HMS Hermes 2007

[Richard Lundgren]

HMS Hermes - sunk south east of Trincomalee

Ocean Discovery and the Australian exploration group Dive Frontier, http://www.divefrontier.com.au, are in the process of preliminary planning for a major research and documentary project during April 2007. The target is the mighty British WWII aircraft carrier Hermes resting in crystal clear blue waters no deeper than 60m. This will be a official GUE Oceania project and several HD video teams will be used along with still photographers. To make things even wilder there is another target in this area – an undiscovered and thus undived Australian destroyer Vampire. We will try getting a hit on this wreck too.

Now, as things develops we may be able to secure spaces for a additional week of diving on this site. This week will not be a official project week hence open for anyone with the desire and experience to perform this kind of diving. The price tag is not finalized but it will not be the cheapest deal on the planet –the experience of diving the carrier will be lasting however:) . The final price tag will include everything except your personal flight. Helium etc will be available. Looks like we will sail from Singapore.

If you have a team or want to find mates to take part in this- don’t hesitate to indicate your interest and use this space to find out more. I will act as coordinator regarding these projects for the time being.

If you have more info regarding Hermes or even better if you have dived her, please share!

Take care
Richard Lundgren

20

More information can be fond here!
http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/3256.html

[Richard Lundgren]

Got some more info forwarded by a friend:

- A visit to the wreckage of aircraft carrier HMS Hermes by Felician Fernando

"The aircraft carrier HMS Hermes set sail from Trincomalee h arbour on 09/04/1942 on a mission. A Japanese invasion was impending. About 70 carrier borne Japanese bombers which had taken off from 3 Japanese carriers which had entered Bay of Bengal the week before attacked the Trincomalee harbour end other allied naval assets. The Japanese air fleet managed to sink this carrier and other destroyers during the attack. They also attacked the Trincomalee harbour and the oil tanks. The carrier sank within 10 minutes after being hit by the Japanese aircraft. From the complement of HMS Hermes 19 officers including the captain (R. J. Onslaw) of the ship and 278 ratings lost their lives. Two three days later heavily decomposed bodies were found floating. A hospital ship rescued survivors of the HMS Hermes. The photographer who managed to save his life visited the site along with his son on board a Sri Lankan naval vessel. The vessel midshipmen Capt. Edward Jayawardana had entered these details in his journal. Subsequently the son of the photographer wrote in a journal of the ill-fated carrier taking the notes his father made. He also revisited Sri Lanka along with his father’s ashes to dump it over the shipwreck to fulfill his father’s last wish. Incidentally Capt. Edward Jayawardana was again tasked to carry out this mission. These incidents are appended in the next edition of the journal of HMS Hermes.

I clarified the details obtained from the Internet regarding the positions from Capt. Edward Jayawardana. I was determined to visit this wreckage and made elaborate plans since this wreckage has a historic value. The mission was quite dangerous and life threatening as the wreckage was supposed to be lying at a depth of 60 meters according to the information. The PADI recreational dive planner limits its dives only up to 42 meters. The non-decompression limit is 9 minutes at this depth and any stay beyond that requires decompression stop starting at 9 - 12 meters. Depending on the length of stay.

The divers air consumption at this depth is normally very high due to high surrounding pressure which is about six times more than the surface. In my more than 2400 log dives, I had passed 40 meters about 45 times. Hence I was confident enough that I would not encounter any problems such as Nitrogen Narcosis, since during these dives I managed without any difficulties. Nitrogen Narcosis is the diver getting a feeling of intoxication, false safety, security and non responsiveness for buddy’s signals etc. due to the excess quantity of nitrogen in the blood stream.

On 14/04/02 my buddy and myself arrived at Batticaloa planning to dive next day. We managed to find a boat to transport us to the site. The boatmen were not familiar with the site since they haven’t fished in that area for many years. After a 45 minutes journey using the global positioning system we arrived at the approximate site. The echo sounder/ fish finder sounded a depth of 48 meters. I got the boatmen to shift the boat forward and backward and recorded the depth on both sides which was around 60 meters and laterally 48 meters. The position matched the details of Capt. Edward Jayawardana. We got the boatman to anchor, after determining that the boat was steady on anchor, we dropped the two additional tanks fitted with an extra primary and secondary air sources to a depth of 15 meters. Thereafter we got into our diving equipment carried out thorough functional checks and rolled over the boat to the deep sea. We directly swam to the anchor rope and started our descent.

Although the current was very strong we managed to descend along the anchor rope. My buddy was also an experienced PADI scuba diving instructor. We stopped at 15 meters to check the additional tanks and secured it to the anchor rope. After satisfying ourselves about the safety of the additional tanks we started descending from these additional tanks knowing the fact that they were our life saving equipment. After spending 20 minutes at a depth of 48 meters since we cannot arrive on the surface directly, as the excess nitrogen in our tissues would bring us to decompression sickness, which can be fatal. Upon descending up to 30 meters we could see the astonishing site of HMS Hermes which was my dream to explore lying in a majestic way. The environment had not caused any damages . The ship was very well intact. It had tilted portside to the ground.

There were large and tall gorgnia corals, giant seaferns all over the wreckage. These corals had grown uninterrupted over the past 60 years. There were large fish moving freely not caring about the two intruding divers. We saw fish like red snappers, larges Travelly (paraw) seer and Barrac We secured a rope to the anchor line and started moving along the wreckage of the ship. We observed an anti aircraft gun at the mid section. The corals were very fascinating. During my 2400 logged dives at places like Maldives, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and in local areas such as Negombo, down south , Trinco and in other places I had never sighted such beautifully grown Georgina corals. The fish like large Trivelly were not concerned about the divers presence. We were hovering at a depth of 48 meters without descending to the seabed.

The wreckage, which was in good shape, needs many more dives to explore fully. We managed only to explore 50m out of 195 meters. The ship had sunk tilting port side down. The depth to the starboard side was 48 meters and sand bottom/seabed is at a depth of 55 meters. After spending 20 minutes on the wreckage we started to ascend along the anchor rope. We stopped at the additional tanks and carried out decompression stops as required by our dive computers. The additional tanks were very handy since we had only about 70 bar left in our tanks when we reached the additional tanks.

It is pertinent to mention the 20-min spent at the wreckage was the most exciting and adventurous dive in my entire diving career. A dive to this wreck would be very interesting and an adventure for any experienced and nature loving diver. The surface current in this area is generally very strong, the water clear. Divers will have to be well prepared and physically fit and need to be well aware of technical diving.

In the whole world there are only two wreckage of aircraft carriers for recreational divers to see. This is certainly one of them and the other is supposed to be the USS Saratoga .

All other wreckages of aircraft carriers rest in unreachable depths for recreational divers. Upon developing the film role we understood that we should use very powerful strobes to get clear images.

The details of the ship is as follows. LOA 195 m Boa 22 m weight 10950 tons. Weapons 5.5 cannons. 4 anti aircraft guns and 12 aircrafts.

In the future if the situation of the country returns to normal, an adventure technical dive to this historic wreckage would certainly be a major tourist attraction. Now the exact waypoint is marked in my instruments and this will enable me to reach the site with pinpoint accuracy.

The Australain destroyer "Vampire" which lost nine men is yet to be found. The aircraft carriers used by the Japanese force for these battles are supposed to have used by them to attack the Pearl Harbour as well."

[Richard Lundgren]

We already have a British team of 3 experienced divers who have indicated interest in joining this awesome expedition. I think we need about 12 to reach critical mass.

Please drop a line "here" if you are interested. This gives every one a chance to watch the build up. These letters of intent is not binding so don’t worry.

Take care,
Richard Lundgren

[Gledders]

Interested Richard - although 2007 is yet to take shape for us.

Would be fun though - so keep the info rolling out :)

[Charlotta Carlén]

We already have a British team of 3 experienced divers who have indicated interest in joining this awesome expedition. I think we need about 12 to reach critical mass.

Please drop a line "here" if you are interested. This gives every one a chance to watch the build up. These letters of intent is not binding so don’t worry.

Take care,
Richard Lundgren

I assume you have already counted me and Per in. Or who are you else going to dive with? ;) Hehehe...
Btw I'm very happy for the advance planning.

[Richard Lundgren]

I assume you have already counted me and Per in. Or who are you else going to dive with? ;) Hehehe...
Btw I'm very happy for the advance planning.

Your on for the first week, cant go without my video crew, model/exploration diver and body guards:)

Richard

[Matthew White]

G`day Richard,
There are some local freinds around Manly that would be very interested in joining the expedition,me included.
I have herd Asiatek have been doing some diving around the wrecks in that area and have a quality setup for travellers in ports of Sri Lanka.

Regards
Matthew

[Dawn]

Definite interest here (especially to see my new cave buddies are up for it ;) ), along with two other potentially interested & experienced divers...I have no idea where in the world I will be (literally) at project time, but keep me in mind for sure and if we can work it, it would be an awesome experience!

Thanks for the heads-up!
D

[Andrew Cronan]

Hey Richard,

We are looking forward to the trip!

Big seas so todays dive was cancelled so Gareth, Stu and I took the scooters and Camera out for some training today - The camera mounts well on the scooter and doesn't run that hot...

Cheers

Andrew Cronan

[Richard Lundgren]

Hey Richard,

We are looking forward to the trip!

Big seas so todays dive was canceled so Gareth, Stu and I took the scooters and Camera out for some training today - The camera mounts well on the scooter and doesn't run that hot...

Cheers

Andrew Cronan

Hi brother!

Awesome to have you here. If you all didn't get into the water the sea must have indeed been big. What kind of mount did you end up using for the scooter? If you have a picture pls post it;) . I need to fix my own right now so any ideas are welcome.

Also if you have some HD video or pictures:p

The Hermes project looks good and interested parties keep on indicating their interest. Its going to be wicked :eek:

Take care,
Richard Lundgren

[Andrew Cronan]

Richard

I just started a thread in photography about the camera mount - works fine but the sooter got a little hotter than usual.

Greatr work on the site and forums.

Cheers
Andrew

[Didrik Venge]

Hi.

We are glad to tell u that we are joining the "expedition". :D

We are, Didrik Venge from Bergen, Norway and Harlad Chr Stene from Ålesund Norway.


Please visit Harald's hompage to see what we do.

www.northseaexplorers.no (http://www.northseaexplorers.no)

Best

Didrik Venge

(*URL edited by admin - the original was misspelled)

[Richard Lundgren]

Present status for the second week of Hermes exploration

By the looks of things we have about 10 divers who have expressed serious interest in this project. That means that we are getting close to the magic number (12). As this number is reached I will contact you all and a closed area will be created here for "Hermes exploration group" members. This enables the group members to start planning for a successful project week!

Keep on expressing interest!

Take care,
Richard Lundgren

[Martin Quensel]

I am interested but not at this time.
I will not have the skills to qualify me for this in time.

Anyway, you might want to know some more about Hermes, so i dug out some info for all of you in this thread.

http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/ships/Hermes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hermes_%2895%29

[Richard Lundgren]

Thanks for the links Martin! Hold on to that interest, we will do more trips to the Hermes and other hot areas

[TonyC]

We: Tony Claesson and Arne Sletteng from bergen,norway would like to join this expedition:)

Take care,
Tony Claesson

[Richard Lundgren]

Status update!

Looks like we have reached 12 divers. It took only 3 days, that’s nothing short but amazing. I have sent a message to all who have shown interest and soon we will create a special Hermes project planning area here on the forum. This forum will be only for you and will be locked so that you can receive more information and plan your project in total privacy.

This doest prohibit others to keep indicating interest in joining this project. We might be able to extend this project further if needed

[Richard Lundgren]

Two more have expressed interest. Two Swedish biologists and videographers. Keep on letting me know if you are interested!

Richard

[Matthew White]

96% commitment here.
Just about to receive answer if any other`s over here can make the April set date.

[Richard Lundgren]

Hermes update

As some you might know the Tigers (terrorists or rebels depending on your political preference) are on the warpath in this region. We are watching the situation carefully weekly and have local contacts that help us with this.

We are also waiting for a report regarding a previous survey around the supposed area in witch the Vampire went down. More updates will come as information streams in.

[Jocke Tenglin]

Also interrested! Sounds like you need some navy experience with those tigers ;)

[grhm]

Watching this project with interest - my father was assigned to Hermes shortly before it was sunk, but fortunately was ashore with malaria during the attack. Looking forward to seeing some photos of the wreck. Best of luck!

[Ordnung]

Although i might not be diving so often with the dive frontier boys in 2007... little hard getting to the 7am pick ups from Germany ... i'm keen to join them and the rest of team for the Hermes trip. What's the current status?

Also Richard, still need to hear from you about Sweden etc in Septemeber.

Cheers

[Matthew White]

Richard,
Apologie`s for the hold up with confirmation,other commitment`s during the most of 2007 have me unable to join the project.
Will remain in pratice around the local site`s for future exploration and will begin looking forward to late 07 for positions available.

Best of interest and amity.

Matthew W.

[Mats Jensen-Urstad]

Hello Richard

I am interested in joining. What are the preliminary dates?

Mats Jensen-Urstad

[Richard Lundgren]

Hello Richard

I am interested in joining. What are the preliminary dates?

Mats Jensen-Urstad

Hi Mats!

Great that you want to join! This will be the project of the decade. Dates have not been set yet but April 2007 will be our window of opportunity. Is Björn coming as well?

Richard

[michael1962]

I just came off the Empress. We were scheduled to dive the Hermes but because of the Rebel activity we were not allowed in the area. Good thing as we were told that many boats that are operating in that area have been shot at. Vita, the skipper of the Empress thinks it will be years before things cool down enough to get in there. We ended up diving the Repulse and Prince Wales. The Repulse is a dive of a life time. Might be a good alternitive if the Hermes trip doesn't go. However if it looks like it will be a go. I am in.

Thanks

[Richard Lundgren]

Hi,

We are following/monitoring the situation closely and have on-site individuals estimating the political development and sends us weekly up-dates. Still - we have to plan a head and be prepared and ready if we get the go signal.

Our main goal is Hermes and we rather wait than change target :) .

To be clear and dispel any confusion;
If we plan for the Wales and the Repulse this will be a separate project and advertised as such. To many past trips have been advertised targeting Hermes but ending up else were - this is not our intention.

[Ali Fikree]

Hi Richard,

I am intrested for sure. I have booked to do cave training next year but I can hold that till the expediton. Do you have any dates?

In terms of security, I can try to arrange some private security but it might cost in the region of $US1000. I can get more updates on the political situation within a few days.:cool:

Ali

[michael1962]

In that case please book me in. I can be ready with 60 days notice.

[Richard Lundgren]

We are pleased that many kind and knowledgeable people out there around the globe continues to provide and help us with information regarding the Hermes project.

The following information comes from mr
Peter Balalas. Thank you for your dedication and effort!

Here is an image of the Hermes ? Vampire area with depth contours.

180

Notice the deep trench near the Hermes running almost to the shore. The previous expedition believes the Vampire may have sunk there. They had a look on the northern and southern side of the trench with a mag but no sidescan.

Still working on the research. I have a copy of the film taken by the Japanese as they sunk the Hermes and the Vampire, which is blurry, but might have a few more clues.

Regards
Peter Balalas

[Matthew White]

I feel some possible confusion of it`s were abouts or if it the "link" http://www.nachohat.org/p/sydney_oct2001/hmas_vampire/ is a recomissioned vessel.
I recall the "Vampire" because my Father was shipped during the Vietnam war on it and was used for similar duty`s around the same waters.

[James Mclennan]

hiya richard,
I'd like to join up i'm in sydney so only a few hours away when the dates are set.
hope to see you soon
regards james

[Matthew White]

After a bit of a hunt around for more information,i have discovered that the Hermes and other Carrier`s were useing the Sea Vampire planes for some menouver`s around the war....http://www.ocean-discovery.org/forum/images/icons/icon3.gif.

[ColdFusion_GT]

Hi Richard, I'm from Singapore and this sounds interesting and yes, i guess you do need to leave from Singapore. It is best to book MV Empress as Empress is definitely the boat you would want to dive on. Fully tech diving inclined.

The skipper Vidar, has the most cordinates for fantastic wrecks here at S.E.A.

[ColdFusion_GT]

I think HMS Hermes is somewhere in the war zone at Sri Lanka. I am not sure if there will be any boats who dares to go there. If you're lucky, you might meet a few Tamil Tigers. These are the terrorist of Sri Lanka, do beware.

[Sean P]

I am very intersted in this dive and being tech certified I would like to do this dive if there is a trip to sri lanka,if not can some one give me the location as I plan to do some diving in the area


Thanks:)

[DiveSriLanka]

Hi future Hermes Divers,

I have dived the H.M.S Hermes three times and its a unforgetable experience. See details and pictures @ www.DiveSriLanka.com (http://www.DiveSriLanka.com) .
Felician and I were planning a dive on the 21st - 23rd of July with two other friends. Unfortunately the situation in the East Coast of Sri Lanka is still unstable and we really haven't made up our minds about going yet.

Sri Lanka has some other historic dive locations (Basses) and wrecks (H.M.S Conch, Earl of Shaftsbury, Rangoon, Admirality Floating Dock 23, etc..etc..)

If you are diving in Sri Lanka I will be happy provide any information you need although the above site should answer most of your questions.

Thanks & regards
Dharshana

[Takis]

Hi Richard,
New to the site. Great source for info !!

I am tech 1 qualified and waiting to do tech 2 in December in Melbourne.
I am a mixed gas diver and I dive with a group here in Melbourne that is invoved in finding lost wrecks in our waters .The recent ones we found lay in 80 meters of water. In doing so parts of our maritime History can be filled in. We operate closely with the Maritime Archaelogical Society here in Victoria and we try to protect as much as possible those wrecks.

I would like to be part of this expedition if there would be any room left.
As I can not offer any help in regards to video or photography is there any other parts that may be helpfull fo the expedition that i can contribute with? I do have a Gavin scooter with a short and standart body if this is any help.

Cheers
Takis

[HenryInFrance]

Hi from Melbourne, Australia (I live in France too hence my log on name).

I'm watching SHIPWRECK DETECTIVES: VANISHING SHIPS OF WAR on television. Very interesting.