Above us the waves

SPORT has some strange arenas but none surely more obtuse than a rotting hulk in the dark depths of the River Clyde. The SS Wallachia was rammed in dense fog by the Norwegian steamship Flos, not far from Toward Point south of Dunoon in 1895, on her way from Glasgow's Queen's Dock to the West Indies.

Owned by the shipping magnate and founder of his eponymous Glasgow Collection, Sir William Burrell, the Wallachia was a beautiful, graceful steamship and her attractions have not faded over a century, particularly to the only members of the public with access now: sub- aqua divers.

The Wallachia was re-discovered in 1977 by the Girvan Scottish Sub Aqua Club and today every weekend sees several dive boats journeying out to the wreck site to catch glimpses of her fine lines and explore her holds, some still full of green/brown beer bottles, with contents and corks intact.

Divers meet usually at a suitable slip, such as at Inverkip or Largs. The dive boat, usually a rigid inflatable (RIB), will be launched and all the divers' kit, air tanks and weight belts loaded.

A skilled cox will find the wreck quickly, using fixed land points or with the use of a Global Positioning System and, finally, an echo sounder.

All eyes aboard will be fixed on the bottom trace of the echo sounder and then, right on cue, the bottom line leaps vertically up from a depth of 35 metres to 25-30 metres.

A grappling hook is dropped slightly up current and as the RIB drifts down current, the hook snags into the wreck. It's a good snag; it's showtime.

The divers kit up methodically. Some are apprehensive; it may be their first wreck dive and that, coupled with the anticipated blackness below, weighs heavily in their minds.

Many of the divers will be confronting fears deeply rooted in man; claustrophobia, fear of the dark and, of course, drowning. Diving is an intense personal challenge.

Weight belts, fins and knives are strapped on. Air tanks and buoyancy compensating jackets (BCDs) are hefted on before all the smaller essentials such as dive decompression computers, slates and - importantly for Clyde diving - the biggest, brightest dive torch money can buy.

Finally, after each diver has done a safety check of his companion's kit, they are ready.

Each diver in turn rolls backwards off the dive boat and enters the water upside down in a froth of bubbles, before finning over to the grapple line. The water visibility here at the surface is only a few metres and the line disappears down into the gloom beneath. Torches on, it is time for the descent.

Keeping a good hold of the rope, the divers start to free fall down towards the wreck. What surface light there is soon fades and then disappears. The divers are enveloped by the darkness, disappearing from the sight of those still on the RIB. To let go of the rope in the darkness and gentle current of the Clyde here means that the divers would be drifted downstream of the wreck and miss it completely.

The descent takes a couple of minutes but seems to go on for a long time. The divers regularly check their dive computers which monitor their depth as they go down. The readout scrolls: Five metres down, 10 metres down, 15 metres, 20 metres.

The pulse quickens as the divers know they will be hitting the wreck soon. Finally, the powerful beam of the torch picks out a heavily corroded section of the wreck, the grapple has snagged close to the bow and the diver is able to reach out and touch the wreck. The divers cannot see each other, only the beam from each others' torches shredding the darkness from nowhere like a light sabre in a Star Wars movie, a welcome sign that someone else is there with you sharing the eerie experience.

The wreck sits on an even keel and is well settled into the silt. The divers move forward and the fo'csle rises up in their torch beams.

There, on the starboard side of the bow, is evidence of the force of the collision that sank her. A large gash has been cut in her side here by the bows of the Flos, so large a diver can swim through.

After the collision the captain of the Flos kept his engines ahead, keeping the two ships locked together in a deadly embrace and plugging the gap until such time as the crew of the Wallachia had safely abandoned ship.

He had then put his engines astern and as he did so, tons of water flooded through the tear in the Wallachia's side and she started to settle quickly.

Heading astern from the bow and passing over the two silt-filled foredeck holds the divers are soon confronted with a wall of corroded metal, the sheer rise of the front of the bridge superstructure, with its forward looking portholes and entry doors either side. The roof has rotted away completely allowing easy entry and exit. Immediately behind the bridge the divers pass by the captain's quarters.

Then, an ominous black hole appears in the deck, some six feet wide, all that remains of the funnel, its steel long ago rotted completely away.

Dropping down the funnel hole the divers arrive in the engine room, the engine itself still sitting on the centre line with catwalks along either side. Above, the distinctive sky lights of the engine room's pitched roof, the glass long gone allows easy exit.

Once outside the wreck again the divers fin further aft and then drop down to the main deck. Here they find Hold No 3 well filled with silt but passing beyond that they shine their torches into Hold No 4, the beer hold, and see an amazing sight. As far as the torch beam can carry in every direction are hundreds of beer bottles poking out of the silt.

There must be hundreds stacked up like this from the bottom of the hold, some 20 feet below.

The divers cannot linger too long here, however, as their dive computer readout indicates it is soon time to be heading back for the surface. Most divers will leave time to slowly fin back and find the grapple rope as a guide for the ascent in the darkness.

Others who have ended up well away from the line will carry out an ascent from where they ended their time on the wreck. Slowly they drift upwards, giving time for the dangerous nitrogen bubbles to safely dissolve out of their tissues.

Gradually as they ascend, the impenetrable darkness gives way to a greenness to the water above which in turn gives way to a lighter brown. At a depth of six metres the divers stop and just hang on the line for a minute or two to let any rogue bubbles out of their system before surfacing.

As their heads break the surface the RIB, like an attentive mother hen, comes over to begin the process ofgetting the divers out of the water.

Once in the safety of the RIB, all the heavy kit is taken off and with a perceptible feeling of relief the divers can finally relax and share their experiences of the majestic SS Wallachia and the darkest depths of the Clyde.

The SS Wallachia was built by Oswald Mordaunt & Sons, Southampton in 1883. Iron, single screw steamship, gross weight 1,724 tons. Length 259 feet, beam 36 feet, draught 18 feet Maximum depth: seabed 35 metres.

Least depth: 25-30 metres Underwater visibility: 1-5 metres Boat launch: Largs or Inverkip Marina (launch fee payable) Background reading: Dive Scotland's Greatest Wrecks, by Rod Macdonald, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh, 1993; Clyde Shipwrecks, Moir Crawford, Wemyss Bay, 1988.

Learn to dive:

British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC), BSAC, Telford's Quay, Ellesmere Port, South Wirral, Cheshire L65 4FY Telephone: 0151 350 6200. www.bsac.com Scottish Sub Aqua Club, (SSAC) The Cockburn Centre, 40 Bogmoor Place, Glasgow, G51 4TQ. www.ssac.demon.co.uk Professional Association of Diving Instructors, (PADI), www.padi.com

Copyright 1999
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