TECH: England

beyond technical

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Curse of the

Having reached the stern section of the

wreckage, I knew it was here that champagne bottles could possibly be found, apparently still with their wire and lead sealed numbers stamped and again, clearly visible. During the early exploration dives, when this wreck was first discovered, quantities of fine examples of perfectly preserved pottery were recovered which, from time to time, still come to light as the sea uncovers them each season. This summer was no different, and friends alike were discovering, inspecting and photographing numerous artefacts that were now visible from the shifting sands of the winter past.

As I watched other divers approaching the stern, I could see from their lights that the wreck had begun to peter out slightly as well as becoming more significantly damaged and lying flat to the contours of the seabed. With the wreck broken, it was obvious that it was here that salvage operations over the years had concentrated their efforts in the search for wealth that was said to be stowed in the stern. Wealth belonging to emigrants aboard who were destined for a new life on the other side of the world. Being the busiest waterway in the world, it was inevitable that occasionally there were collisions in the English Channel, and that marine disaster ensued.

This wreck, the Avalanche, lost in 1877 with great loss of life and bound for New Zealand, is one example still explored by deep divers today. Like many sailing vessels sunk in the area, and combined with her story of tragedy, the Avalanche makes for an excellent dive, not only to the wreck itself, but also back into history. Wreck diving really allows you to submerge yourself quite literally into the history of the wreck. Each wreck has a story to tell and sometimes it can be a very tragic one. Most divers feel an incredible sense of awe and respect when they dive wrecks.

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This framework structure is thought to have housed winching machinery on the vessel’s stern

The wreck of the Avalanche has been on the seabed of the English Channel for over 145 years, possibly doomed as a result of an old mariner’s curse! Although broken, it’s a wreck that still provides the visiting diver with not only an excellent dive, but a step into history, when the famous elegant clipper ships once ruled the oceans, as Leigh Bishop explains

Photographs by Ryan King and Leigh Bishop

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Avalanche was a smart-looking iron ship of 1,210 gross tons built in 1874. Her fine lines and neatness aloft bore the impeccable stamp of the famous clipper ship, and she made good runs across the New Zealand emigration trade routes. After completing successful voyages to Wellington, she came to grief when starting outbound again in 1877 from London with 60 passengers. Colliding in the English Channel with another ship named Forest, she went down in just three minutes, a total loss of 99 souls – only three of the crew being saved.

An ocean race

On the same day in March 1877, three ocean-going clipper ships left their respective New Zealand ports bound for London, the Avalanche and the Ocean Mail leaving from Wellington and the Crusader from Lyttelton. Avalanche and the Ocean Mail were soon becalmed for a day off the Chatham Islands, and Ocean Mail’s Captain, with several crewmen, took the opportunity to pay a visit to the Avalanche. A number of fine albatrosses had been sailing about the ships, and several were shot for their skins, which were presented to the ladies on the Avalanche.

The word ‘albatross’ is sometimes used metaphorically to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse. In Samual Taylor Coleridge’s famous 1789 poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, an albatross starts to follow a ship, which was generally considered a sign of good luck. However, the titular mariner shoots the albatross with a crossbow, which is regarded as an act that will then curse the ship. As indeed the ship suffers terrible mishaps - even

A diver lights up a unique bottle discovered amongst the wreckage This diver displays a large serving dish found laying under an amidships section of wreckage

when they are too thirsty to speak, the ship’s crew let the mariner know through their glances that they blame his action for the curse. The albatross is hung around the mariner’s neck by the crew to symbolize his guilt in killing the bird. Thus, the albatross can be both an omen of good or bad luck, as well as a metaphor for a burden to be carried as penance.

The sailors aboard the Avalanche now predicted bad luck from killing these birds. As the race to England got underway, the Avalanche crew never saw the Ocean Mail again and only sighted the Crusader as they rounded Cape Horn. For weeks Avalanche sailed in heavy squalls that smashed the wheel and almost blew her sails to ribbons. Heavy weather and headwinds held them up all the way to the English Channel. When the pilot boarded their ship, he informed them the Crusader had passed up the Channel several days ahead of them. The Avalanche arrived in London on 2 June 1877, a passage of 78 days. It was later discovered the Ocean Mail had gone ashore the day after the albatross shootings and was totally wrecked off the Chathams!

The collision in the Channel

It was on her return trip to Wellington, leaving 10 September 1877, that early in passage through the English Channel, like Ocean Mail, Avalanche would end up on the seabed. With heavy winds and mountainous high seas running about 12 miles off Portland, the Forest and Avalanche collided. The

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Diver Jeff Goodreau inspects the seabed to the hull side of the wreck for exposed artefacts

A rare photo of the ship’s anchor being brought into Weymouth during the 1980s

© Graham Knott collection

only survivors from the Avalanche were three men who had managed to leap onto the forecastle of the Forest when the two ships struck. While Avalanche sank almost immediately, the Forest sank sometime later, but not before three lifeboats were launched. The weather to which those frail boats were exposed throughout the night was fearful, the wind and sea being so rough that by morning only one was still afloat off Chesil Beach. Just 12 men remained of the passengers and crew from both ships, numbering over 180 persons dead! In memory of those who died in the disaster, a church consecrated to St Andrew was built on Portland by public subscription in 1879 and named ‘The Avalanche Church’.

Discovery

The wreck was discovered in 1983 by members of the Trent Valley branch of the British Sub Aqua Club and quickly identified by the distinct pottery bearing the Shaw Savill name. Many of the items recovered can be seen today at Weymouth’s Museum located on Brewer’s Quay. At the time sport dives to depths of around 50m were relatively uncommon and maximum bottom times ran to just 15 minutes! What is interesting is that those Avalanche divers of the early 1980s were the first recorded divers that we

Each year brings new finds and plenty are silver cutlery like this spoon found amidships

A distance of five to six metres aft of the bow, the wreck seems further damaged, particularly over to the port side, but despite this, her ship design is still obvious and inquisitively interesting

know of to use what is known today and sold in every dive store as a DSMB (delayed surface marker buoy).

Fifteen miles offshore was quite a distance in those days, and the dive boats used to motor out to the wreck with the tide behind them and it was often the case that the wreck was dived with a degree of tide running to give them a clearer visibility dive. It meant that decompression was undertaken under a free-floating maker, normally in the form of a lift bag, but to avoid it being mistaken for a bag of artefacts lifted from the wreck and thus being pulled from the water, each diver clearly marked their name on their bags to indicate they were decompressing below.

The divers had experimented with all manner of variations and methods to overcome drift decompression at sea, even line stuffed inside Coca Cola bottles that could be deployed as and when!

Three years after the Avalanche was discovered, a decision was made to recover the ship’s main anchor. The Avalanche church society began fundraising to help

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Much of the main structure is still there to see today and although broken still remains interesting

financially with the recovery project, which would be undertaken by known British shipwreck hunter Martin Woodward. Woodward’s company, Stoney Cove Marine Trials Ltd, provided the thermal lance underwater cutting equipment, and on 14 July 1986, he cut through the heavy-duty chain freeing the anchor. Although a short dive of just 15 minutes, it was still advanced for its time, with the divers using US Navy tables for decompression. Video footage shot shows a gloomy seabed with a bright orange glow as the men cut their way through –– a hair-raising dive, apparently succeeding only just in time! Once on the surface, the anchor was hoisted aboard the trawler Lia-G, skippered by Timmy Thomas, and taken into Weymouth, where it was lifted ashore with a large crane parked on Wreck today the quayside. The anchor now rests outside the Avalanche Today visiting divers will find the wreck lies upright with memorial church. Sadly, Lia-G herself, during February of a 20° list to port over a silt and shingle pack seabed at a 1993, would succumb to the depths of the English Channel depth of 52m. Despite over 145 years on the seabed, the and sink off Cornwall also with loss of life. The last known wreck can be found standing up as high as four metres, with commercial salvage operation on the Avalanche in search of the highest point being the area of her bows. The bow rests that speculated emigrant wealth was made during the early more over to her starboard side, although like the rest of 1990s, although apparently nothing but boxes of tobacco the wreckage appears very broken. A distance of five to six and matchsticks were found. metres aft of the bow, the wreck seems further damaged, particularly over to the port side, but despite this, her ship The only survivors from the design is still obvious and inquisitively interesting. The diver will note two obvious four-metre square holds central to her

Avalanche were three men who had managed to leap onto the deck clearly distinguishable by their combing. Both hatches appear filled with barrel objects and covered with silt, as are sections of the under-decking framework, the decking of forecastle of the Forest when the two ships struck which has long since rotted away. Notable amidships is the remaining four metres of mast stump, while her stern mast is over to starboard at seabed level.

Smoking pipes recovered from the wreck site in 2018

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Mystery shipwreck

The wreck of the Forest herself for many years had posed a mystery to divers and researchers in more ways than one. Like Avalanche, she had also met her fate after the collision, capsizing soon after being abandoned and seen the next day floating bottom upwards a few miles off Portland. We have always known that the Avalanche was in collision with a ship named Forest, although historic documentation throughout various reports refers to the ship as one of three different names, Forest, Forest Queen and the Forest of Windsor. Some records even suggest she was a Canadian vessel while others claimed American. Survivors’ accounts constantly refer to the ship as the Forest Queen and one would think a survivor would know the name of the vessel they were saved from, yet an official enquiry into the disaster at Portland only refers to the ship simply as the Forest.

If the Forest had confused the researchers, so too had she the divers. In 1996, another wreck was discovered, a short distance from the Avalanche. Thought to be that of the Forest, and so called for many years. Matching the description of a sailing vessel of that vintage, the wreck continued to puzzle wreck researchers for years, however, refused to provide a positive identification. It was not until local dive boat skipper, and old Avalanche diver, Graham Knott - who had found the mystery wreck - discovered information hidden deep in the archives regarding the true fate of the ship that had collided with the Avalanche.

Graham discovered that HMS Defence, along with the Trinity yacht Galatea, had towed the wreck of the twodecker ‘Forest’ into Portland late that September, 1877. Particularly poignant and not devoid of humour are reports of how the hull of the Forest refused to sink and became a danger to shipping even 12 days later, when the Royal Navy tried in vain to sink her! The Navy’s original objective was to sink the Forest as the upturned hull was a danger to other shipping. The intervention of a newly developed weapon called a torpedo was used in several attempts, but failed to sink the doomed ship.

Graham discovered the wreckage was towed into the Portland marina but that it was also eventually scrapped! It was then he realised that the other shipwreck he had found close to the Avalanche, which we had always called the ‘Forest’, must bear a completely different name. Over the coming decades, a generation of divers would make way for another as each tried to identify the mystery shipwreck. As clue after clue came to light but faded any significant hope, again it would be down to the man who first found the wreck that would solve the mystery. That shipwreck became much more than the Forest, everything we had ever wished her to be - and more! All will be revealed as I pick up the story of the mystery shipwreck in the next issue of Scuba Diver. As for both the Avalanche and the Ocean Mail, maybe the shooting of the albatrosses and the famous ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ really did curse both ships. Maybe, just maybe, the fate of both vessels and all of their crew had been written that day in March 1877 off the Chatham Islands? I joined Skin Deep Diving for my Avalanche adventures. Why not delve back into history and dive the wreck yourself aboard any one of the Weymouth or Portland dive charters that venture out to the site each summer? n

The author (far right) and the divers he explored the Avalanche with

Technical diver Mike Barnette had travelled from Florida to explore the Avalanche