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Dive Report: 5/02/98

The S.S. Tasman - Hippolyte Rocks - Tasmania

GPS - 43 07 455 - 148 02 146

CC - Heliox 10 Diluent - 70m for 10min bottom time.

Diver - Scott Leimroth

The expedition team consisting of myself, Barry Hallett, Dave Apperly, John Riley, Mark Spencer, Mervyn Maher and Peter Fields were successfull in locating the wreck of the S.S. Tasman. The Tasman was an iron screw steamer 210ft long , 27ft wide and 19ft deep, regarded as a luxury ship in the early 1880's with accomodation for 100, it sank in the Tasman Sea off the Tasman Peninsula on the 30th November 1883.

The others in the team had spent the previous day searching with the magnetometer but had not had readings of sufficient strength to warrant diving. I had arrived the previous afternoon and today we set up the mag but after a few minutes it was clear that it was not working properly, mostly a problem with the batteries. It was decided to drop anchor at one of the likely spots they had surveyed previously and for two divers to descend and do a search of the area. Barry Hallett and Merv Maher geared up and entered the water. After surfacing just over an hour later they reported that the anchor was, to everyones surprise, right on the wreck. After much congratulations all round we geared up for our dive.

The Dive

I carried an 88cft cylinder of air for inflation and bailout and an 88 with 50bar of O2, I had a small pony bottle with 50bar of Heliox 10 as diluent. I should have had more diluent but the other divers had used all the Helium before I arrived and to get even 50 bar we ended up having to attach the G size helium cylinder to the intake of the compressor via a platic bag and scavenge every last drop of gas from it.

I entered the water and had to be pulled to the anchor at the bow with a line as the current was very strong. We descended the anchor line which had an excess of rope out making the descent about 5 mins of hard hand over hand work all the way down. Once I reached the bottom I was breathing heavily because of the work and decided to flush through with diluent incase the scrubber was not yet up to speed. I did this and then began to look around the wreck. There were a few portholes and in some sections plates and bottles and ships fittings. The most striking feature is the huge engine and boilers which are high on the reef. The whole wreck is on flat reef. After a few minutes I needed to clear my mask and my breathing was still heavy. I cleared my mask but when I went to add diluent none came out! I was left with a severly deflated loop and in need of gas so I quickly unplugged my drysuit and connected the air to the bag.

As the END of air at this depth with a setpoint of 1 was about 80m and the fact I had no tables for decompressing with air as a bottom gas I decided I would have to abort the dive. The narcosis didn't hit me until I had descended a bit, probably because there was still some helium in the loop untill I had had to exhale on ascent. I ascended slowly and did about 5 mins deco after flushing through with O2 at 6m. Not optimal probably but I figured I hadn't spent that long at the bottom anyway as most of the dive time had been taken in the descent.

Even though the dive was very short I was excited to have dived a virgin wreck. My mistake was in not carrying sufficient diluent and I probably should have used heliair to increase this but had opted for heliox to reduce all narcosis. Unfortunately the next two days of diving were called off due to the weather, although the conditions were not what we would normally consider unfavourable by Sydney standards.

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