The Niagara
Posted By Pete Mesley on 28 November 2003
The NIAGARA was a 13,415 gross ton ship, length 165.5m x beam 20.2m, two funnels, two masts, triple screw, speed 17 knots. Accommodation for 290-1st, 223-2nd, and 191-3rd class passengers. Built by John Brown & Co, Glasgow, launched on 17th Aug.1912. On 19th Jun.1940 while on voyage Auckland to Vancouver, and off Bream Head, Whangerei, New Zealand, she struck a mine laid by the German Black Raider “ORION” and sank in 125 meters of water.
When planning an expedition and only having a window of a week to get out there and dive the wreck is always a bit of a gamble. The ever changing Kiwi weather always makes for a challenge when predicting a suitable time to execute a dive of this magnitude. Our objective this time was to simply learn a little more about the wreck and how intact she was.
This expedition was nice and small and intimate. There were only two bottom divers - Simon Mitchell and myself and three support team members.
Rex Tonks was the skipper of the “Mother Ship” and Master chef, Willie Heatley manned the 8m surface support RIB and Geoff Payne was our Support diver. A compact but highly efficient support team. Geoff and Willy led the support team on our initial Niagara expedition in 2001.
We sat round at Rex’s house a few hours south on the main land waiting like expectant mothers round the weather channel on the VHF. The forecast did not look rosy!!! The decision was made to sit tight and wait…… The Sunday morning greeted us with calm sunny conditions. Bugger! We could have been out there!! So all hands were on deck to get supplies sorted, gear ready and loaded. Later that day we were steaming out for the Hen & Chicken Islands ( the closest islands to the Niagara site) All we had to do now was wait! The waiting was made exceptionally manageable by being constantly fed by Rex. This guy is a machine in the kitchen! Who makes bread on a boat??? Rex does!!!! It wasn’t till Tuesday when things started to happen.A window of opportunity opened and we took it! It was all go.
The dive!
We sat just below the surface for a few minutes holding onto the shotline
just rechecking gear and getting ourselves nice and relaxed for the descent.
The signal was given and Simon and I made for the bottom. Both of us were
diving Closed circuit rebreathers. Simon had the Mk 15.5 and I had an
Inspiration. Doing such a dive on open circuit would be dramatically
restrictive and would mean that we would have to carry over 12000 litres of
gas on the dive. That’s a fair few cylinders to lugg around!
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