ROSS KEMP
SHIPWRECK TREASURE HUNTER TV favourite and award-winning documentary maker Ross Kemp is showcasing the fantastic wreck diving around our coastline with his new TV series, Ross Kemp: Shipwreck Treasure Hunter Photographs by A+E Networks UK and Sky History / Ed Taylor Honey Bee Media / Johnny McDevitt
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he four-part series, which is available on demand on Sky History, initially aired through the end of April/beginning of May, and sees Kemp dive on everything from the remains of slave ship Iona II, discovered off Plymouth, to the Kaiser’s sunken Imperial Fleet in Scapa Flow, and experimental submarine aircraft carrier M2, that sank with all passengers and crew during its sea trials. Through the four episodes he dives with advanced technical diver Emily Turton, skipper of MY Huskyan up in the Orkney Islands, and maritime archaeologist, commercial diver and technical diver Mallory Haas. Kemp was well placed to film the series, as he was already a diver – he did his Open Water Diver course in Cyprus back in the mid-1990s, and then he went diving on a holiday in the Maldives with his then-girlfriend. However, being left adrift on the surface for some six hours after the dhoni crew mis-counted the guests put him off the whole diving scene – until the opportunity arose for this series, which came about after a discussion revolving around the wreck of the Victory in the Maldives. However, he had no experience of diving in a drysuit or with a full-face mask.
My great-grandfather ‘Pop’ joined the Royal Navy during World War Two at a very young age, maybe 12 or 13 20
In preparation for Shipwreck Treasure Hunter, Kemp spent two months brushing up on his diving skills in the waters of Wraysbury and NDAC. He underwent various SDI training courses with Mark Powell, Director of Global Development for TDI, SDI and ERDI, to get a solid foundation of moreadvanced diving techniques, moving from his OW cert through Advanced and on to Rescue, and then took a demanding HSE Scuba course with Neil Brock at Bristol Channel Diving Ltd (Neil also served as the Dive Supervisor for the series). Talking about the HSE course, he said: “It was a bit like Reservoir Dogs turning up to a reservoir, all these serious-looking guys kitted up in all the gear. People were wondering ‘who are this lot, and how did they get privileged parking?’.” Kemp continued: “It was a seriously sharp learning curve. It is a tough course, and I can’t remember the last time I’d had to sit a fivehour exam! At one point, when I was knelt at 20m calling for scaffolding pole to be sent down on a rope to build a frame, I did question why on Earth I’d spent three years as a ‘luvvy’ drama student to end up building scaffolding underwater!” Filming Shipwreck Treasure Hunter proved a real eye-opener for Kemp, who commented: “I had no idea about British business interfering in the war of the Confederacy.
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