decompression mixtures. Tech 1 training focuses on expanding the fundamental skills learned in the GUE Fundamentals course (or elsewhere), and is designed to cultivate, integrate, and expand the essential skills required for safe technical diving. This will include problem identification and resolution, and building the capacity for progressively more challenging diving. In this class, students will be trained in:

• the use of double tanks/cylinders and in the potential failure problems associated with them
• the use of Nitrox for accelerated and general decompression strategies
• the use of Helium to minimize narcosis
• the applications of single decompression stage diving with respect to decompression procedures.

The class will focus on enriched air and Trimix as flexible and beneficial breathing gases for dives down to 160 foot/48 meters, and provides an excellent foundation on which divers can build their technical diving experience and prepare for GUE's Technical Diver 2 course (Tech 2).

PREREQUISITES

• Must meet GUE General Course Prerequisites as outlined in Section 1.6
• Must be a minimum of 18 years of age
• Must be GUE DIR Fundamentals qualified
• Must have a minimum of 100 dives beyond open water qualification
• Must be able to swim a distance of at least 50 feet/15 meters on a breath hold
•Must be able to swim at least 400 yards/366 meters in less than 14 minutes without stopping. This test should be conducted in a swimsuit and, where necessary, appropriate thermal protection.

COURSE CONTENT

The GUE Tech 1 course is normally conducted over a 5-day period, and cumulatively involves a minimum of forty (40) hours of instruction designed to provide a working knowledge of enriched air diving, normoxic and hyperoxic Trimix and decompression mixtures, including history, physics, physiology, tables, and operational considerations.

Course requirements include ten (10) hours of academics and eight (8) dives, six (6) of which will be critical skill dives and two (2) will be experience dives. Initial dives will be conducted in shallow water to test diver ability and to fill in any deficits in skill levels. The last two (2) dives are to be Trimix dives at depth for experience.

HMS Repulse

Dive 1

The line was tied off immediately above the Twin 15" Guns of the "B" Barbette, and there was a moderate current running. We followed the line hand over hand to the ships rail then dropped down to the sand at 54m and headed aft towards the forward funnel, the main superstructure and the command & control tower.

View of the main command and control tower that was the focus of our first dive.

We explored up and down the ships central command tower now laying only partially exposed on the sand. The Flag deck, Lower and Upper Bridges and funnel are now either buried by sand or largely obscured by nets. However the Syren deck, and both the 4” and the 15” Gun Director Platforms are clearly recognisable as is the remains of the Spotting Tower and the H.A.C.S.

1936 Plans of the Repulse highlighting the areas we explored.

We turned and swam back down the mast toward the main body of the hull out of the swirling mists of the milky thermocline appeared the distinct shape of one of the ship's nine Mark IX 4 inch low angle 'Triple Guns' two of its three barrels clearly visible the third buried in the sand. This gun was a British medium-velocity naval gun introduced in 1916 as secondary armament on the Renown class Battlecruisers.

One of the Triple Mounted 4" Breach Loading Mark IX Guns.

J pays his respects at the gun.

The same gun in 1941.

This placed us on the Conning Tower deck right beside the forward funnel an area bristling with weaponry. In fact, a few fin kicks to our left brought us to a net shrouded Vickers QF (Quick Firing) 3 pounders - used as anti-torpedo boat weapons.

Addendum: We have recently been reliably informed that what we thought was a Vickers QF is in fact actually one of the optics of one of the 12' Bar and Stroud rangefinders. Many thanks to Andrew F at the Ship Model Forum for this correction.

The breach & Mount of a Vickers 3 Pounder
or a 12' Barr and Stroud Ranger finder shouded in nets.

A vickers QF.

 Barr and Stroud Ranger finder.
1936 Plans showing the location of the weaponry on the Starboard side of the Conning Tower Deck.

Beyond the Triple Gun and further aft we came upon the remains of a large Carley Float, these invertible life-rafts were formed from a length of copper tubing 30-50 cm in diameter bent into an oval ring. The ring was originally surrounded by a buoyant mass of kapok or cork and covered by canvas. The floor of the raft was made from a wood or webbing grating, all now long gone but the copper ring was still clearly recognizable.

The remains of a Carley Float.

Carley Floats stowed aboard HMS Rodney 1940.

A Carley Float in action.

This life-raft had come loose from its stowage location on the Shelter Deck below was resting against one of the ship's three 2 pound Mark VIII pom pom anti-aircraft arrays its eight 40mm barrels clearly recognizable despite the years.

Encrusted Mk VIII Pom-Pom.

These guns were advanced weapons when introduced, but by the outbreak of World War II advances in aircraft would have effectively made it obsolete, but for the introduction of a high velocity round, and new Director designs. It was intended that the curtain of fire it threw up would be sufficient to deter attacking aircraft and it did deter many attacks, but was hampered by an ineffective director.

Mk VIII Pom-Poms on HMS Rodney 1940.

The after action report on the battle of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales judged that the single 40mm Bofors gun, mounted on the quarterdeck, had been a more effective anti-aircraft weapon than the entire battery of multiple pom-pom mounts, as the pom-pom ammunition had deteriorated badly in their ready use lockers, and the Type 282 radar units also failed in the equatorial heat. In the same action, the Commissioned Gunner of HMS Repulse spent the whole action running from one pom-pom mount to another trying to keep them operational due to the faulty ammunition.

From the Pom-Pom we swam onto the Shelter Deck and worked our way stern to look at the sides of the Seaplane Hanger and ascending to the ships rail at the catapult before heading back up and across the hull to the line.

Watch the video of this dive here:

Looking forward to GUE Extravaganza 2009

Its nearly October and that means its nearly time for our annual GUE expedition to the wrecks of the South China Seas. This year promises to be every bit as good as previous years with a number of other GUE Instructors joining Gideon and Leon on the MV Black Manta.

MV Black Manta

The trip is planned around doing some serious Tech 1 and Tech 2 level exploration on both HMS Repulse and TT Seven Skies as follows:

Day 1: TT Seven Skies

Day 2: HMS Repulse

Day 3: HMS Repulse

Day 4: TT Seven Skies

Day 5: MV Maritime Fidelity

This year there will be multiple camera teams and a healthy supply of scooters to ensure that we come away from the trip with some seriously good documentary footage.

Importantly we will be revisiting the Seven Skies exactly 40 years and a day since her sinking on Monday 6th October 1969. To commemorate this anniversary I have been brushing up on my Swedish to research newspaper and survivor accounts of the explosion and sinking that claimed four crew men's lives. You can read my research into the incident here and about our previous dives on the wreck in 2007 here.

This year is also the 68th anniversary of the sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales on 10th December 1941. We feel honoured to have the opportunity to return to document some more of this majestic battle cruiser as a mark of respect for her fallen crewmen.

Finally we will have the opportunity to revisit the MV Maritime Fidelity which sank 10 years ago on 1st June 1999 following a collision with the VLCC New Venture. This is a great penetration wreck and we are looking forward to getting some good footage of the engine room and lower decks, and perhaps even visiting the detached superstructure.

The sinking of TT Seven Skies

History

TT SEVEN SKIES was originally named the TT MALMOIL and was built in 1965 by Odense Staalskips A / S, Lindo, Denmark. She was equipped at Kockums Mechanical Engineering Ltd, Malmo, Sweden.

She was one of four sister ships the others being the SEVEN SEAS the SEVEN STARS and the MALMÖHUS.

Note: She is some times confused with the MT SEVEN SKIES built in 1957 and scrapped in 1988.

Seven Stars 1967

Seven Stars 1967

Seven Seas 1967

Malmohus 1965

Malmohus 1965

Malmohus 1965

She was a 261.21 x 39.00 x 18.10 m 97,950 DWT vessel equipped with two Kockums Stal Laval 22,500 HP steam turbines producing a top speed of 16 Knots.

She was originally ordered by Rederi Ab Malmoil, Malmo Sweden. The hull was launched on the 18th April 1965 in Denmark and sold to Salén Rederi AB, Stockholm in June 1965. On 30th December 1965 she was delivered to Salén as the SEVEN SKIES and in 1969 she was transferred to Rederi AB Pulp, Stockholm.

Seven Skies 1965

The sinking

Monday 6th October 1969.

The TT SEVEN SKIES was cruising through the South China Seas approximately 220 miles North East of Singapore en route from Japan to Indonesia and Dubai. The weather was clear and the sea flat calm.

At 7:30am the Norwegian chief engineer Svein Arnulf Nielsen (36) was in the engine room when the vessel was rocked by a massive explosion somewhere nearby. He was seriously injured receiving a fractured skull, broken bones and burns but he later reported:

"There was no time to think about anything else than to rush out of the fire that was all around me. Then I noticed that water was pouring into the ship. Confusion erupted when the ship was thrown back and forth by the powerful explosion.”

The ships Captain Otto Ferdinand Henning from Oskarshamn, Sweden reported:

” I was just eating breakfast. Suddenly I heard a bang. At first I thought it was a collision. The ship sank so quickly that we had no time to send SOS signals, but we were in a very busy waterway and other vessels responded immediately.”

Bjorn Edholm was an electrician aboard below are his notes on the incident written on letterhead from the Queen's Hotel in Singapore:

"06.30 Shaved and bathed and checked the temperature (+28 degrees) on the pier and looked out on the deck. All quiet and calm.

07.10 went into my cabin, put on the radio and began to read a book.

07.25 was thrown out of the chair onto the floor then back up again and again. All black, had no lights on and through the port holes was no light.

I left my cabin and opened the door to the deck, but closed it again. Everything was just smoke, fire (no flames, but red light) and water. An engineer came and opened the door and when through when it had calmed down somewhat, two engineers also went through before before I went out. Climbed to C-deck (I dared not try the bottom of the poop-deck). I found a Lifebelt and took the ladder down to B deck. The ship was listing about 45 degrees by now. The time was approximately 1-2 minutes after the explosion. I waited up on the railing for a short while to see if we were still sinking. The movement seemed to have subsided as she was rocking more before.

From where I stood I could see the back tyres were in the water and they seemed to float. I could see nothing of the tank deck. The Portside bridge wing was in the water and a lifeboat was at the port wing, including a mate in the boat. It was burning heavily on the starboard side.

When it looked as if we were not going to sink so suddenly I began to climb again with the help of the railing down to the height of the door of the machine room and jumped from there into the water astern of the port bridge wing and swam up to the lifeboat and was helped into it. It was almost full with water and oil. It was almost impossible to get a foothold on the slippery oil. We pulled up all that were on the port side of the boat and used a life raft that had unfurled itself to help rescue those in the water.

We tried to row away from the Seven Skies so we would not be drawn down with her when she sank. It was almost impossible to grasp the oars and put any force behind the stroke because everyone and everything was covered with black oil. We managed to get free from the hull in time, it sank 15 minutes after the explosion.

We picked up four other crew in the water and around 08.45 we were rescued by a Japanese fishing boat / trawler named Myojo Maru, where we could refresh ourselves, wash most of the oil off and were given coffee and sandwiches, while they continued looking for more missing."

Stoker Harry Lundgren said:

"Most of us were asleep when the explosion occurred. We had to throw ourselves into the sea. We could not think of what happened we just grabbed a life-vest and ran out on deck. We had time to launch a lifeboat before the ship sank but most of the crew were jumping into the sea among the floating wreckage and sticky oil."

For crew man Olle Jonsson it was a particularly bizarre experience:

"I had just risen and I only had a towel wrapped around my hips when the ship shook with the blast. Someone threw a life-vest for me and the next moment I was in the water, naked!

When I stuck my head up out of the water it felt as if someone had painted my face with oil. The towel was gone. The guys on the Japanese fishing boat were a little bit surprised when they pulled out a naked man covered in oil."

The ship sank rapidly, but within 20 minutes the 32 surviving crew members had been picked up by the Japanese fishing vessel MYOJYO MARU which was nearby at the time and transferred to the British cargo vessel ARCTIC OCEAN which transported them to Singapore. The severely injured engineer was flown to Singapore by British Air Force Helicopter.

The Japanese fishing vessel and another Japanese cargo ship continued to search for the missing four crew for hours but only found an empty survival raft. Aircraft and helicopters from the British Navy also helped in the rescue work.

The four crewmen killed were:

• Stig Gunnar Gote Lindblad (44), Telegraph clerk, Malmö, Sweden;

• Gunnar Filip Wallberg (54), Finance Director, Solna, Sweden;

• Bjorn Pettersson (25), Repairer, Lidingö, Sweden; and

• Dicky Mamangkey, Stoker, Indonesia.

Singapore 1969

The surviving crew members stayed in the luxury Queen's Hotel in Singapore, but they arrived wearing only underwear and work clothes which in the tropics meant nothing more than shorts. Hotel staff had not been warned that the guest were shipwrecked and were shocked when the scantily clad and dirty crowd walked in and shortly afterward the Hotel's tailor experienced a boom in trade in his little shop.

At the time of her sinking the vessel had an estimated value of between 45 and 60 million Kronor and was insured for 50 million Kronor. Making her one of the most expensive disasters ever at the time.

Salén Shipping Lines flew technical inspectors to Singapore to investigate the incident yet to this day mystery surrounds the actual cause of the sinking. The vessel was under charter by the Japanese oil company Idemitsu Kason to transport crude oil but was empty at the time of the sinking. Empty vessels are more prone to explosions given the technical difficulties of cleaning the storage tanks and the fact that Crude oil contains all the various oil fractions that can build up a highly flammable explosive mixture of air and oil vapours.

The potential source of the ignition was speculated to be repairman Bjorn Pettersson who was welding on the deck. He had barely begun work when the ship exploded killing him instantly. According to the inspector's findings, he was also the only one who did not manage to throw themselves into the water. The other three crew men who were killed were drowned.

An alternative ’conspiracy theory’ fuelled by Salén Lines attempts to avoid negative publicity by keeping the crew away from the press suggested that the SEVEN SKIES may have collided with another vessel, perhaps even a submarine or an old WWII mine. This however seems unlikely given that no other wreckage was found, and none of the rescue vessels reported seeing any any other vessels in the vicinity at the time of the explosion. Furthermore, the SEVEN SKIES sank in approximately 15 minutes which is consistent with previous tanker disasters where a gas explosions practically tear the ship apart.

Seven Skies 1965

Sources: Numerous Swedish Newspaper and survivor reports from 1969.

Salén Shipping Line Archives, Swedish Vessel Register