News

The first leg of the International Historical Exploratory Diving Expedition on the Kartesh, organised by the RuDIVE group, finished on 6 August. The leg took place in the Barents Sea, and was devoted to a search for an American World War II transport ship.

During the diving programme, we discovered and explored a sunken Liberty transport ship lying at a depth of 60 m roughly half a mile west of Kildin Island. As part of these explorations, we filmed the ship. We also practised Trimix diving in Dolgaya Bay and tested out using 'hunting-type' neoprene wetsuits as insulation under drysuits (more on this in the next report).
On 1 August at 5 a.m., the Kartesh left Teriberka (roughly 100 km east of Murmansk). We spent the first day of the expedition preparing equipment and doing training dives in Dolgaya Bay. Overnight, we sailed from Dolgaya Bay to Kildin Island. The expedition team set about searching for a sunken ship, using archive data and sea charts to identify the most likely location. At about 6:30 a.m., a signal very much like the outline of a sunken ship showed up on the echo sounder screen. The calm weather favoured the expedition, and the Kartesh passed over the assumed wreck several times in roughly half an hour.
At a depth of about 60 m, the echo sounder screen clearly displayed an object about 120 m long and 20 m wide rising 10-20 m above the bed. However, we had in the past discovered an underwater rock with a size and shape absolutely appropriate for the sunken ship we were looking for and located precisely where archive data suggested the ship ought to be. Therefore, despite the echo sounder image indicating something very similar in size and shape to a large transport ship, we were still not 100% confident that this time we had actually found what we were looking for –an American World War II steamer. After marking the site of the object with two buoys, we headed for Kildin Island, dropped anchor, and started preparing for the diving.
The objectives of the first dive were very simple: to dive to the object, make certain it was a ship (or not), to securely tie a drop line a sturdy part of the ship, to carry out an initial exploration of the ship in order to familiarise ourselves with it for planning future dives, to record what we saw on video, and to perform a safe ascent following the requisite decompression procedure. We chose the time of lowest water, according to the tide tables, for the diving.
The first dive was made by Mikhail Shchegolevsky, Vadim Shestachenko and Mikhail Safonov. The horizontal visibility was up to 20 m. The water temperature was steady –6-7 degrees throughout. From 20 m down, we clearly saw the top of a mast; when we reached it, it turned out to be at a depth of 36 m. This dispelled all our doubts once and for all: we had found a huge transport steamer! An enormous red king crab was sitting on top of the mast. From the top of the mast, the vast hull of the steel giant and the jaws of two cargo holds could be clearly seen.
Examination of the vessel showed it to be a Liberty ship (these steamers were the main carriers of the supplies delivered by the Allies in polar convoys to the Soviet Union in World War II), and our first dive was near a mast between the second and third (counting from the bow) cargo holds. On the first dive, we stayed close to the cargo holds, and discovered wheeled frames (which turned out to be railway engine frames) on the deck. We tied a drop line securely to the top of the mast, and began our ascent. The maximum depth was 50 m (at the main deck), the bottom time was 20 minutes, and the surfacing time was about 40 minutes. The bottom mix was air, the decompression mix Nitrox 60.
After this dive, we returned to Dolgaya Bay, where we spent two days practising Trimix dives. We then returned to the wreck and continued our investigations, making another two dives over two days. For these, Boris Shestopalov and Pavel Rudenko joined the divers. We went right round the ship, and had a brief look at what was in the holds.
The steamer's hull is very badly damaged in two places, so that it is in effect broken into three parts. These cracks run along the third and fourth holds, thus dividing the hull into three segments: bow, central (including the pilothouse) and stern. The bow lies on an even keel, while the central and stern sections lean strongly towards the starboard. There are three bow guns and a stern gun on their bases; we did not identify any more. This may be because we did not have enough time. The ship is deeply buried in the bottom mud.
Our quick and superficial examination of the holds revealed the following cargo: two assembled railway engines, railway engine frames with wheels, tractors, steel beams, and shell cases. We did not manage to find out the ship's name. The vessel is undoubtedly a Liberty ship built in America. All the structural details we noticed fully correspond to what we see in contemporary photographs of Liberty ships. After putting some initial details of our dives on an Internet forum on Kildin Island, we learned that we had most likely been exploring the Thomas Donaldson. This ship was torpedoed by a German submarine on 20 March 1945, and sank very close to the site of the wreck we had explored.
Unfortunately, a quick Internet search failed to throw up any contemporary photographs of the Thomas Donaldson, but we hope to obtain more detailed information on the ship's cargo, so that we can confirm its name. We found no signs that other divers had visited the steamer before us, and we have not found any records of any having done so. The whole expedition team would be grateful for any information on the ship's history, including information on any previous dives to it, the crew members, and any witnesses to its sinking and their recollections.
Next year, provisionally in July, we plan to continue our exploration of the ship, to study it in more detail, obtain quality photographs and video footage, and maybe find its name. (Steamers of this type usually have a brass nameplate on the outer wall of the cabin next to the entrance to the captain's quarters).

We would be glad to see new members join our expedition!