Sinking the HMAS Canberra. Melbourne Australia.

When I was a child I can always remember the trip we took as a family down to Portsmouth and varied other seaside resorts, and being totally blown away at seeing all the Royal Navy ships tied up alongside docks looking rather dejected and sad. These were some of the great hero’s that I had read about in books seeing off the dreaded Hun and blasting their U boat fleet into the sea bed. But it was with almost disbelief that when asking the question what happens to the old ships, I was told they were either sold to obscure countries or broken up and made into razor blades. Well things have changed, some years ago a new metal called Titanium became the rage which was hugely expensive, but as the years creep by the price tumbled and now it has become so common we now have razor blades made of this revolutionary metal.

So we are now left with huge sea going monsters that to be honest cost more to de-commission than they did to build, so the idea of sinking these giants and making them into reefs that can be accessed to divers became an idea.

Most people would imagine this to be a new idea but artificial reefs go way back, maybe not in ships but reefs were built to capture enemy shipping or even fish. Dumping stuff in the sea is not a new idea but to utilise old shipping for diver training and pleasure scuba diving is one of the better ideas today.

The ship sinking idea started with a smaller vessel privately owned called the Glen Strathallen. She was used during WWII by the Royal Navy and then handed back to the owner who upon his death in April 1970, was sunk in accordance of his wishes to become an underwater training facility for divers training at Port Bovisand. The Glen Strathallen currently sits in 15m of water south of Plymouth breakwater UK.

Since then hardly a year has passed without a ship in many varied countries being sunk for the benefit of divers training and pleasure.

I particularly like the quote from another contributor to the site who when asked about sinking ships for divers in the UK came back with the reply “We don’t need to sink ships for diving as the seabed is littered with wrecks from WW1 and WW2 thanks to old Jerry.”

But of course most of us are not that lucky, so I read with great interest that hopefully in February HMAS Canberra FFG-02 is going to be sunk outside of Melbourne in Port Philip Bay.

She is an ex Guided Missile Frigate, built in Seattle USA, launched 1st December 1978 and decommissioned in November 2005. Displacement 3600 tons and is 445ft long by 45ft wide.
Getting a ship of this size ready for sinking is not a matter of opening the bilge cocks and waiting for the ship to fill and that’s a done job. A tremendous amount of forward planning has to go into placement and getting the ship ready for divers.

The whole process is estimated to take six months which will include removing 25,000kms of wiring, removing any oils, flooring and lead ballast.

Access points will be cut throughout the vessel so that divers wont get trapped and also to weld up unsafe areas. Several expert advisor's have assisted in making the ship “diver safe”.
Like the HMAS Brisbane that was sunk off Mudjimba, Sunshine Coast, Queensland the HMAS Canberra will have 200 tons of concrete poured into her and with the help of around 40 explosive charges she will settle very quickly.

I have dived the HMAS Brisbane on a couple of occasions and its getting better as the years pass, and considering that it was sunk in July 2005 it has masses of fish life attracted to the inner areas as well as outside.

The beauty of these types of wrecks is the accessibility for all, with speciality dives being part of the trip. It’s a great way for the beginner to come to terms with boat diving, wreck diving. Most important take your camera, nothing beats that spooky feeling when seeing the wreck for the first time. Most important always get some training about penetrating wrecks as even the safest and well planned wrecks can sometimes have a bad spot that was not picked up when above the water.

The sinking of the HMAS Canberra will be in an area alongside many other wrecks dating back as far as the 1700s. Including a fleet of WW1 J class submarines so although not to be seen again above water the Canberra will be amongst illustrious company and great for the diving fraternity.

I will keep you up dated as to the date of the sinking and I am hoping my editor in chief will even manage to get me down there for the actual sinking but as diving instructors are always telling you, ‘do not hold your breath’.